FC3: First impressions

[Art Blade]

Using my camera, I am looking at an outpost on fire, caused by a local merc who obviously intended to scare away dangerous animals.. if only he hadn't used his Molotovs for that, 

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[Jim di Griz]

Some lovely imagery from you all - I am going to be so dead due to being too distracted by sunsets and flowing fields of grass that an army of mercs will be able to sneak up on me...

[PZ]

Man from what you guys are writing I can hardly wait to get into the game!

How is fast travel?

[Art Blade]

at any given time (say, even from under water while being attacked by a shark) you open the map and click on a fast travel location and a loading screen appears.. and you're there.  :-D

[Art Blade]

you might as well try hang-gliding into the sunset  ^-^

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[PZ]

at any given time (say, even from under water while being attacked by a shark) you open the map and click on a fast travel location and a loading screen appears.. and you're there.  :-D

:-X  Developers usually make it so that if you are under attack you cannot fast travel.

That is beautiful landscape  :-X Can you make the mini map go away?

[Art Blade]

the mini map goes away as soon as you quit the game  >:D No, you can't get rid of it as far as I know.

[JRD]

A few more questions... very important ones

- If I shoot a shirtless merc, point blank in the chest with a .45, 9mm or AK, he dies?  ????

- Can you still attach IED's to all sorts a of surfaces? (I'll try a hang glider bombing or jet ski bombing this time... hell, I'll try to stick and IED to a tiger and have it chasing me into an enemy camp before I blow him up  >:D )

[PZ]

...If I shoot a shirtless merc, point blank in the chest with a .45, 9mm or AK, he dies?  ????

I recall this was a sore spot with you in FC2 (me as well).  I'm not sure why Ubisoft decided to make the mercs unreasonably resistant to lead because as is evidenced by modding weapon effectiveness, you can easily change parameters to make it more realistic.  For instance, I changed my 6P9 so that a single bullet would kill.

Like you, I certainly hope that either the parameters are more realistic, or that we will eventually be able to mod the game.

[Art Blade]

All the mercs will die by a single headshot, a single knife takedown or knife assault slash. Shots in the body.. depending on where you hit them and with what calibre you shoot, you won't need unreasonably stupid amounts of shots, just as many as you'd think seem believable. In other words, don't worry about FC2's "glitches" any more. FC3 is far more realistic :)

You can stick both C4 (remote control needed to blow it up or shoot the C4) and mines (!) to objects. Mines explode on motion detection. :) You can place several packs of C4 and either blow them all up at once or blow at least three of them up individually yet sequentially with your remote control. :) :-X

I know they stick because I rigged a Jeep. First, by accident, I stuck a mine to its rear and on purpose C4 to its front. Then a bear popped up (I hadn't paid attention) and he came close making aggressive sounds that made me aim my shotgun at him. He was about one metre away from the rear of the Jeep when I suddenly died in a rather big explosion. He must have set off the mine..  :-[

[PZ]

Oh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boyOh boy, Oh boy!

I can't wait to get the game - very soon now!

^-^

[Diwas Amatya]

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8488/8242997505_60acd9e025_h.jpg
This beast of a revolver is a guaranteed one shot kill, regardless of where you hit. Loving it, its all too easy now :)

[PZ]

Cool  :-X is this weapon something you need to earn, or wait until you have passed a certain amount of the game?

[Art Blade]

I already have and use the .44 Magnum with red (actually it's a blue) dot visor.

For PC, it is something you can buy with 30 U-Play tokens from the Ubisoft platform -- the thing that you need to fire up FC3, something like GfWL or steam. At least if you purchased the game through steam, you'll need both u-play and steam at the same time. Playing the game will unlock u-play achievements which will result in sufficient tokens to get the revolver.

[fragger]

Yay, a Magnum revolver :-X I haven't seen one of those in a game since Half Life 2 8)

Question: Do you have a way to store weapons, as with the weapons crates in FC2?

[Art Blade]

Yes  :) and there is no limit to it  ^-^

Every arms dealer (erm, there is only one I know of, in your first "GP" which is called outpost in FC3 and every vending machine (which is in EVERY safehouse) has all of the unlocked owned weapons as well as those that are still for sale. Same goes for ammo and all the other stuff you can buy and or equip. The vending machines also buy your loot. In other words, a safehouse is your Command Centre that contains everything up to the ability to fast travel.  :)

[fragger]

OK, I'm in the islands! Can sum up my first impressions in one word - BOOYEAH!!!

The game initially launched me with graphics maxed out, but even though my rig passed muster for the recommended specs it was still a tad jerky. A bit of fiddling with the graphic options has gotten that sorted though, is now silky smooth and looks amazing.

Geez, where to start? Let me get my one big gripe out of my system first - having to connect to the net to play. Even though you can play offline, it appears that you still have to connect to UPlay in order to switch to offline mode, which doesn't make much sense to me. It's entirely possible that I'm missing something, but knowing as I do that there are times when I simply cannot get online at all this could be a cause for much colouring of the air in future...

One other minor gripe I have is not being able to save during missions, instead having to submit to a checkpoint system. Outside of missions it's cool, you can save anytime. This is just a minor gripe, mind you.

Otherwise, it's all good - very, very good. I'm gonna get hooked on this title for sure :-() Have done a couple of missions, at the moment I'm on my way to see some doctor for I think a magic mushroom mission or something. As others have mentioned, there is no end of distractions along the way in an environment that's going to take a long time to get to know. I'm only a little ways in, but I can see it's BIG.

One funny moment. I came across a buffalo or some such animal in the bush, and being accustomed to the placid variety in FC2 I just stood and admired it, until it charged and butted me big time. Ow... first syringe of the game employed...

This time around, we're talking serious wildlife diversity :-X I found a small island in the middle of a lagoon with cassowaries on it. Amazing. A couple of them had a go at me, I had to drop them both but I got a nice set of cassowary leathers out of them :-()

This game will keep me occupied for quite some time, methinks. Worth the wait :-X

EDIT: I just discovered that it IS possible to launch the game without having to connect to the net, so my biggest gripe has been mitigated :-()

OK, back into it... Something tells me I'll be going in to w@&k bleary-eyed tomorrow...

[PZ]

Good read, fragger; likely more than a few of us will be bleary-eyed due to FC3.  While I dearly love the Assassin's Creed series, FC2 was my all time top favorite, and there is something about FC3 that is quite reminiscent of FC2.  It feels like they took the best of FC2 and made it w@&k in FC3.  Sure, there are things that I would love to change (like making the HUD disappear), but all in all, this is shaping up to be a star.

[Art Blade]

Fragger!! Nice one, bruvva :-D :-X Great read.. reminds me of, back in the day, my own first steps in FC3.  :-()

I'm glad to read that you don't have to worry about net problems. I don't think that you're going to miss out on anything worthwhile with regards to being online. Maybe you can't score u-play tokens and therefore not redeem something like the .44 Magnum "hand cannon" or a tattoo biker pack or a wallpaper or a special mission (that's all what they have there for you). Else, you won't see if "friends" on u-play scored at a Rakyat Challenge which would cause a message on the menu screen (where at first all you see will be those "visit UBI on fb" or some such messages). That should be about it. Of course, no co-op and no multiplayer. But that's it. All the rest is SP and most certainly completely doable while being offline. :)

[fragger]

Cheers, my good fellows :)

I have a few more observations after last night's mini-marathon (went to bed at 12:30 am due to totally losing track of time :-())

In terms of main mission assignment, FC3 seems to be way more linear than FC2. While it's true that you can still roam free and explore, and that there are other things to do like hunt, find relics, unlock radio towers, etc, it appears that the "story" missions can only ever be played in the same sequence, i.e. no choosing between factions as per FC2.

Some cool stuff I've come across: I saw two pirates marching two civvies at gunpoint down a road below me. I took out the pirates and one of the civvies gave me money as a reward. That was cool. Another time I came across a fight between pirates and friendly villagers (these "merc wars" seem to be pretty common, I've come across a few already, including one where they all got attacked by komodo dragons at the same time). At first I joined in with the villagers and they were happy to have me - until I accidentally killed one of them, at which point they turned on me and suddenly I found myself in the middle of a three-way fight.

Wildlife is way more varied and certainly more dangerous. I ran into, and subsequently managed to slip away from, a nasty little group of pirates, only to get pounced on by a tiger :o You have to be pretty careful of many animals, they're not roadkill waiting to happen like they were in FC2. Though I got my first bear skin last night :-()

One thing of interest I noticed was in Dennis' village (name escapes me at the moment). A couple of people were sitting on the ground near the safehouse having a conversation and they had very strong New Zealand accents (Maori/English accents that is, not white NZers. They're different). The actors had to have been the genuine article as nobody else can get their accent that authentic, not even Aussies who are pretty close. This game was dev'd in the US, wasn't it? Interesting that they had a pair of NZ indigents in the cast.

Anyway, enough opining, must play some more :-() Except to say that whoever did the voice acting for Vaas did a great job. That's an excellent performance, worthy of a mainstream movie :-X

[PZ]

FC3 is actually more like AC3 now - a linear progression of missions with the ability to do as much free roam as you want.  Likely because the AC series has been so successful, Ubisoft decided to take the best of Far Cry and combine it with the best of the AC series.

[Art Blade]

not the worst decision UBI has ever made.  :-X

By the way, PC players:

quick save: F9
quick load: F11

:)

Oh.. take out GPs (called OutPosts in FC2) undetected to receive 1500 XP  :)

[PZ]

Oh.. take out GPs (called OutPosts in FC2) undetected to receive 1500 XP  :)

Nice  :-X  One of my regular activities in FC2 was to use the silenced 6P9 to take out everyone in a GP without ever raising the alarm.  Now I get to do it and receive recognition for my efforts >:D

[Art Blade]

Undetected does not necessarily mean "silent" -- just stay undetected. I successfully took out an outpost (1500XP) by lobbing grenades in and blowing up stuff.. they never knew what hit them  >:D

[PZ]

I see... so I can remain hidden shoot rockets and call it good  >:D