Best sandbox shooter?

[Peppermint Lounge]

Yep bought STALKER finally. Looking forward to dedicating time to it.

[Shaneus]

Same. Only paid about $3 for it, too!

[Peppermint Lounge]

This game is a buggy piece of shit in the later levels. Flying level is hideous. Back to cbf status.

[t0mby]

Which game are you talking about, Stalker?

[Peppermint Lounge]

Whoops, my bad. Crysis.

[Sonic Jam]

Crysis is the best of the games in the poll but it has a ton of issues preventing it from being a top class game, Crysis: Warhead on the other hand is spectacular and rights almost all the wrongs of th e original.

Highly recommended.

[Peppermint Lounge]

I'm not far enough into Far Cry 2 yet to be annoyed by it, but I can see how that will happen. For the checkpoints I just drive up to them with a jeep, get out and snipe a couple people, then jump on the turret and blast away at whatever moves (usually people coming at me in their own jeeps), then continue on. From the way people were talking about this game I was worried that the bad guys would suddenly respawn in these checkpoints while I was in the middle of wandering around in them, but that's not the case. I guess if you leave the scene for an hour or two of game time they'll be back. I can understand why they did that and how it's justified in the game world (life cheap, people expendable, checkpoint people get replaced), and I can also understand why it would start annoying players after awhile.

For the moment I'm still gawking at those wonderful environments. It looks fantastic and the day/night cycle and resultant lighting really makes it feel alive. Very impressive engine. I also like the feel of the weapons and the relative freedom to approach situations however I please and in my own time. The AI can certainly be stupid but it can also do a good job occasionally. I've had some interesting fights as a result, but then I've also had some by the numbers slaughters just to get past a section too.

There's the whole Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness vibe to it (which is obviously deliberate). I guess that's corny...but it's also a theme that never really gets old for me. Still way more suitable than most games' lame justifications. I can accept being a morally ambiguous Marlow type character more easily than being some righteous yank hoorah badass idiot, and at the very least it's got me thinking about reading the book again. The horror!

Anyway...I'm only a little way into the game and I've been taking it slow, but so far I'm glad I gave it a burl.

Perfectly captures my thoughts having finally, finally started this game yesterday. Every now and then Far Cry 2 would get into my head, pop up on my youtube feed, I'd read another retrospective saying how maligned but great it is. Each time I'd resist the temptation due to already being backed up with games but it wasn't going away. Installed. The late 2000s were a good time for shooters. Far more simulation mechanics than we get these days. I'm really digging what FC2 set out to do with no HUD, having to manually read the map, the phone calls. Started on Hardcore difficulty to amp up the sneaking and planning gameplay. Character models aside the game still looks great - weather, day/night cycles. Love the super fast forward still shot of the safe house while resting. Also liking how the story branches out early forcing you to choose against competing interests. Slight bummer at having to cap the game at 60fps due to the engine bugging out at higher Hz.

[GameHED]

I chose Far Cry 2. It reminds me of the movie Blood Diamond. When I first got it I was impressed by the open world and freedom and the need to actually care about quality of weapons not just fighting. (but not as annoying as Zelda Breath of The Wild's fragile weapons hehe)

Having said that newer Far Cry games have surpassed it in AI and gameplay. (if I remember correctly outposts respawn instantly in Far Cry 2 which is not realistic at all and actually quite annoying. If it wasn't for the exotic African setting and the attention to physics details I doubt many would remember it. It's like comparing Saints Row 2 to 3. 3 is polished with better controls and almost arcadey feel to combat, 2 had more soul and interesting setting and ideas with less polish)

Stalker would come 2nd, then Crysis.

BTW if you like Stalker, the next Metro game (Metro Exodus) is also going the open world route. So check it out soon! (although it's more like open areas not full blown open world which can be considered a good thing because the market is flooded with so many of them now)

Anyway if they ever remake Far Cry 2 (I think a lot of fans want that) they should include NPCs like various rich old women that travel to africa for sex tours.

I doubt ubisoft would have the balls to do that though. Sounds more like what Rockstar would do hehehe But having said that FC5 had a cougar in it.

[unfnknblvbl]

I do find it highly amusing that even modern PCs can't play Crysis at max settings and at full tilt all the time.

Have you played Far Cry 5 yet, Pep?

[Peppermint Lounge]

No. Will get but still have Far Cry 4 + season pack sitting there. New Dawn looks great also. Imagine trying to keep up with Ubisoft's rate of AAA game release. Far Cry alone is a job and a half.

[unfnknblvbl]

Are you going through them in order? FC4 is good and all, but FC5 poops on it in every single way possible.

[Peppermint Lounge]

No order. I played 3 this year finally. Put 75 hours into it and loved every second. The first FC I played was Blood Dragon. I'd intended to play 5 after 3 but loved 3 so much I bought 4.

I'm appreciating the hell out of FC2. Such a solid vision behind the game. No crosshair, no HUD, jamming weapons, malaria. All the stuff mentioned in the many gush pieces still being written about it. Glad I finally installed it. 10 years on and still one of the best trailers ever. Massive Attack - Angel ffs.

[GameHED]

Far Cry 5 also has some great music:

help me faith is brilliant (faith is the mind controlled hippie chic that you keep seeing in your hallucinations, if you pay attention to the notes you will find out who the real Faith is. Could this be ubisoft telling us that the iluminati has clones and look alike celebrities that get killed regularly as illuminati sacrifice?)
I think having multiple sub bosses was a good idea. It makes each region a little more unique. Plus the style of attacks against you is unique. (eg the military guy likes wolves so you better know how to bait them with meat and spear-chuck those shovels directly at thier head while hiding in the bush for a silent kill if you don't want guards to detect you. Animals can smell you like in Far Cry Primal so these are the first target to go for if you want those perfect undetected stealth runs for each outpost)

the song reminds me of cowboy bebop. (church scene episode):

I don't feel a thing
and I stopped remembering
The days are just like moments turned to hours

Mother Used to say if you want, you'll find a way
But mother never danced through fire showers

Walk in the rain, in the rain, in the rain
I walk in the rain, in the rain
Is it right or is it wrong
and is it here that I belong

I don't hear a sound
Silent faces in the ground
The quiet screams, but I refuse to listen

If there is a hell
I'm sure this is how it smells
Wish this were a dream, but no, it isn't

Walk in the rain, in the rain, in the rain
I walk in the rain, in the rain
Am I right or am I wrong
and is it here that I belong

Walk in the rain, in the rain, in the rain
I walk in the rain, in the rain
Why do I feel so alone
For some reason I think of home

^don't want to spoil but lets say there is a similar hostage situation in a church in the game with an entire community. Although the rain of bullets and explosion is not as stylish (FEAR was the game that captured the anime feel of action best)

I think the next Far Cry should be set in Japan way into the future when corporations have gotten too powerful and the police can no longer stop the criminals because they are outclassed by them. So the white collar criminals use various gangs to oppress people and this results in the rise of the vigilante groups who have no faith in the justice system who take matters into their own hands. They can use old 80s japanese animes like Bubble Gum Crisis as a template for how they can create the setting. And old 80s classic sci fi dystopian movies like Escape from New York, The Running Man, (for the mini games haha) and Mad Max (taking down motorcycle gangs that are trying to jack your vehicle while you travel through all the no-go zones)

Make it more of "The future of the 1980s" with an emphasis of the culture of that time. (people will still use close combat rail guns to stick sharp metal objects through robot's faces to penetrate the armor and kill the brain in a point blank range headshot which looks like you are punching them ie reduce the danger to the civilian population) This will be a way to capture some of the Cyberpunk crowd.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Are you going through them in order? FC4 is good and all, but FC5 poops on it in every single way possible.

Started FC5 last night. Going through the opening island and deciding on the performance sweet spot for minimum 60fps @ 1440p for my 6700k, RX480 8g, 16gb RAM system. Temporal AA, ultra textures, shadows and environment set to normal, everything else set to high is 98% there but it still noticeably dips occasionally into the 40s, usually when in or around water. Tried setting 60fps minimum via dynamic resolution scaling (adjusts rendered resolution independent of display resolution) and didn't find it unattractive at all. It's obviously < 1440p but still looks much sharper/less blurry than if I were to drop to display res to 1080p. It's actually a pleasant effect that appears to suit all the volumetric fog and lighting that's going on. It runs the game very noticeably smoother with an 80fps or so average so will run it for a while.

[unfnknblvbl]

I had to make a choice between 60fps and Ultra details. Thankfully FC5 allows you to cap the frame rate, so I capped it at 35fps and turned on V-Sync. Sure, the game only runs at 30fps, but that's not so much of an issue for me since I only ever play single player. Plus the game handles it really gracefully, unlike FC4.

Looking forward to getting at 2060 and smashing through it again at 60fps.

I hope you're doing yourself a favour and playing on the hardest difficulty, Pep. You do unlock a New Game+ mode after you finish it, along with a harder difficulty level, but I reckon I would have enjoyed it even more had I played it on hard the first time.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Yes am playing hard. You can change the difficulty in-game at any time btw. Currently running around with my suppressed neon Blood Dragon sniper rifle.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Have also settled with the following which Digital Foundry confirm are Xbox One X settings:

Ultra texture filtering
Normal shadows
Ultra geo/vegetation
High environment
High water
Normal terrain
Normal volumetrics

I’ve got HD textures switched on too.