Game Analysis: Far Cry 2
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Game Analysis: Far Cry 2 Jakob Lindh - 2009-05-24 - [email protected] 1 Table of contents 1.Introduction..................................................................3 2.Far Cry 2………….............................................................4 2.1.A short history.………………………………………………………….........................4 2.2.The game experience..........................................................................5 2.2.1.Singleplayer.....................................................................................5 2.2.2.Multiplayer………….........................................................................15 3.Far Cry 2 and player created content...........................17 4.Conclusions………….......................................................23 5.References..................................................................24 6.Bibliography................................................................24 2 1.Introduction This game analysis will be about the PC version of Far Cry 2. I will start with the single player experience of Far Cry 2, going through aspects like game play, player experience, characteristics, immersion and so on, before moving on to shortly write about multiplayer. I’ll then finish the analysis with a short in depth look at player created content and my work using the level editor. The reason that I picked Far Cry 2 and player created content, was mostly because I have been working a lot with the level editor for this game. I have been building multiplayer levels for the course "Introduction to Level Design" at Gotland University in Sweden, using the level editor that ships with Far Cry 2. Therefore, I thought that Far Cry 2 would be the ideal game to choose for my final assignment analysis for the course "Introduction to Game Design" at Luleå University of Technology. I thought that both playing through the game, getting to know its foundation and playability, as well as getting an in depth look at the level editor and the player created content would be a strong combination for a game analysis. Enjoy the analysis! 3 2.Far Cry 2 2.1.A short history Far Cry 2 is a FPS (First Person Shooter) published by the French video game developer Ubisoft and developed by the subsidiary studio Ubisoft Montreal in Canada. Far Cry 2 was released on October 21, 2008 in North America, and on October 24, 2008 in Europe. Far Cry 2 takes place in a made-up, although never named, African nation during present time. The nation is beset by civil war, closely followed by anarchy, and your part in this mess is easy; kill a man known only as “The Jackal”, an ill-famed arms-dealer who has supplied both fighting parts in the war with weapons. Although Far Cry 2 is marketed as the true sequel to Far Cry, an FPS published by Ubisoft but developed by the German studio Crytek, released on March 23, 2004 in North America and on March 26, 2004 in Europe, it doesn't share any characters, settings or the likes at all with its supposed prequel, thus making it not a real worthy sequel according to me. Although I have never played the prequel myself. Far Cry is set on a south pacific archipelago with beaches, rainforests and even ultra modern research labs with mutants and monsters, having quite The Island of Doctor. Moreau-feeling, making it rather different from Far Cry 2's more realistic setting in Africa with civil war . Also, the game play is different between the two, with Far Cry 2 having more open ended game play over a large play field, and Far Cry being more close quarters and compact. Before developing Far Cry 2, Ubisoft Montreal also developed other Far Cry games for the X- Box and X-Box 360 such as Far Cry Instincts, Far Cry Instincts: Evolution and Far Cry Instincts: Predator, and also the game Far Cry Vengeance for the Wii. These games are all pretty much remakes of the original Far Cry game with some changes to the story, and the addition of "feral abilities" at the player’s disposal, including Feral Smell, Feral Strength and Regeneration. These abilities are not present in the original Far Cry or its sequel Far Cry 2. Cover art from the various Far Cry games. 4 2.2.The game experience 2.2.1.Singleplayer So let's get started. The first thing you do before you actually start playing the single player part of Far Cry 2 is that you pick one of nine pre-made character mercenaries to play as throughout the game. The characters have very diverse backgrounds, experiences and age differences. In the podcast “Understanding players and player experiences”, Frans Mäyrä talks about Semiosis; sign-based meanings in games. He gives an example of how characters can be described in games. In Far Cry 2 you cannot play as a female, although having them appear later as mercenaries in the game. The question is if the game already here gives some kind of subtle message that it is geared towards a male audience. The females that are in the game are not portrayed as over-feminine like in some other games, but it is still an interesting question and heads up for which gender the developers had in mind for playing this game. Anyhow, I think that being able to choose a character like this gives the game a deeper perspective. Although the information given about the different characters is rather slim, and could have been given a bit more effort to further the immersion for the player, it adds a role play element to a game that isn't a role playing game (RPG), or at least isn't marketed as one. Nonetheless, there are quite a few things in this game that are sniffing on the RPG genre, at least according to me. But more about this a little later. 5 A screenshot of where you choose which mercenary to play. After you have chosen a character, you select one of four difficulty levels; Easy, Normal, Hardcore or Infamous, and then the actual playing starts. The game starts with a cut-scene of your character riding in the back of a jeep being driven by an indigenous taxi driver. He briefs you on the current situation between the two warring factions in the country, the APR (Alliance for Popular Resistance) and the UFLL (United Front for Liberation and Labor). Once you arrive at the hotel in the town of Pala, your character gets a malaria attack. That's right, your character suffers from malaria throughout the game which bursts out in attacks with intervals of forty minutes of game time. You need to take pills against the symptoms when they occur. If you ignore them for too long, then your character will die. When the attacks come, you are notified by the screen getting blurry together with a yellow tone. 6 A screenshot of your character being overwhelmed of a malaria attack when first arriving at the town. You pass out after your first malaria attack upon arriving at the hotel. The next thing you see is a cut scene where you're lying in a bed in the hotel, very sick with malaria symptoms and the Jackal going through your things and finding your folder where it says that your "orders are to terminate" him. For some reason he lets you live though and disappears. You grab your gun, your knife and your folder and try to get up but fall to the floor due to a sudden explosion which blows a hole in one wall of the room. You get up from the floor and now finally the game really starts. 7 Your first face to face meeting with The Jackal in the hotel in Pala. As the game starts out for you, you are equipped with your gun and your knife, and it is your task to get out of the hole in the wall that the explosion just created. Civil war has erupted in the town and you need to escape the mayhem or get caught in the cross fire. The game learns you the basic crouch, jump, aim, interact buttons as you make your way through the rubble and out of the building, and does this by pausing the game and telling you with written text in the middle of the screen which buttons to press for different actions. When you have read the information you can press an OK-button under the text and move on. As I am quite used to games of this type, it gets kind of annoying when the game pauses like this, although probably being helpful to players that have never played FPS's before. To a more experienced player I can feel that it disrupts the flow of the game to some extent though. In a podcast interview made by Annakaisa Kultima with Jesper Juul named “Analyzing games, rules and narrative”, Jesper Juul talks about how maybe it is more legitimate in more playful and casual environments to show the controls and buttons, than in a more “serious” environment like the one in Far Cry 2. I have to agree since you are already immersed in the game with the intro having pumped you with adrenaline and you don’t want to break the immersion at this point, you just want to start unloading rounds with that new pistol of yours. 8 After having gotten out of the hotel in Pala, you pass out again. Waking up, you realize that you have been saved by one of the many foreign mercenaries working for one of the factions, and now it is time for you to work for him and his faction. It is from here that the rest of the game proceeds. Far Cry 2 acts like a lot like other FPS's out there. There are a few things that make a FPS an FPS, and according to the podcast "Video Game Genres" with Janne Paavilainen, some typical features for this particular genre are the following: First person perspective, linear game play, virtual world, single key character, weapons, ammo and health, collectable items, different types of enemies, multiplayer features, and finally modding possibilities.