Far Cry 2

[Harrison]

I've just started playing Far Cry 2 and so far I'm really enjoying it.

I loved the original game, with my favourite parts being the jungle areas and especially the islands section with you hoping between the small islands in a gun boat, then sneaking around killing everyone. That was great.

So far in this sequel it has a very similar feel to the jungle parts from the original. You get to sneak around in the undergrowth, scoping out camp sites and building complexes, then moving in and taking them out.

It introduces some adventure/RPG elements this time to expand the game and make it feel more like a living environment. Early on your find your first safe house where you can bunk down to recover and to restock ammo and arms. You can also visit the local towns to buy supplies and meet contacts for missions and such. You also encounter leaders who give you missions and pay you for your success. In a way it feels like the game Boiling Point - Road to Hell should have been.

If you liked the first I think you will like this.

Only word of warning is to check your system spec. The game is quite system intensive. It will run with a GeForce 6800 but you are going to need to drop the quality right down and the resolution too. On my 7800GT I've had to drop it to 800x600 to run it smoothly with high settings, or 1024x768 on medium settings. If I stick the quality settings any higher the framerate drops to single figures.

If you have an older card and want to run it in higher resolutions then dropping the quality settings to low will allow this, but the game ends up looking slightly worse then the original. Move the settings up to medium and it looks better than the original. And on high and above it starts to looks very nice.

Time to consider a new graphics card I think!

This is a little strange though because in my view it doesn't look as good on high settings as Crysis. However I can run Crysis at 1280x1024 in high settings with my system and it runs well. Same for Assassin's Creed and many others. Must be the sheer number of plants, trees, vegetation and other objects in the scenes at higher settings.

[Demon Cleaner]

I'm not getting it for console, as I already have a lot of stuff to play, and other imo better FPS are coming in November, like Resistance 2 and CoD5.

[Sharingan]

Tempted to give this one a try, even though (like DC said), other FPS are right around the corner. Problem is that I simply have too many games around right now (Pro Evo 2009, old copy of Devil May Cry 4, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Valkyria Chronicles, LBP next week ...), so maybe it's better if I waited a few months.

[StuKeith]

Started it the other day! Looks lovley at 1680x1050 with the AA on.

Not getting a too bad a frame rate, thinking a slight overclock with help it chugg away nice and smooth.

Also playing Warhead and GH Areosmith on the PC at the Mo.

[Harrison]

What is your current system setup Stu?