On the Subject of Far Cry 2

Krista Allen

Yay, it's out. Unfortunately Ubisoft are one of those idiot companies who won't let you preload games on Steam, so it wasn't until I returned from the Front that I was able to even start downloading, let alone playing. Still, it's only 3 gigs, which didn't take too long.

Once downloaded and installed, things didn't get off to a great start, unfortunately. It doesn't seem to be FC2's fault so much as Vista x64's fault for being a fucking pile of shit. I'm not the only one who got the "black window" which requires a seemingly random combination of turning off Aero, fiddling with compatibility mode settings and rolling back to previous nvidia drivers to solve. Fuck's sake, I expect it would have worked fine on XP. Even when I could finally run the game full-screen and see things happening, if I turn on DX10 mode (and restart) even the splash videos play at about 1fps. Well, that's just wonderful. Remind me, what is the point of Vista if you can't use DX10?

So I give up and start playing in DX9 mode and it seems ok. I didn't expect the graphics to be Crysis-quality, and they're not, but they do the job and it looks pretty smart even if everything is a shade of brown. There's a satisfying feeling of scale and space which is refreshing compared with corridor shooters like CoD4.

After the fairly long intro sequence of being driven to a hotel and run through the basics of moving and shooting... I had a CTD. Nice. Which meant I had to sit through the intro again. Second time round I saved, just in case, but in the end it didn't crash. Well, not until later. In the meantime there was more introductory "here's how you fix a car, here's how you use a map and answer your phone" hand-holding. A couple of basic enemy encounters to get you in the mood, before moving on to the more RPG-style elements, mostly to do with buying guns. Reminded me a bit of Strike Commander, that bit. But then it crashed again and I had some more good news to hand out on the front line, so that's where I had to leave it for the day.

So it's been a mixed bag so far. It looks like it has potential, and hopefully Ubisoft/Microsoft/nvidia will knock out some patches in the near future to iron out the various bugs. Frequent crashes tend to put a dampener on the fun-factor, I find.

I'm not even going to comment on the wide screen drama that is beginning to erupt. Other than to say yes, FC2 implements the wide screen mode just like pre-patch Bioshock did, no there isn't a field of view adjustment option and no, there's no such thing as the "wrong" way to do it so shut the fuck up, morons.

On the Subject of Limited Editions

Krista Allen

I have to admit I'm a sucker for a Limited Edition. The promise of extra, exclusive shiny things is too much for me to resist, even if it's stuff I'll ultimately never end up using like a "making of" dvd.
On the other hand, the quality of "limited" or "special" editions can be highly variable. My copy of the Crysis special edition arrived yesterday and frankly it's piss-poor. Just a normal fat dvd case, with a half-arsed art book that I initially mistook for the game manual and three discs, including what looks like a copy of the sound track. Although I generally like soundtrack albums so at least it wasn't a total write-off.


Compare that with the Tabula Rasa collector's edition. Now, Richard Garriot comes from a golden age of PC game packaging in the 80's when game boxes routinely contained all manner of promotional junk (often in attempt to disguise the crappy game quality). Garriot's own Ultima games were notorious for their extravagant presentation so I was looking forward to the TR edition and wasn't disappointed. From the cover letter to the intricate construction of the box, from the id card with the serial number to the dog tags, it feels like they've put a lot of love into the design and makes you want to be a part of the game.


Bioshock didn't offer much in it's LE and doesn't come close to TR's presentation, but the miniature Big Daddy model alone makes up for the lack of quantity.


Guild Wars has also offered some excellent LE boxes. As a fan of Jeremy Soule's soundtrack work they're worth the extra cost for the additional soundtrack album alone, and the substantial artwork books are always worth a second look (not to mention the in-game mini pets can be worth serious virtual money if you choose to sell them).



The Witcher offers a similar LE experience to Guild Wars. Slightly sparse, but at least it's in a nice big box and basically well-presented.


And bonus points for including a porn mag (not really, but the art book is great).


Neverwinter Nights 2 was a let-down. A cloth map, a couple of cheapo rings and a half-hearted attempt at an interesting box.


Vanguard offered a nice big box, but not much else. Pretty much like the game itself, in fact.



So Crysis get's a lowly 2/10 for it's Special Edition box set. Still to come is the Unreal Tournament 3 special edition which comes in a tin box or something, although it sounds like that might be overshadowed by all the extra stuff Gamestop are adding to preorders.

Update: Apparently the Crysis SE comes in a proper tin case in other parts of the world, but not in the US or Canada for some reason. Still, that wouldn't be enough to make up for the sad lack of content.