ok...so I think I made the transition from Act 1 to Act 2.

Prior to that, I'm afraid oJosip took a dirt nap. He bailed me out and all was well when I drove away... but then he was dead. No clue what happened.

spoiler warning

Man... act 1 ended jacked up. I chose to stick with my buds, probably the same thing you did, Ox. The new area seems a bit tougher... I know I'm getting pwnt more, and the lack of support is making that a bigger deal. I actually played through getting to the boat, then to the city, but got pwnt trying to get out of the city and I didn't have a save for a LONG time... so now I'm back at the boat. The Mk.19s are awesome... I love those things, though the range isn't accurate.

I tried the dart rifle, basically its a very silent sniper rifle, that has 5 rounds only (1 in barrel 4 on belt) and it goes into the MG/RPG slot.

Remember the "shoot in the leg, wait for buddy to show up, shoot both" tactic on the vids, well it aint working in my game, its either instant kill or the dude just runs and guns away.

it works for me, though it's not 100%. Sometimes I shoot them in the leg and they ignore it... sometimes they freak, throw their weapon and do the buddy thing like the vid, and sometimes they just die. I've also had them do the buddy thing from arm and chest shots. Mainly I do leg shots, though as mentioned it doesn't always work. If I shoot them in 1 leg and they're still fully mobile, usually shooting them in the other works.

I'll see if I can vid it with fraps or something. Personally I love it... I do that to people constantly just because it's fun. I don't even usually kill them later, unless they're shooting at me with a pistol or I need to in order to unlock a safehouse.

Thanks for the heads-up on the dart gun. Seems like it only works on a full stealth outfit then... because dropping your flamethrower/explosives/rocket launcher for a gun that only packs 5 darts seems kinda lame, most of the time.

And yeah, I've seen guys help each other out too. But because I usually use the biggest, baddest sniper weapon and try to hit the torso, they're usually dead before somebody gets to them. The AI is actually pretty intelligent apart from some quirks. They will very actively flank you...I've been surprised many times by that. The only "problem" is that in the first part of the game their weapons are shit and they can't hit anything...it gets worse later on (but then, you get better and have access to better quality weapons).

I fucking hate it when I run out of ammo or end up in a bad situation (close combat with a sniping setup etc) and I have to pick up an enemy weapon...most of them are crap, jam all the time. Ever seen an enemy have his weapon jam? It's pretty funny. He's standing there frantically jacking his gun and yelling "cover me!!".

Btw, I found a golden AK. no shit.


SPOILER

Yeah, the end of Act 1 is pretty harsh. But cool. I chose to help my buddies too...what do I care about the resistance? As long as they get me my fix...

I thought the whole desert storm part was pretty cool. Who was helping you out on the barge? In my game it was Nasreen Davar. That's one of the hardest parts of the game btw...afaik. Mortars shelling you, ships bombing, RPG dudes on the shores...wow.

* spoilers in this post *

The first time I played the barge part (I may have mentioned how I fucked up and didn't save) it was some guy. The second time it was Nasreen. Luckily I'm good now. I found escaping the town after the shit explodes the be the hardest part... the first time I got just owned. The second time I just sprinted for it and had a ride as close to the exit as I could get it... no big deal there.

I love the fact there are jeeps with various weapons now. There's the usual one with the M-60 or whatever it is, but then there's one with what looks like a .50 machine gun on it.. that thing kicks some ass. Once I got lucky and snagged one with a mk19 grenade launcher... total pwnage until I backed up and got the bumper stuck in a mountain.

As before, I'm doing mostly side missions... assassination, resistance when necessary and weapons. I've acquired the top-tier sniper rifle... it's awesome. Is there some way to zoom the scope? I don't think so and it kinda takes away from the game imo. I also upgrade from my mac 10 to the Uzi. Still hauling around the RPG/flame thrower.

I did try a silent loadout... silenced mp5, silenced pistol, but it wasn't so successful. I prefer the complete destruction approach. And mortars are quite annoying. :p I plan on buying one soon so I can play with it. Unfortunately I got rid of the free one you pick up in the desert before using it.

I actually didn't like the new machine guns on the jeeps. Well, not the one with the "thumping" machine gun (as opposed to a traditional machinegun). I'm not talking about a grenadelauncher, cause it doesn't seem very effective against vehicles.


I finished the game, btw. The ending is...underwhelming. I mean, it's cool in a way but there's a lot that made me go "wtf" and frankly doesn't make much sense. Everything feels a little bit unhinged and hurried.

But don't worry, there's still hawt action. And it's not NEARLY as crazy an ending as in the original FC. Maybe I should just have kept in mind that this is, after all, just a shooter and not an RPG. But I feel that they fell short a little in their attempt to involve the player in te storyline. Meh, see what you guys think.

P.S. I found this gem on the ending of the original FC...funny, given how much we bitched about it on here:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=169300

OK, I finished FC2. The ending was... less than satisfying. Oh well. It was still a good game, though in reality it wasn't quite as 'open' as I would have liked. Not much in the way of side missions either. Still, the graphics are awesome and it was a lot of fun. Now on to Fallout 3.

I'll probably replay this game at a higher difficulty once I tire of F3.

Heh, congrats. Yeah, the ending was an anticlimax. At least it wasn't INSANE like in FC1, though.



HUGE SPOILERS


I don't know if you had the same thing happened (I assume you did) but wtf was up with all your old buddies ganging up on you? It was kinda cool how your best chapter 1 buddy walks from behind that plane but that doesn't excuse that there was no point whatsoever to the scene. My best chapter 2 buddy (Nasreen) was like "no he's one of us" and then still proceeds to start shooting me. Wtf?! At the very least they could have had her fight with me. That would have been a little twist, not the weird-ass gangbang thing.

Another thing that irked me was the lack of options when dealing with the Jackal at the end. Basically, your options were to die in fashion A or die in fashion B. Yeah...not really what i had in mind. If I had my way I'd have killed the Jackal still, get the diamonds and fucking split. I'll be a worse person for it, sure, but then FC2 isn't My Little Pony.

You know what it is? Once you stop 'pretending' like it's more than a shooter, a really great shooter with amazing graphics, this is a superb game. The problem is that they wanted to bring too much to the table at once. The freedom is relative, ie you can't bust down the door of one of the rebel leaders' HQ and put a bullet through their heads right then and there at the beginning (I tried - you can kill the guard but the door suddenly won't open anymore ) and so forth. The story starts out well and is actually voice acted pretty well if you find enough of the jackal tapes. But in the end their attempt to create a 'heart of darkness'-style descent into madness and destruction just...collapses. I think they were told "right, just wrap up the story, the graphics are hawt and everything works so we're releasing this thing". Makes sense, it's a shooter. But it would perhaps have been better to drop the story altogether instead of having it limp on like some Frankenstein. In the end I don't think most pure shooter fans didn't mind either way...but if you're into playing story-based games (like us) you tend to expect a bit more.

*spoilers*

Yea, I agree. The story was wasted.. lots of potential at the beginning but then it kinda peters out. I think they were going for a GTA type thing, but though the story pretty much matched (GTA stories aren't exactly deep) the lack of mission choice kinda hurt that.

Agreed on the wtf buddies thing. That was just stupid and invalidated a big chunk of the game. Though it was fun walking around and having my buddies eat a bullet when they were down and hurting. There was no option to heal them, unfortunately.

In fat, the entire end, from when you meet the jackal at the prison, is just dumb. If I were Ubi I'd release a patch to replace that entire end section.

More likely, they'll release a paying expansion where they weave in another retarded storyline to keep the console kiddies happy

There's always the odd chance of a modder answering our prayers, but that'll take a while.

Good for when it's time to revisit FC2: bonus missions

http://game-on.intel.com/eng/games/farc ... fault.aspx

I'm sure you could also unlock them using regedit, but meh.

I have a feeling that FC2 might live on for a long time in communty mods, btw. The editor is user-friendly, the community is big and the engine is..appealing.

who knows, I may want to play with the editor. Assuming it allows scripting, it'd be fun to dream up some clankiller mission mod. Add some real branching quest lines.

and it should be named "Coup de Satis"

haha, that works for me. That assumes I'll actually have some time on my hands at some point to mess with it.

I can't wait. I'm thinking of trying my hand at the Fallout 3 GECK.

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Main_Page