MTV Multiplayer talked with Far Cry 2's creative director Clint Hocking about making a PC game at a time that high-end first-person shooters aren't selling the way people would expect.
MTV Multiplayer: What's it like making a PC game these days in light of the sales figures for Unreal Tournament III and Crysis?
Clint Hocking: I don't know if you're aware, but we originally planned to make it as a PC game. We really wanted to tell the PC gaming crowd that Far Cry is a PC title and we're not going to screw up the whole brand by making a crappy console game. We want to make a PC title that is worthy of being called Far Cry 2.
A Crysis VR mod is now available for download, allowing users to experience the first entry in the series in VR
No one cares. The whole can it run Crysis is old, dead and stupid. It's also irrelevant, considering only less than one percent of pc owners, own a high-end PC. Second, I believe Crysis wasn't even optimized properly.
Let's hope the modders can get the other Crysis games working in VR as they use the same Cryengine.
If you’re new to this long-running franchise, we’ve got you covered.
I recently tried 3 for the first time but the frame rate was a turnoff.
I liked 5 and 6 though.
If you have a Series X or S, the Xbox 360 version runs at 60 fps with fps boost. It's a shame the remaster doesn't.
2 and 3, pretty much the only ones i really enjoyed. 1 was amazing for the time but aged quite poorly. 4 has the elephant gun, all i can praise from any entry after 3 lol
Ummmm 3 than stop.
Okay maybe two as well. But yeah probably 3 and then move on.
Far Cry 2. People constantly rant about games now being too easy, holding your hand, having too many unnecessary RPG-lite leveling features, etc. People specifically complain about open world games being too focused on tons of collectibles and "checkmarks" that just waste time.
Far Cry 2 is an answer to all of those complaints. It was made by Ubisoft before they fell into all the traps discussed above (and before they started inserting towers into their games to defog the map). It has respawning enemies, weapons that degrade, and the collectible diamonds are very useful in the game (which you find in a similar way to the way you find shrines in BOTW with a radar system). The map you have is an in game item you pull out while playing, not a pause menu that is unnecessarily detailed. Also the enemy AI and physics are much better than later entries in the series.
It has a mixed reputation because people at the time said it was too hard, the weapon degradation was annoying, and then respawning enemies were annoying. FC2 came out in 2008, so this was before games like Dark Souls and BOTW had come out and made it cool to like these types of features.
Far Cry 2, the one with the AI that find you through walls and trees, can one shot you from a mile away and have 100% accuracy? That was frustrating not fun because cheap AI.
Uhh, I mean, it isn't one of these games where once the enemies have detected you they will magically forget you exist because you walked behind a wall or went into a bush. And yeah the AI isn't stormtrooper level accuracy. Again, these are positives, not negatives to me.
To be fair, I'm really directing this at the people most critical of "Modern Ubisoft" or "Modern Open World" design elements. Like the type of people who fawned all over Elden Ring because it had a clean UI because they are so burnt out by the "checkbox" type of open world design.
If you like those types of games, then a later FC game like 3 and especially 4-5 would be more your style.
GF365: "There are some games with extraordinary visuals that impress us to this day. Here are old games with outstanding graphics."
Same as Killzone 2 and 3, uncharted 2 and 3, Infamous 2, Heavy Rain, Resistance 3
I wish this was entirely true, but you might want to load up Killzone 2 and Resistance 3 again.
@jason I watched some gameplay videos of KZ2 and R3 on my full screen. They are on par or succeed graphically to the first person shooters mentioned in the article that also launched on the seventh generation of consoles. Try the same and see what you think
Killzone 3 was super impressive! I could not believe the graphics back then as I was regularly pausing the game to stand in awe looking at the surroundings! Resistance however did not impress me that much. Heavy rain is also another amazing graphically speaking game. It almost felt next gen
I always thought the first 3 Gears of War games looked great and still hold up for today.
They did for their day. I recently played gears judgement with on the 360 and the draw distance was so blurry. The characters up close look great though
Far Cry 2 was awesome. In addition to having demonstrably better physics and AI than later games in the series, it had a lot of design decisions that, criticized at the time, have since been praised in games like BOTW and Dark Souls.
It might not be super amazing by today's standard but I thought Mgs3 looked really good
Maybe because you need a MONSTER MACHINE to even run it half decent. My buds machine is pretty killer and it chuggs at best.
Dear god this "sluggish crysis sales" is getting old hat. I do apologise I didn't realise America was actually the WHOLE planet. It is a tradition that PC games do not sell well in the US for various reasons. However it now seems to be "OMGZZ it didn't sell in the US the game is doomed".
Personally I don't have great hopes for Farcry 2 it is just gonna be another unoptimised POS just like Assasins Creed is for the PC. I loved the original Farcry but I can see myself not even bothering with Farcry 2.
im pretty sure if most computers were able to run it, than it would have pretty credible sales, unfortunatley for myself and alot of other people out there, our computers arent able to handle it
Of course they're not scared, they have console versions forthcoming. Lol.
When will designers learn that bashing consoles and boasting about the PC like a mindless zealot is not good for business.
The PC as a platform allows developers a near barrierless technical plateau. However the problem is that the higher the levels of technical prowess on a game, the more of your potential audience you alienate due to insufficient specs.
Consoles are the option if you decide you really wanna make some money.
Think about it.