Far Cry Games Thread

[Hertzian56]

Since I've been replaying FC2 and FC3 and also briefly played Primal again thought I might just stick a general FC thread up here. I played the original crytek far cry back in the day hardly remember it though just jungle type of rambo thing with some doctor or something like that. So I'll dig in next post.

 

[Hertzian56]

So yeah since I'm almost cyberpunked out, my replay of Control is pretty much done and my replay of Alan Wake 1 original is almost over I needed a new main big game. I am on a mid range laptop so I want to have a low fan noise low usage game that packs a punch of fun gameplay and is good enough to look at, not cyberpunk level nor any of the UE5 overuse levels either. I did play Robocop RC through and that's a UE5 game, looks amazing at times but my fans are jet engines and at times it's a stutter fest. It's not a long game and doesn't really warrant an immediate replay to me. For that game they needed a more arcade shooter levels minus the inane side stuff and the very lite nacon style rpg elements.

Soo anyways I had FC3 an FC2 on a hard drive for a few years and thought I'd drag them over to my nvme and give them a whirl. FC2 is less than 4gb size, FC3 is about 8.5gb and Blood Dragon is less than 3gb so you're talking about a LOT of game for about 14-15gb which is unheard of for years when it comes to AAA games.

I first went through Blood Dragon since I didn't play it back when it came out like the main FC3. And it is a perfect time to play it tbh. With the cyberpunk game and what is considered a cyberpunk genre game of Robocop it's a fit for what I was playing. I just need to fire up the grand daddys of cyberpunk call Deus Ex. Human Revolution is one of my fav games and I haven't played it for years may do that next.

BD is hilarious and fun but is only about 8hrs of game for me and that includes most of the collectibles and all the outposts. To me they should have done a main game lenght of BD on a larger world of some type. The dialogue is hilarious and the retro aspects are awesome. I like small games install size that pack a lot of gameplay in there, similar to Metal Gear Ground Zeroes and older games fill this. Since these are 10+ yo games the top level graphics don't take 50gb and the game design is more direct with less hud stuff and such but have simple side stuff that is fun like the obstacle courses in FC3.

Soo I then got into FC2 a bit more and it looks fine to me for a game that old, came out in 2008. It's definitely not a handholding type of game which is nice. I do wish it had waypoints so we could focus on the world more rather than looking at a map while driving and also being shot at way too much. For a game that tries to be a sim the over aggressive npc AI is NOT realistic at all. In short outside of the big areas of cease fire everyone will shoot you on site and pursue you in a car and shoot you. There are checkpoints all over and it starts all over again, terrible. The driving is not that fun either with the buggy and atv being the best vehicles and using a boat is actually the easiest way around much less pursuers.

I use the Relaxed mod for this game to make it more sane to play but I still get attacked and chased all the time it's just less so. 1 diamond upgrades, all store stuff unlocked, inf stamina so inf run. I also use LIRW 1.3 trainer for all sorts of other QOL things and even with all that this game is hard but is still uniquely fun. Heart of Darkness describes it well with the color pallette and mystery of the place. I just wish I had a trainer that worked to 2-3x walk speed, haven't found a working one yet. The Brewers trainer crashes the game and is the only one with a super speed option. BTW I get trainers from gamecopyworld just google far cry 2 gamecopyworld and the link will come up.

 

[Hertzian56]

FC2 is def an experience not everyone will like. It's a take on the terrible warlordism and outside profiteering that happens in parts of Africa. The story doesn't feel as frivilous and contrived as other FCs, you're a merc who is contracted to kill the Jackal the arms dealer in the area. Nothing else is given to help you, your job. The story does eventually lead you to him though. You take contracts for diamonds and info from various factions who want you to do largely terrible stuff, that's the game. Then at some point there's major missions that are story which advance it from the side missions but the side missions are necessary to get to those major story missions. Better pacing than a cyberpunk and such.

There's a buddy system where you save them here and there and they give you options for the other missions or you can ignore them, which imo is the best thing to do mostly. If the game was easier to navigate and had less everyone shooting you it would be different but usually the optional extra stuff they give you isn't worth it. And most of them don't actually actively help you on the mission it's just an extra fetch quest before the main part of the mission so more aggro of driving and slaughtering with little extra payoff imo. The only way it could have been worthwhile IMO is if you get a rep high enough with them and they become permanent followers in game, but that is not an option. Gets old being the ONE guy Vs everyone else all the time.

There are two maps, north and south and the south map is the first one, you unlock the north one later. You have to drive between the two there isn't the bus fast travel directly into one from the other. They are both lush and varied and it's a shame the default walk/run speeds are so low, which discourages me from exploration tbh. Cars have all the obnoxious pursuers and such tied to them unless you want to offroad it but that's hard especially since driving is only in First Person mode like in all FC games but it's harder to see in this game imo NOT FUN. Boats are better.

I'm early on in the second map just doing major side stuff to do the main story. DX9 is more stable and it's maxed out at 1080p although I could do 2k easily and DSR it or even 4k if I wanted more fan noise for little profit. If I had a 4k screen or 2k screen I'd hdmi out to that to see if it's worth it in this old game prob not. I use NCP to limit all games to 60 for system perf and longevity and that's what I have here, no fan sounds at all wonderful. I limit FC3 to 45fps no vsync, same smoothness of 60 but less usage same settings. FC2 I just use the global 60 max. I've heard if you go higher the game can bug out and I still get crashes here and there in both 2/3 which are NOT tied to high fps at all so makes sense to eliminate that source.

Soo I'm alternating between a bit of cp77 new car mods, mostly FC3 and a bit of FC2. I suggest with FC2 if you want to get as much game as possible before it forces dead major npcs and such to do the tower assassinations, buddy missions, weapons salesguy missions exclusively and hold off on the APL/other faction missions as those are what move the main story forward. At the end of the first map you lose all your buddies and their missions if you didn't do them before.

FC2 is a good game for such a small size, decent retro graphics, non handholding immersion and mysterious story. It also does NOT need online always jubisoft garbage and the saves are NOT encrypted like FC3's are meaning you can go get saves collections and skip back forward as you please. Low usage means laptops can easily play them even with igpu's and it doesn't take up much space.

It also had no problem picking up my xbone controller and is comfortable to play with that, there are no prompts for the buttons but you learn them pretty quick playing. So as I said I'm early second map just casually playing. I expect if I ran through the main warlord factions stuff it wouldnt' take too long since I use a trainer for godmode, no reload, inf ammo, vehicle no damage, add diamonds, weapons store unlocked and 1 diamond only for every thing etc 8hrs or less but if you do all the side stuff before the warlords missions it could easily double or triple or more really. 30-40hrs or more depending on your style. If you have to pay full price for upgrades and don't use a trainer you have to find diamonds in the open world and that alone could add a lot of hours.

The malaria isn't my fav but is immersive and requires you to do the church missions to get meds for it. I have that disabled totally with the relaxed mod and with a trainer button, not interested. But the church meds missions also can add a few hours to the game.

On the pc version you can save anywhere which makes it easier no doubt but is kinda necessary since this game does still crash at times. Fast travel can crash the game sometimes and just in world crashes. Fun game recommended.

 

[Hertzian56]

So yeah I did briefly install primal which I played back when it came out, I like the totally different setting and no guns but tbh it got just old feeling after the first few missions maybe I needed to persevere with it idk. I backed up my saves and deleted but still have the repack in storage. I think also Alan Wake 2 and Robocop came out about then and so got side tracked with that and needed the space for those two on my nvme because at least AW2 MUST be on at least an SSD but my ssds were full. Had to delete something and primal apex is about 20gb.

Maybe I played it so much before that it's just instant bored idk similar to fallout 4 or skyrim can't play those much anymore without being bored maybe in a few years I could go back like these far crys which are fun for me in 10 years later replays.

 

[Hertzian56]

Uh I am also replaying FC3 which is a blast by far the best one imo It pretty much laid down the standard FC game to this day and had lots of memorable characters to it and interesting dream sequences, gorgeous open world, fun missions that are challenging and interesting, decent standard vacationing friends caught in a horrible situation story. I think the archetype there is Friday the 13th frolicking in nature of young people and turning into a nightmare. Here we can actually save most of them though.

The driving is much improved from 2 like everything else BUT there is a lot less freedom to do things in mission your way. For instance where you HAVE to use an old sniper rifle to cover your friend AND only when the game allows you to use it, no early starts and no using your better rifle if you have one. In FC2 I did a mission to blow up a nat gas train car and they mentioned needing heavier than small arms fire weapon to do it. I assumed there would be one dropped or stored near the car for me to use since I hadn't bought a rocket launcher yet. NOPE. So I had to move out of the mission area to get one, and it didn't fail the mission because I was "out of mission area" like in FC3. FC3 also has a LOT more button prompts than 2 some for good some too much.

The buggies are fun to drive and this one features a lot of the side content for fun like the racing and obstacle courses, cards, shooting comps, the tribe challenges, etc The UI is much better QOL than 2 also. The enemies aren't nearly as all over the place so you can avoid the rando fighting easily if you want.

The voiced protag is relatable nerdy type if a huge dissonance between a man bent on saving his friends and willing to do anything to do that including lots of slaughter and mayhem and then later just being bent on vengeance and deciding to stay on the island. Makes no sense. You get your friends back and count yourself lucky, now go home call the police. So the hoyt part is about 30% of the game based on main missions and it's a whole new other island. It's not very believable that a nerd from socal is going to become essentially a supercommando though eh videogames.

 

[Hertzian56]

FC3 doesn't have the mysterious aspect of the world and the main antag if you consider Vaas as the main one really. Hoyt isn't seen or heard much until the second island but I think it's all pretty open unlike the Jackal in 2. The very bright tropical world also doesn't elicit the Heart of Darkness mystery aspects either. And the story of 3 is pretty straightforward and for the most part you're doing good saving your friends, the hoyt part is pure vengeance though. In 2 you're a scumbag really, a merc whose paid to take down a mysterious arms dealer and you do pretty dastardly things to get close. It's a dark game visually and story wise but more mysterious and freedom to do missions as you please.

The Vaas insanity is well done though and does have a heart of darkness feel but more of an insane psycho puppet thing than a master arms dealer bad guy. The drugs are the main reason for all this. It seems a little weird that rich kids would choose to vacation on an island rife with drug violence and production though, didn't they do any homework on it? Usually in narco areas like mexico tourists have big tourist cities to be mostly safe in like Cabo, the cartels know not to push open violence or criminality there and tourists are off limits for the most part. The main islands in this game don't seem to have anywhere for tourists at all so where did they stay and such? There's no local gov of law and order, no regular settlements etc Weird.

Still it's a fun sandbox for just old school direct fun and still looks great to this day. The distant LOD is not the best though and no way to adjust afaik which is the biggest difference to modern games or newer ones. Textures are dated too but not terribly so. And the water is definitely flat most of the time. The game is only 8.5gb install. In contrast the next game 4 is about 30-40gb install size with all dlcs gold edition. And I do have 4 repack in storage so when I get the chance prob install and replay that.

I use no mods for this game. There are textures and some rebalance mods on nexus and I still just have the 105 version which mods do work on, 106 from 2018 nerfed most of them thanks jubisoft. I have the uplay version and of course it's emulated so no online at all like all repacks versions. The saves are encrypted to your uplay id and written to a dll so you can't put in any outside saves without decrypting and reencrypting the dll, not worth it.

I did have a doppelganger blackscreen game breaking bug due to a easy start mod I had so I had to delete that and start a new game without that mod. I'm almost back to where I was just doing the main story missions and I use a Fling trainer to cut out a lot of the time too. With the superspeed option I don't need cars which is nice tbh rather explore on foot at high speed works great. I use my xbone controller which works great too.

So yeah FC3 is the best FC imo FC2 is second best but really isn't the type of game that FC's are known to be that was laid down in 3. I can't say about 4 since I haven't played it since it came out but likely the next best with primal in there somewhere. 5 I couldn't get my controller to work on when it came out so abandoned it, prob fixed now. I remember 5 having WAY too aggressive animals attacks including the obnoxious eagles and such. Jubisoft wants you to not be too much fun and wants you to know everything, I MEAN everything is trying to kill you. It's similar to 2's roving npcs and checkpoints, awful stuff.

But love 3 and like 2. 3 my fav 11 years later. I'm going through old games I still have installed or have the repacks in storage of and having a ball. Bioshock 1 and infinite were fun games too. Perhaps Dying Light 1 is due or the Evil Within games, Arkham games, GTA4/5, Crysis 1 remastered or 3 original, Hollow Knight, Metal Gear 5, Gears 5, yakuza games etc lots of installs sitting there. Even thinking of COJ Gunslinger rerun, still one of my all time favs.

 

[Hertzian56]

Just getting back to this I was playing FC2 last night and was doing the buddy missions in map2 at the bar to get more than just the apl/other warlord faction jobs to the next major story mission. Well it once again crashed out of nowhere when fast traveling or something it was right as I was returning to the mikes bar to tell the buddy I had done the mission. Makes no sense of course because you use the cellphone all the time for incoming calls, no reason you couldn't just call them or text. Instead it's another slog back to mikes bar for very little need other than jubisoft forcing the "traveling" combat game this game is mostly.

How it works is at mikes bar talk to buddy, get mission, on map2 it's a fairly short drive to the next bus station where you usually go unless you want to play the travel combat game to halfway across the map as usual or if it's closer to the main city bus station you travel there first then drive a shorter distance to the mission area. But then you'll have to travel back to main city's bus station to take a ride to the bus station closest to mikes bar then drive there. Ugh. I REALLY WISH I could find a 3.5x or so walking speed hack like there is in Flings trainer for FC3 105, just cuts a lot of nonsense out of it and 2 really needs that more than 3 does.

Soo since the auto save is not there afaik in 2, I lost the last mission or so as I usually remember to save but soon your saves files just balloon up instead of having a quick replaced autosave by the game like in modern games. CP77 has about 10 of them per session and they get replaced next bootup, better way to do it to not balloon up the manual saves.

FC2 is really just destruction for the most part and I'm glad there aren't too many cutscenes or really any from what I remember other than the taxi ride, waking up in the desert sequence before map2 and the second half stuff not sure it's been too long. I do like it but it is tedious more so than 3 is. The mystery is the hook for me, the sparse old school style, the bang for the small size, low hardware usage etc Super Mario newer emulation games are usually larger than FC2!

 

[Hertzian56]

And in FC3 session last night I got past the Doppelganger early hoyt island mission finally. DO NOT USE any of the EZ start mods for this game, they cause the progression breaking bug there. Flings trainer has a few hotkeys to unlock stuff on the fly that will reset in the next playthrough, use that instead. Special weapons, map uncover etc The main benefit of those mods are unlocking everything from the start and skipping the first cutscenes which are unskippable in this game, but I usually just take off headphones and watch something in the background zone out. They're not that long even the citra ones.

I'll say the tone of the game gets more nasty though with Jason just becoming a vengeance bent killer. The Vaas death sequence is very weird with the subliminal of Vaas and his sister Citra being the same person, this is classic trannyism inana-venus-baphomet cult divine androgyne stuff. THEN you wake up with citra on top of you topless implying sex was going on. This with the sister of the man you just killed and it's very creepy tbh.

Jubisoft is obviously a jewmasontranny cult company like all the big ones are and more. You also have the Alice in Wonderland quotes on loading screens. This is a reference to the cults mind control program for it's members from top to bottom, enforces compliance and cohesion to have split personalities for cult nefarious twilight world and at least one for being a normal person in general life. The transgenderism is another form of control as perversion is. So you have the major drugs theme, which this cult also controls at various levels all the way up to the money laundering aspect of it by their banks, the mind control and the trannyism-incest thing with Vaas-Citra. VC 223 322 CV VCCV, 322 genesis bible reference and skull bones templar baphomet wing reference.

Jason would be the Alice here, relatively innocent who is thrust into a world of drugs and riddles. The weird Vaas-Citra brother -sister incest and affair thing, Dennis and his strange behavior, the CIA guy with exaggerated patriotism, even warped version of it, Buck, Sam, Hoyt.

Your friends-what's important to you- get kidnapped and tortured and your brother is killed. Vaas kills you multiple times but you come back and the final part of Vaas story starts in a bizarre escape room where your perception is like you're on drugs or a higher level is giving you a command to comply using the threat of a abreaction to a previous real life torture inflicted on you. Meaning in your mind you will experience the same sensations as what happened during a torture session or ritual. You can even have a physical reaction.

I also think jubisoft being from france is likely grand orient masonry infested. The drug, torture, trauma based total mind control and such with various bizarro happenings and characters on some remote island sounds about right for real life drug empires on remote islands. Transshipment points for the jewmasontranny cult and satanic torture chambers du jour, likely unknown illuminati kings of these islands. Analagous to the huge ranches these satanists own all over the US and elsewhere, tex-mex border especially but all over. Just open ones like movie stars, tech billionaires and such buy whole islands in various places, and you can imagine the satanic things that happen there.

Maybe this game is a message to those cult members about being shipped to one of these places and the same things happening to their friends and loved ones if they get any ideas about leaving this cult. In a totally controlled place, no one can save you or yours from the consequences of disobedience. A trip to the local military base for special treatment, underground base, ranch, island or anywhere of total control, like a torture chamber is really. Likely this jewmasontranny satanic cult controls all sorts of fronts which have these facilities, masonry is all over and has spaces and access to spaces like this, much of organized christianity has been infiltrated and controlled by these people, mormonism and similar cults like scientology, new age etc but there's the military all over as well.

 

[Hertzian56]

I mean seriously I could go through this whole game with examples. The caged tiger is you in one sense but also it's the demons enforcing compliance. In the enemy outposts there is always a caged animal to let out which takes out a few of the bad guys. You go down rabbit holes to find treasures of various types, caves, cenotes etc Buck during his twisted sequence is always there at the start and the end and the in between is a struggle to get a prize to a bigger prize then to save your friend who was bucks slave, sex slave from the language. Then you kill buck with the big prize he had you go get on a disco ball stage with masonic checkered floor it's very bizarre stuff.

The Ink Monster seems to be tied to the ink you get on your arm or bona fides to perform better combat, masonic steps. So you tame the monster to claim the control of it's powers, you bottle a demon or a personality alter to then unleash when needed or commanded by the game makers, your cult handlers and fellow members.

"No comply no proceed to the next prize hunt, no climax/orgasm/drug high"-game makers. Dragon rider. There is always a larger more fierce tiger that can be used on you if no comply, either abreaction, physical torture or group torture of those closest to you etc

Anyways getting back to the game yeah I've got probably 5 more main missions to the end of the main story. I'm meeting Hoyt personally next at his compound. The illumnati king in his palace built on drugs, murder, torture. Note that I don't remember the last part or ending of FC3.

 

[Hertzian56]

So I'm at the last mission for FC3 Aced in the Hole after the action movie mayhem missions to disrupt Hoyts network since he's holding jasons brother prisoner. An example of a game as a mind control thing where Jason is forced to torture his own brother on camera to convince Hoyt he's on his side. Pretty ghastly thing. To be fair though when the cameras are cut briefly, nonsensically hoyt doesn't notice btw, you do talk to your brother and he says to do it to convince Hoyt you're on his side.

Of course this is just more videogame logic. Moments before you're alone with Hoyt in his office where you could have taken him hostage or killed him. At this point you have no idea your brother is still alive so it makes sense. I doubt you would bother with taking him hostage. End of the GAME.

I have no idea the ending as it was so long ago. It's good that the game warns you it's the last mission at least so I can do all that tomorrow. It's not a long game as just about 3-4 days of 6hr sessions approximately, so around 18-25hrs of main mission there. Since I was trying to get back from the bug before I only did the main missions really and had a trainer for hidden and fast walk so if you play it normally you'd die a bunch of times of course. I still failed missions a few times mostly on escort style ones and just falling or not doing something right.

But mostly the obnoxious "protect" missions where dozens of enemies are attacking especially the cia guy plane one had to do it about 4 times. The radio tower on hoyt's island where you have to make sure the bomb doesn't get disabled and also protect the helicopter was ridiculous of course took me 3 times at least. And I was playing on easy! On normal or more it would def take more time so add in 5hrs or so my guess for just main missions puts it at 23-30hrs main missions and of course ALL the side missions, racing, collectathons, etc would add in as much as you want. To 100% it would take over 40hrs and more is my guess, feed that ocd demon I guess.

 

[Hertzian56]

So I'll do some FC2 now, need to do the stuff I lost before with the crash then do some of the main warlord faction lists. Also grabbed the latest Dead Cells update 35 which has some small things added to it nothing like another dungeon. It's called the end is near and I'm guessing the final update before switching to their new game is going to be 36 or three sixes, 666. Still an awesome game though and I've had it for years been to most of the dungeons but there are about 3 I haven't found a way to yet. Love the retro but modern 2d/3d art style and action. I have a trainer of course so I don't die but it's still fun and engaging to see and play.

I do have FC4 gold edition waiting too but going to hold off on that one for a bit. Maybe finish my Alan Wake 1 original game at last. Played it dozens of times one of my favs with the gorgeous dark forest. Uh a bit of cp77 here and there maybe some control and all the other games I have installed.

 

[Hertzian56]

I played a fair bit of FC2 last night and yeah it does get stale after a bit even with trainers and the relaxed mod. I really wish someone had come out with a trainer that had godmode, 3x walk speed and invisible player. That way I would really love to explore the amazing maps they gave us way back in 2008 that still hold up today in size and in general good graphics. Even have a borderlands cell shading to it and you've largely got a modern aa game at less than 5gb in size.

The world is largely empty as far as things to do since the tone is def african conflict, wouldn't make sense to have racing or fishing but why not in a free mode, no story, some combat in "contracts" mode only sets and areas the rest is just normal world. The diamond cases and the jackal tapes are the biggest collectibles to find but thankfully the diamonds are taken care of by the relaxed mod and also my trainer adds them with a hot key. Finding cases with a handheld map and flashing light not my favorite. Jackal tapes needed to be more plentiful and easy to find. I found one just stumbling on a blown up convoy, thought it was a diamond case.

But I got into the grind of bus station near mikes bar in map2 go get mission from buddy, head to bus station go to next best station, get to mission area, blowup-kill-get item, rush back to bus station go back to mikes bar to report success to buddy. I did some underground missions as those are the only good guy missions in the game mostly, you kill the mercs surrounding the UG outpost and then give traveling papers to the clients there, get meds for malaria. The relaxed mod gets rid of malaria thankfully and also the trainer I have has an option to disable it via a hotkey.

So UG missions are just to be a kind of good guy for once in this dark game. I look at the general world as just self defense, they'll fire on you anyways so you're just defending yourself by taking them out first. So you're not a bad guy until the game forces you to be so for progression. The warlord factions and most buddies all give you bad guy offensive missions to kill or blowup. The radio tower assassination and gun store missions are just straight bad guy missions.

So it's a grind mostly and really the only things that need to be done if you play vanilla are getting malaria pills via underground missions and the warlord missions progress the story. Buddy stuff isn't necessary at all. I think they needed the buddy reputation to be to the level of a follower to help out in the world all the time, would have made it much more desirable to do all the extra traveling around for buddy purposes. AFAIK it never gets to that point.

So yeah I'm at the point of having done enough buddy stuff I'll just do UG occasionally and focus on warlord missions to get the story over with. I'll def keep this game at 3gb on my main drives, a lot of game for not much size and looks decent. Decently fun to play as a combat sim here and there, no fan noise not taxing etc

 

[Hertzian56]

Going to finish FC3 main campaign today since I got the "final mission" warning by the game yesterday. I think I'll do some wandering around the world after, I still have the side missions, assasination board missions, hunting missions etc I def plan on the racing stuff as it's pretty fun and challenging. Uh the Herc missions, some tower stuff occasionally, I like to clear out enemy bases here and there but don't want to do all of them so as to give the world a bit of spice. I've done none of the little red rock challenges either. There is also cards in there poker I think.

 

[Hertzian56]

Ok so I finished both 2 and 3 same day.

2 ends with either you taking the car battery and blowing up some waypoint to somehow seal in all the mercenaris and warlords which I'm guessing is allegorical. Since you weirdly end up working WITH the Jackal you were supposed to take out and for some reason all the refugees get out somehow. OR you take the diamonds you got from the warlords and pay the refugees way out of the country. Somehow to the Jackal this will end the conflict doesn't seem likely though. So in either you die but you choose which one. The battery is where you go down in flames OR the diamond case you're supposed to do yourself.

I chose the diamond case because if your mission is to kill the Jackal then you know or think you know he'll be killed in the explosion as he states when telling you the choices. There's no need to kill yourself and I think you wouldn't. Only the game makers themselves enforce that I guess, it shows neither death so it's open ended maybe the Jackal played a trick on you and survived no matter which one and of course I chose the diamonds because you're getting out too and my character if given a choice wouldn't kill himself. I just took the first option in the character selection screen btw.

Eh ok not the best ending but after all the mayhem you have to do your character is not a good guy in the least, but if you do the underground missions you can do some good albeit for the malaria meds bonus. Eh

I can say I found the mod on moddb called the Jackal mod by the Jackal last done in 22 and it makes the game MUCH better. Lessens the AI in a few ways, makes the cars faster, AI attack each other sometimes, some AI are friendly, changed the FOV from 90 to 106 which is way better, seemed to speed up the character somehow. So the game flew by then. You could actually not be attacked constantly on the road. Since Jubisoft forces you to watch 5+ mins of credits I did something else and came back and the game was off so not sure if it autoexits or not.

 

[Hertzian56]

And 3's ending is a bit more trippy with the dream sequences and such. You are alice or dorothy in male form here, although with the jewmasontranny cult you'd be biologically female and vice versa. Opposite of what you present yourself as, inversion.

Anyways yeah you get a finger chopped off by Hoyt, Sam dies at the card table, you kill Hoyt, rescue brother and a heli combat sequence then find dr. dying where he tells you citra took your friends. I thought they left on the boat but guess not. So in the end you either save your friends or join citra. If you save your friends, I did, then Dennis tries to kill you but Citra jumps in front of you and Dennis accidentally kills Citra. MMkay.

The other ending is join citra and from the ign guide it says you have sex w her and then she kills you saying the supposed baby she'll have is the rykat messiah or something like that. MMMMkay.

Then you can either end the game and likely use that save before to do the other ending or keep exploring which I chose. So there you have it both 2/3 endings. I forgot to mention that to get the diamonds case in the ending of 2 you have to kill all your buddies you saved for some reason, not clear. They all ganged up and made a deal or something I guess. It's optional though but who doesn't want to do the whole ending?

So I got about 7 days of daily play of both of them and I play for at least 3hrs weekdays and 8+ hrs weekends so it wasn't a ton of time really. Someone who didn't use a trainer and didn't use the speed up hack in 3 would take a lot longer. Both I played on easy so yeah someone who had to manage malaria, ammo, guns, etc would take a lot longer and tbh probably get frustrated imo. Even on easy in some escort missions I had a hard time and timed missions were generally easy in 3 due to the speed hack but still challenging. Normal would involve less time and just more challenging, oof.

 

[Hertzian56]

I actually enjoy the FC2 game loop even though it's pretty depraved. Most games are where you fetch or kill or something else type of task. The kill stuff involves self defense as a justifier but in fc2 there's no such thing really. You're just a merc hired to get the Jackal and the missions you do are to get closer to finding him. Some are to get malaria meds and there are the buddy missions which vary. Buddy missions are always combat missions so hardly self defense. Malaria underground missions are a bit better and just involve clearing out goons from UG refugee rests. I also did the predecessor missions, there are only 3 per map and a capstone mission at the end for a total of 7.

It becomes fairly clear that your predecessors are actually just your buddies in the game as they have the same nationalities. There are also the jackal tapes but those are more just collectibles to finding the story out more. Like the diamonds they're hardly worth running around looking at flashes on your gps to find and really should have just been plainly listed on the map since you still have to go get them and usually that involves an outpost or settlement so it's a challenge. Some of the 221 diamonds are just out in rando deserted places, not worth it. Think there are a few dozen jackal tapes.

So now that I have the Jackal Mod it's a lot funner to play and drive since that mod removed a ton of roving patrols, slowed down npc cars, made detection much harder and sped up the vehicles making driving kinda fun. So post story I loaded up a map1 save and am just doing the buddy missions til there are no more then do the main warlord missions which are always nasty in every way. But they are what moves the story forward.

It's such a sparse game with old graphics but fun gameplay and a pretty nice natural world. I get the darker and brownish color pallette jubi used for this game. It's to give seriousness to it and banality of your typical chaotic warlord dominated areas. Mud would be the best description. With the trainer it's much better to play, more casual and you don't have your butt clenched while driving. The loop of checking the map for missions and using the bus stations to fast travel works. The combat is enjoyable and challenging. Not overdone with the roving patrols all over and many checkpoints also had npcs removed so much less of the travel hassle.

Idk what it is about 2 but it's still drawing, much more than 3 post story is. Don't have plans to play much 3 post story, it's somehow more repetitive and uninteresting even with most side stuff undone. Maybe the racing. There are a lot less interesting missions in 3 as far as side stuff, usually it's collect x of these type of things. And a lot less main missions in 3 or it feels that way.

And 3's saves are encrypted and you can't do multiple saves only one per playthrough and one auto save so there is no loading up an early save or other point to do something different, much less replayability in 3 due to that fact. I don't want to go through the slog of early game and getting my guns and crafting going. Imagine going from the seriousness of african conflict, malaria etc to the brightly colored alice in wonderland rabbit hole of 3. Kinda bizarre jump there by jubisoft imo.

I also had to play the first 2/3 of 3 over again due to the mod bug I had so I don't wish to do that 3 times. The Hoyt last 10 missions or so are just standard rambo type stuff really, not worth the trouble. 3 really needed a post story per mission replay option. That's not a jubisoft game option to this date afaik. GTA V and RDR2 are the only major games that have that option afaik. If there were the option to save anytime as many times as you like you could do it yourself but 3 doesn't allow that. 2 does have save anytime so there you go.

 

[Hertzian56]

Getting back to the predecessor tapes no they're not your buddies but the nationalities of who you find them on are surprisingly close to all of the buddies so far but I don't think there's a relation there. In the campaign you fight your buddies while getting the diamond case or the ones that survive.

In this second casual mostly side stuff playthough I chose the bar at the end of act 1 so fight with my buddies so they all died and I had all of them. So I guess the diamond case which I'm getting to pay for the refugees won't have the act 1 buddies fighting me for it at least. I think they could have made this game more interesting with a romance option for buddies and also female selectable character to play as but there might be that in there I just choose the first one that comes up. Throw in some roll in the hay for a bonus to the side mission lol and of course they needed to have buddies that can become permanent in game followers/protectors if you do enough to max the relationship. It would have been more meaningful in game than just the revive-save they can do if you were to be close to death. Of course the trainer I use means I'm never low on health anyways so it's useless.

To have someone who mans the turrets on these various vehicles would have been way more useful or fired out of shotgun at least, and of course whatever you do you're always outnumbered would have been nice to have a buddy to help out.

 

[Hertzian56]

So yeah finished the predecessor tapes last night the last ones are on an island in map2 where the last predecessor committed suicide and left 2 tapes. I'm not sure why though, just thinking about it why the hell would any normal person want to go to a hellhole to make money. I get that there are very abnormal types out there that find this sort of nastiness interesting but come on. An awful jungle where only extremists live who make it a way of life then reproduce there. The odd thing about jungle africa is that the west coast below the sahara seems largley empty. If I had to live in africa below the sahara I'd only live on the coast. At least there you get more moisture and stable lower temps unlike the jungle and desert areas. I guess most of the population are in South Africa which is mostly oceanfront area and the north not too far away from the ocean. But these poor souls who find themselves in jungle aftrica need to get out, the big jewmasontranny countries are there to extract as much as possible while having to pay as little as possible nothing more. Damn the natives.

And you can bet that these internal conflicts originate from abroad, they serve the interests of foreign raiders and of course there are plenty of natives who will take part for profit and control, just give the skim to these foreign raiders. And they also grind down and depop the natives who are not geared towards british-jewish greedster based societies. Less of them means less problems for the jewmasontrannys and they import slaves from ethiopia or directly from their own countries, likely a lot of chinese in africa. The indians have long lived under jewmasontranny greedster culture and likely are in lots of places as paid slaves in africa.

Anyways yeah just in map2 now enjoying the game loop doing tower assassinations, buddy stuff, and the occasional main mission. I don't do the gun store stuff because the mod I use unlocks all the guns and I have my loadout I like. The Jackal Mod has not ideal slot options but good enough. So auto shotgun that looks like an m16, and m16 w scope, hand held mac 10. With the realism redux mod I liked their slots better. had the same shotgun, scoped m16 but the third was a grenade launcher. So a street sweeper, a scoped weapon that was fully auto, and a heavy for easier heavy target killing. I don't bother w stealth guns because seem useless the AI seems to know where you are eventually anyways since you're always outnumbered and they somehow just know when you've taken someone out silent or not. Idk maybe should try it more.

 

[Hertzian56]

I got a bit different options in later story of FC2, where you are sent at different times to assassinate the leaders of the APR or UFLL if you just take out one of them the other always offers you a deal to take out the other sides leadership or the other leader who wants the other leader gone in the same faction, so you can do that or proceed with mission as given at first. In one of them the counteroffer means you are let inside the building without having your weapons taken away, meaning even the guards want this leader taken out. Probably just the bribes or something but that was interesting to do.

I always try to do all buddies missions where possible too as you'll get new and different stuff if you put off the main missions as long as you can. I did get to the end of this second playthrough and just stopped at the fixed ending of meeting the Jackal at the prison and then going into the Heart of Darkness area of the game to grab diamonds and blow up the gorge or fleeing whichever one you choose. It's a slog of an area, mostly empty jungle and swamps and no vehicles mostly then the same things waiting at the end, nah.

So I loaded up one of the earliest saves I had in Map1 and just do more stuff. I did the tower assassination contracts in the last run, maybe do the gunrunners ones this time. The predecessor tapes and the jackal tapes too. Look for diamonds more as well.