Far Cry 2 first impressions

 For too long has the corridor shooter been the only shooter. A corridor shooter is intensely linear, with only to directions to proceed in: Forward or backward. While the corridor shooters were great last-gen, with Halo and Half Life, they are getting a bit stale now. Hopefully, they will soon be replaced by the sandbox shooter. Games like Crysis and Far Cry 2 encourage you to make tactical decisions about things that are far above the corridor shooter. Rather then deciding, say, should I go left or right, you think about things like the time of day or whether you should let this character die or backstab faction A to do jobs for faction B.

The core difference between a corridor shooter and a sandbox shooter is that in the sandbox shooter you can play it your way. You could opt to make hit and run raids with a vehicle, or make a distraction with remote controlled mine and take your objective with little trouble while the guards are investigating. I hope that Far Cry 2,which allows you to do all these things, becomes the prototype for the genre. 

 Far Cry 2 takes place in Africa, and you play as one of 9 mercenaries from foreign countries. Your brought in to take out the arms dealer know as The Jackal, but that soon goes wrong when your character contracts Malaria. You eventually find some pills, and after a brief tutorial you are flung into a war torn Africa. The UFLL(United Front for Liberation and Labor) and the APR (Alliance for Popular Resistance) are tearing the Savannah apart with constant fighting.

The towns are all under ceasefire, but you will  find plenty of guard posts hanging around the Savannah. 

 Far Cry 2's open ended gameplay flow like this: Get a mission, which are available at almost every point of interest. Find a vehicle, and walking is not an option. Most missions can easily take place 10 miles away from where you received it. Then you have to scout the opposition, marking points of interest on you map. Then you have to formulate a plan. The worst approach is to go in guns blazing. Then,after getting past the guards, you finish up the mission and find a new one.

The gunplay in FC2 is different than most titles.Hip firing is totally and completely inaccurate, so you have to look down your iron sights. This system works well, and it cuts off all those stupid run and gun things we are used to using.Most enemies can take about 5-10 bullets, though one snot to the head kills instantly. Some of the new mechanics are great though. First is fire. Fire is no longer just a lame effect confined to one small area. It spreads quickly through the dry grass,and tactical use of it really helps with an assault. It can go inside buildings and is even affected by the wind. When used properly, fire will force you enemies out of their cover or alienate them from the fighting.

The other cool thing is that enemies no longer just walk around. They have to eat, sleep, patrol at certain times, clean their weapons, check for ieds and socialize.

Far Cry 2 is incredibly innovative and just comepletely amazing. expect a full review soon. 

Team Fortress 2 review

TF2 has been under development for a long time. The first game was a free mod for Quake and was soon adapted for Half Life 1. Soon after that, Tf2 was announced. Now, a decade later, its out.

The most obvious thing about TF2 is the art style. It looks like a Pixar movie with guns. Since there is no way to describe it, here is a picture

The graphics actually have a much more practical application then just looking cool. They are designed so that each class has a distinct out line. In most games most classes have different skins, but animate the same. While this system is fine for seeing what class a certain player is up close, it fails utterly from afar. In TF2,  since each character has such a distinct outline, you can see who's who from a distance. While this may not sound game changing, it allows you to see who is around you very quickly at any given time, this is essential when things get chaotic.

The nuts and bolts of TF2 gameplay is about class warfare. Each class fills a niche, and some will be entirely ineffective against certain classes whilst others will excel. The game is roughly based around supporting the offensive classes with defensive classes to slowly inch your way forward. The game does a great job of having a frontline mechanic, as sentry guns provide a very strong disincentive to go to far in into enemy territory. 

The only real problem with TF2 are them maps. A few have certain instances where a single engineer can just absolutely dominate with a sentry gun, and pyros never really seem to do okay. They either laughably fail completely or kill the entire team. It makes playing them frustrating. 

overall 9/10

Half-Life 2 Episode 1 review

Half-Life 2 was utterly amazing, an left you with a real cliffhanger. But rather than make a Half-Life 3, Valve decided to produce a series of episodes with a smaller amount of gameplay and a 20 price tag. Each episode is just that, an episode. Each has a fairly self contained story , but they also add a little bit to the main  plot.

Episode 1 picks up right where Half-Life 2 left off. You awake in the ruins of the citadel and are greeted by Alyx and d0g. You are almost always accompanied by Alyx. She helps out in firefights and gives you hints for puzzles. The only real new game mechanic is that allot of times enemies will keep spawning until you have solved a puzzle, or blocked a door. In these times you are forced to leave Alyx with the enemies and find a solution. This leads to the real problem with her: dying. No matter how hard you try, Alyx will never die in combat. All this does is give you a easy way out of every situation where Alyx is right next to you. With her, hiding behind a wall is almost as effective as firing.

To counteract this, Valve beefed up the opposition. There are just more enemies then your used to dealing with. In the encounters where have to solve a puzzle during combat, you have to almost completely forgo firing, and just hope you have enough health to take everything they throw at you.

Besides this, Episode 1 is a blast. the pacing is great, there are no bugs, and few sections are downright brilliant. Most of the enemies are zombies, and the game does a great job of making them feel a bit more scary this time around. You really have to think in order to survive these attacks, rather than just shoot them before they get to you. There are no new weapons in Episode 1, and the environments are the same as the end of HL2. The sound is much better,and there is noticeably more music this time around. The only new enemy is pretty cool, but I wont spoil if for you.

Half-Life 2 episode 1 is a great game, and it leaves you  wanting more at the end. 8.5 out of 10