LIKED:
- Map Navigation. The map screen in FC2 is simple to use and navigate. Instead of pausing your entire game while you look at the map, the protagonist simply pulls out a map in real time and looks at it. Just this little piece of detail brings you closer to the main character and makes you believe you are him (you can select out of 7 male characters which has no real gameplay impact, and I remember reading they had to cut the women as playable characters!). As you're looking at the map, you are staring through the protagonist's eyes, which is really cool for such a small detail. This features adds to the general theme of the game - improvisation. If you're driving a jeep and being chased by a bunch of bad guys at the same time, you better know how to drive and read a map at the same time! With a few button presses, you can easily toggle the zoom level of the map, which translates to the protagonist pulling out another map out for you using beautiful animation. The maps contain everything that you need and expect like mission objectives, enemy outposts, and even collectibles that you have found.
- Weapon Jamming. On one side, it's cool to see weapons slowly degrade with actual cosmetic changes that you can observe like rust and dirt. This mechanic makes you pick up weapons on the fly, once again contributing to the overall theme of improvisation - many times while you're engaged in fierce combat. One the flip side, every weapon that you pick up from the bad guys is in pretty terrible shape, meaning that it will be useless very soon, in some cases before you can even get done with the current firefight, causing you to scramble for yet another weapon. It's not so much fun wildly running around to find a usable gun - any gun while getting shot at from all directions (thanks to the hawk-eyed AI). All is not bad however, as there are weapons that you find in crates which start in perfect condition and deteriorate from there. I may be on the fence regarding this feature, but this mechanic works excellent in the grand scheme of things of improvisation.
- Fire Spread. The fire propagation in FC2 is the best out of any video games I've seen. Many weapons, some obvious like flamethrowers and Molotov cocktails, others less so (certain explosions) start a fire in the savanna grass which grows for a certain amount of time and area. The direction is uncontrollable by the player, adding an interesting random element, but goes with the wind, making it very realistic. Many times, the fire turns back on you, forcing you to quickly think on your feet. Once again, the random an uncontrollable fire propagation in FC2 welcomes... you guessed it improvisation with open arms. This is a very interesting Gamasutra interview with the programmer responsible for the fire implementation.
- Amazing Atmosphere. Seeing the sun go down in FC2 is a really beautiful moment. The shadows jump around the jungle realistically, and the world slowly turns dark. But it's not just the graphics that make the atmosphere good, it's all the little details - game map, individual vehicle dashboards, and architecture all help make up the atmosphere.
- Something New. Emphasizing actual (or similar to real) conflicts that are happening in Africa - the chaotic nature of civil wars, FC2 is the only game that does it, and for that, I applaud the developers for trying something new and the publisher for green-lighting it.
- Map Editor. Simply throwings objects onto the terrain which you can manipulate with a variety of brushes makes a very functional map editor. The cool thing is that you can enter the map instantly and play around sandbox style in your own creation. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions also shipped with the editor, which is unheard of in the FPS console market.
DISLIKED:
- Enemy AI. The AI in FC2 is good, a little too ridiculously good. So good in fact, that it hurts player choice, which is very odd, considering that's what the game is about. Taking a sneak approach always ends up with you quietly taking out 2 enemies, followed by the entire base converging on you... during nighttime. During the day? Enemies can see you ahead, no matter what kind of trees or shrubbery is blocking their field of vision. Like hawks with terminator-like vision, enemy soldiers will spot you from a mile away and open fire. Because of this, all missions pretty much boil down to you walking into an enemy compound with guns blazing and methodically cleaning camp.
This bring me to another negative issue that me and a lot of other players had - death by jeeps! Enemy soldiers can 1 hit kill you with their vehicles, which might be realistic, but not so fun. It's cool the first few times it happens, but you never feel safe ever again (once again, improvisation). There's an audible VROOOOM! sound cue when a vehicle is about to run you over, but it all it does is make the player sprint in a random direction and pray that the vehicle misses you. A lot of times, the AI decides to run you over while you're engaged in a heavy and very loud firefight, giving the player absolutely no time to judge where the vehicle is coming from. I would have liked to see some kind of an equipment piece that the player can buy that pings your map when an enemy vehicle is nearby.
I would have relaxed the AI, making it less accurate (not a 'lower the difficulty issue') because after playing many open world games, I found that having easier AI makes the game more enjoyable for the player. The skill of the AI is always offset by the quantity of enemies.
- Infinitely Respawning Military Checkpoints. Imagine this scenario - you're driving happily across the African jungle on your way to a mission when you come across an enemy checkpoint. No big deal - you kill all the bad dudes and clear the checkpoint, and then drive on through to complete your mission. However on your way back, you have to drive through the same checkpoint, and all the enemies are completely respawned! No matter how many times you clear out a checkpoint, the next time you pass it, all the enemies will be back, ready to gun you down! The fastest way to travel through the game world is by roads which are infested with these enemy checkpoints. If you don't travel by road, it will take you a very long time to reach your destination, making it never worth it. Coupled with the fact that the enemy AI is too good in this game, fighting the same enemies in the same spot becomes a hassle.
I understand why the designers chose to implement continuous enemy respawns at the checkpoints. It's a double edged sword - if there were no respawning enemies, once the player cleared out a checkpoint once, those parts of the game world would get very uneventful and even boring, making the player feel unthreatened and less time in the action. So they chose to respawn the enemies to keep the player on their toes at all times, which adds to the central theme of improvisation.
To fix this problem, I would add an icon for each checkpoint on the player's map that would start a timer as soon as it was destroyed by the player. When the timer expired, the checkpoint would be rebuilt and repopulated by enemy AI. Different checkpoints could have different timers, maybe even all of them being a random value from 10 - 30 minutes. The beauty of this fix is that players could strategically plan which roads to take depending on how much time is left on certain checkpoints.
- Buddies. Buddies are supposed to be a huge attraction of the game, but all they're good for is reviving you on the field of battle after you die. It's nice and gives you a 2nd chance, especially if you're run over by an enemy vehicle, but other than that, all the buddies are EXACTLY the same. There's nothing different about them, save for the model and voice actor - you don't get any unique weapons or equipment for having a specific buddy, no boosts, nothing. They all give you calls after you accept a mission, and advise you to do a mission their way, which is ALWAYS the better (i.e. easier) way to do a mission.
They do however add to the overall atmosphere of the game and the nature of the player meeting new people in an unknown land of Africa, I just wish they had more gameplay value.
- Voicework. I've never been to Africa, but according to this game, everybody there talks REALLY, REALLY fast. Playing the game with subtitles is a must, as you'll constantly miss what your contacts are saying to you. I don't know if Ubisoft was trying to make the game more authentic, with everybody talking so fast, but a lot of characters were lost in the crowd, and proved to be really unmemorable, thanks to them all talking like they're in some kind of a speech race. Interestingly, the characters talked normally in the trailers for the game, making me believe that the new, fast voice work was a last minute change.
