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The pitfalls of playing Far Cry 2 on a PC
As much as I adore Far Cry 2, and as gorgeous as it must look on a PC, I'm not interested in playing it anywhere but the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.
Not because I don't prefer shooters on the PC. I do. All things being equal, I'm an advocate of the old "shooters are better with a mouse-and-keyboard" argument. And not because I don't have a good PC. I do. I'm pretty happy with my system and it hasn't met a game it can't handle. And not because I think it won't look better on the PC. I do. Having played Fallout 3 on both the Xbox 360 and the PC, I'm floored by how much better it looks on the PC. I expect something similar would be the case with Far Cry 2.
But the reason I have no interest in playing on the PC is because I like it too much. It's one of the most relaxing shooters I've ever played. Unlike most shooters, there's something so serene about Far Cry 2, which takes time to breathe between firefights. It's one of the most lovely games I've ever played, and it's not afraid to expect you to just sort of wallow in that loveliness when you're not shooting or stalking.
But if I were playing on a PC, I would constantly worry either a) whether I could get it to look better, or b) whether I could get it to run faster. Between firefights, concern A would be in effect. During firefights, concern B would be in effect. I would spend lots of time in the options screens. I would mess with things like antioscropic filtering and blooming, even though I have no idea what those are. I would want to go to places like this to make sure I had tuned it perfectly.
But playing on the Xbox 360 offers freedom from choice. It looks how it's going to look, and I have no say in the matter. Even having an option for v-sync in Saints Row 2 was a source of anxiety for me. To v-sync or not to v-sync? That was constantly in the back of my head as Stillwater exploded around me, and every time there was a stutter in the framerate or an onscreen tear, it popped into the front of my mind. But in Far Cry 2, it's entirely out of my hands. I can just relax and let the game happen.
(And congrats to Far Cry 2 and publisher/developer Ubisoft for just hitting a million copies sold!)
By roBurky at 5:30 AM ON 11/12/08
Actually, I have found Far Cry 2 to be entirely free of PC tweakneed symptoms. I've never known an FPS to just work out of the box as well as Far Cry 2 did.
By il dottore at 8:34 AM ON 11/12/08
I completely sympathize!
That must be one of the top five reasons why I'm getting tired of gaming on PC: the constant need/compulsion to tweak, and mod, and optimize. I must have spent a dozen hours just modding Oblivion back in the day (maybe I can use this texture replacement, but then can I still use 8x anisotropic filtering? Aaargh!!!).
It takes from the enjoyment by always making me think about this very practical, boring aspect which has nothing to do with the game.
Viva freedom FROM choice!!!
By Insaneboy at 9:25 AM ON 11/12/08
I recommend that we take your free will away!
That way... you won't have to worry about anything. Isn't that just better?
By madkevin at 9:56 AM ON 11/12/08
This is my exact reason for playing Fallout 3 on the 360. Sure, it looks better on the PC, but if Oblivion is any indication I would have spent more time fiddling and tweaking the graphics than I did just playing it. With the 360, I can ignore all that stuff and just enjoy it.
By helmuth at 12:01 PM ON 11/12/08
I spent more time writing this post that I did on the graphic settings screen, and that includes a little tweaking. OCD can be medicated, you know.
By malkav11 at 2:38 PM ON 11/12/08
Fallout 3 autodetected my settings for me. After I tweaked some of the view distance values up and added anisotropic filtering, I was done. It looks great and runs great.
Far Cry 2, I confess to spending a couple hours messing with the benchmarking tool, which came to the conclusion that the settings made little difference to my frame rate which was always going to thud to a halt in certain places. So I went into the game, put pretty much everything as high as it would go except resolution and anti-aliasing (2x only), and have been having fun ever since. I don't know what kind of frames per second I'm getting, but my play experience has been steady and smooth, so a) the benchmark lied and b) who cares what the exact number is?
All thanks to the 9800GTX+, so far as I can tell. All hail!
By Gordon Cameron at 4:32 PM ON 11/12/08
"Antioscropic filtering."
Awesome. :)
By Chijts at 4:37 PM ON 11/12/08
I gotta agree with Tom here, although not necessarily for this game. I too am always fiddling with these things if it's on the PC. That's one of the reasons I bought an Xbox. It can also turn out cheaper this way I guess.
By stealthdf2 at 4:55 PM ON 11/12/08
Hmm sounds like someone needs some anti anxiety pills when he uses the computer.
By SilverGST at 12:51 PM ON 12/27/08
My computer has 2g ram, and an Nvidia video card that just rocks. It is so great, I dont have to mess with any settings to get it to run flawlessly. I suggest people upgrade their machines. There is no computer game that my machine cant handle.
SilverGST:
My computer has 2g ram, and an Nvidia video card that just rocks. It is so great, I dont have to mess with any sett...More »