As you know, since our 24 hour LAN some time ago, I’ve found my teenage side again, and started playing games again.
Preparing for the LAN I slowly started building up a relatively good spec machine for playing games, and now at least I can play most new games on my desktop machine.
The latest game I gave a try was Far Cry 2.
Not being used to the new age graphics(last really played 4/5 years ago), only seen Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty 5 graphics at the LAN, which was already “past awesomeness” for me. Playing Far Cry 2 just struck me down.
Ubisoft, the company that developed Far Cry 2 specially developed a new game engine for making environment more lifelike, and making you interact with all the elements in the environment, from real live like fires, that utilizes a very good physics engine, to wind,rain and other natural elements.
This is not your conventional shoot-em-up shooter, but more of a role playing game. When starting the game you are transported inside a landrover somewhere in Africa. Being from South Africa, it really feels like your driving on the country side or rural areas. The “world” is built awesomely, the animals, plants are so lifelike, the sounds are just like the bushveld, and I can really relate to the whole environment, everything just feels ‘real’.
I’ve only played a few hours but so far the game just outperforms my wildest expectations.
And one last thing I found real funny, some of the bad guys talk Afrikaans and some local languages, which really struck home, especially the Afrikaans.
I leave you with a clip that illustrates the AI used, which is non-scripted, but ‘real’ AI. (this example shows our character chasing a wildebeest around haha)