Jolt Country

So the first question you're asking me is, "Hey Ben! If you can stop bleeding out of your rectum for two seconds, answer me this: Can I run FarCry on my computer?"

Welp, I've got bad news and good news. The bad news is: NO!

The good news is: NEITHER CAN I, and I'm enjoying it!

I mean, if you've got the beefy video card/PC combo to be able to handle this baby at its higher-end settings, then god bless ya, but for us mortals without GeForce 6+ 2.5 gig video cards, we've got trouble! Here's what you're in for:

"DO YOU WANT FARCRY TO AUTODETECT YOUR VIDEO SETTINGS?"

(click Yes)

"TEXTURE QUALITY: LOW SPECIAL EFFECTS: LOW WATER QUALITY: LOW LIGHTING: LOW YOUR GENERAL WORTH AS A HUMAN BEING: LOW"

I said, "screw this", and set everything back up to "Medium". Then I fired up the game. The Coolest Opening Video Ever. Then I was given control of my guy...

And everything... stopped. Well, not 'stopped', but, everything started moving at about 4 FPS, if you catch my drift. On MEDIUM. That's not good, I say.

I set everything to LOW, and it started to run like I expected. Smooth and silky. But... "low"?

SECRET KEY TO CONFIGURING FARCRY: If you're having trouble with everything on MEDIUM (or HIGH, if you're that AWESOME), the one key setting is "LIGHTING". I can set everything else to medium or even high and still remain within playable levels, but you move that badboy (lighting) off LOW, and you (I) got some serious problems. Unfortunate, too, because where it really slows down with lighting set higher is INDOORS, and yet its OUTDOORS where the difference in setting really hits you. On LOW LIGHTING, palm trees don't sway. Underwater flora has remnants of whatever targa file the texture came from. Those are the two most noticeable things, but still, it'd be nice to see those palm trees swayin'.

That being said: WHOA, man! THIS is more like it. THIS is what I'm talking about. Halo is not what I'm talking about, but this IS. The first time you crawl your way out of the basement you start in and catch a peek of the lush tropical island you find yourself on, and you know... this is cool. This is very cool.

It's an ol' fashioned FPS in every respect, not far removed from Wolfenstein 3D in intent (blow badguys up, eat health, get weapons), but I mean... whoa, dude!

So, even if you can only run it on LOW, I'd still highly recommend it. Cuz, I mean, THIS is on low:



(And that mountain behind the foreground? That's no matte painting. You can go there. You can shoot things there.)

Okay, here's the news:

I don't care if my computer can't run it right.

Far Cry, and no longer Half Life, is the greatest FPS of all time.

(Well, CS is the greatest FPS of all time, but we're talking single-player experience here.)

(And only if you like having to be all stealthy and think about shit instead of just running in guns blazing.)

(Which might work too, but I'm not good enough to do it. And anyway, it's more fun the "sneaky" way.)

I mean, LOOK AT THIS SHIT:

pinback wrote:It's an ol' fashioned FPS in every respect, not far removed from Wolfenstein 3D in intent (blow badguys up, eat health, get weapons)

This, as it turns out, is not exactly correct.

BINOCULARS are a big part of Far Cry. The deal is, you enter a particular "theater of battle", but since each theater tends to be (as you've seen from the screenshots) huge and sprawling, there's little way to know what the hell is going on. So you got BINOCULARS.

But they're SPECIAL binoculars, you see, ones that can spot and (once you've spotted them) continually record the location and mood (kickin' it, on guard, or after you) of anyone you get within their scopes.

Is it realistic? No.

Does it add an entirely new level of... tactics, of... tension... of voyeuristic titillation???

Why, yes. Yes it does.

Would it do so if the locale wasn't so wonderful to just gape at, both awe- and dumbstruck?

Eh. Maybe.

Usually it wouldn't make sense to compare a 3 year old console port to a new game designed for the PC but then again, usually people don't post "screenshots" at 1021x260 resolution.

Wutever.

While Worm is taking a break, Jack Straw will be filling in as your handy, local unhelpful, irritating, uncreative, bitching, moaning, and generally worthless base fungus!

Thanks, Jack!

At least I didn't say anything about having to run the game at dumbed-down settings or settling for medicore framerates if you don't have a $6000 dual-processor graphic design monster. Oh wait, I just did.

And don't get me wrong, it takes skill to make an ultra-widescreen fucked up ratio screenshot like this:

pinback wrote:

pinback wrote:"TEXTURE QUALITY: LOW SPECIAL EFFECTS: LOW WATER QUALITY: LOW LIGHTING: LOW YOUR GENERAL WORTH AS A HUMAN BEING: LOW"

I said, "screw this", and set everything back up to "Medium".

I don't think *everything* exactly "went back" to medium.

It's an ol' fashioned FPS in every respect, not far removed from Wolfenstein 3D in intent (blow badguys up, eat health, get weapons), but I mean... whoa, dude!

Interesting! Not owning it, I can't expunge an opinion which is infinitely better and more considered than yours. Quite a quandary. I ought to do something about it.

Jack Straw wrote:Usually it wouldn't make sense to compare a 3 year old console port to a new game designed for the PC but then again, usually people don't post "screenshots" at 1021x260 resolution.

A three year old console port shouldn't run as poorly as a brand new game released in 2004, though.

Seriously: the fact that Halo for the PC is the worst-running game of all time means that it deserves to get beat up whenever possible. It was a sloppy way of making people still prefer the Xbox version. What kind of business model is that?

Well they removed co-op.. what else were they going to remove? Guns?
So they broke it. Wahh waah waah, get an Xbox. :)

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:A three year old console port shouldn't run as poorly as a brand new game released in 2004, though.

And, here's a newsflash: Even if it ran at 1000 FPS, it would still suck ass beyond anyone's ability to describe it (without making reference to red, sticky diarrhea) based solely on the level design.

So Jack, here I am comparing a three year old console port to a ten year old game, and unfavorably still.

What the hell was so great about Doom's levels? Some of em had stairs, woot.

Maybe it's cuz I played the shit out it but all I seem to remember is grey corridors, green "lava" and stupidly hitting space bar on every single wall looking for a "hidden" room. And imps that would jerk back and forth like they were having seizures and would constantly throw fireballs into the walls over and over. marines who would stand in place with their popguns never moving, just pop pop pop. Shitty AI, great game at the time but I don't think the level design was anything special. Fuck, you never even go outside..

Can you drive a jeep up a stream to the top and jump over a grassy hill in Doom? Can you shoot fuckers out of hovercrafts and tool around icy wastelands in them? The whole fucking game is indoors, in mostly corridors. Whee.

Jack Straw wrote:What the hell was so great about Doom's levels?

It's not that Doom's levels were so great (though, for being one of the first games of its kind, they're pretty damn creative). It's that Halo's levels are so horrible that I can barely conceive of how anyone gave them the "okay" there at the design table. I'm guessing the bosses all got really drunk one night figuring out how they were going to screw up the PC port, and then just started signing off on everything the designers shoved in front of their big, fat, pink faces.

"Here's an idea. Have the player go through a round room. Then follow that with having the player navigate a long bridge to the next area. Then we'll have that next area be the EXACT SAME ROUND ROOM, followed by the EXACT SAME BRIDGE. Put five of these areas together, and we got ourselves a level!"

"Kick ass! Then on the next level? We can do the EXACT SAME THING, except with a square room and a hallway!! Five times!"

Doom Retard wrote:Fuck, you never even go outside...

We're talking about DOOM here, right? Not Venture. DOOM, Jack. Go play it again, if you can dislodge your cock from your Xbox long enough to find it.

I would be able to read this but I need to scroll over to Vegas just about to read any lines of text due to the "screenshot".

Here, I'll shorten it up for you:

YOU DON'T GO OUTSIDE IN DOOM: FALSE

YOU GO OUTSIDE IN DOOM ALL THE DAMN TIME: TRUE

HALO SUCKS: TRUE

THIS THREAD WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT FARCRY: TRUE

JACK STRAW DID NOT FUCK UP THIS THREAD: FALSE

JACK STRAW IS BASE FUNGUS: TRUE

Thanks. We're all set now I guess.

pinback wrote:It's not that Doom's levels were so great (though, for being one of the first games of its kind, they're pretty damn creative). . .

What the hell is so damn creative about taking the same game engine from Wolfenstein 3d and putting different image files in there. Ever since I downloaded castle from an FSP site in college and played it for a few hours, I have never had one ounce of desire to play doom and I somewhat looked down upon all those who got excited about this "new game".

New Author of the Worst Post of All Time wrote:What the hell is so damn creative about taking the same game engine from Wolfenstein 3d and putting different image files in there.

I... I almost have no idea where to start here. Has anyone ever written a sentence with more ERROR-PACKED GOODNESS stuffed into it?

I can only hope it was written in jest, to satirize Jack's horrible DOOM-related post. If so, then as the sysop would say: EXCELSIOR! ::fingerguns::

Rather than go in depth to eke out every last morsel of inaccuracy from the statement itself, let's just go with the following rule of thumb: Everything CO just said was wrong. Same game engine as Wolf 3D? Wrong. DOOM = Wolf 3D with new image files? Wrong. DOOM was, of course, a technological revolution over its Hitler-hating predecessor. Anyone who cannot see this after playing both games for over 30 seconds, well, I'm surprised they're technically adept enough to log into this BBS and post the worst post ever.

Ever since I downloaded castle from an FSP site in college and played it for a few hours, I have never had one ounce of desire to play doom and I somewhat looked down upon all those who got excited about this "new game"

You are a moron. GET OUT OF MY BASE!!

pinback wrote:blah blah blah

Sure looked the same to me and was just as boring. Hell, i'd rather play Zork again than mindlessly wander through similar levels shooting and picking up things while checking for stupid secret passages. If not the same engine then who cares if someone copied basically the same gameplay and made an "improvement" or two. Sorry for not being the Supreme Emperor of Game Geeks like you are, I am humble in your knowledge and posting skills.

Casual Observer wrote:Hell, i'd rather play Zork again

Hey! Let's try to stay focused here, and not say things we can't take back.

than mindlessly wander through similar levels shooting and picking up things while checking for stupid secret passages.

Doom really is better than the description of its parts, though. It's a creepy, spooky punch in the nuts from start to finish. I didn't think it'd be all that great in 1993 either, as I had played Wolfenstein 3D and felt that I had "been there" and "done that." But because everyone wouldn't stop shutting up about it, I tried Doom and it was one of the few times where the media lived up to the hype.

Doom II ain't bad either. "Final Doom" sort of sucked, though.

Casual Observer wrote:

pinback wrote:blah blah blah

Sure looked the same to me and was just as boring. Hell, i'd rather play Zork again than mindlessly wander through similar levels shooting and picking up things while checking for stupid secret passages. If not the same engine then who cares if someone copied basically the same gameplay and made an "improvement" or two. Sorry for not being the Supreme Emperor of Game Geeks like you are, I am humble in your knowledge and posting skills.

There is an alarming trend in these forums, brought on primarily by you and Jack. It's a very deplorable method of coercing a thread to allow a very angry, often repressed person to shower negativity on something, under the guise of participating in the original conversation. That's how in the space of 18 posts, you and Jack have turned this thread, originally meant to discuss and promote the new FPS Far Cry, into a platform for your general displeasure with life.

For instance, your original post (remember, the worst post of all time?) made the point that "Doom wasn't so great, it was just the same as Wolf with new sprites". What you really meant here is: "I DON'T LIKE FPS GAMES AND I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW IT." But rather than just saying that (or even better, keeping it to yourself, because nobody cares), you attempted to incorporate that opinion into the existing conversation, by making up (MAKING UP!) totally fallacious, goofy, unsubstantiated, idiotic statements about the subject in question.

Jack -- arrogant, hostile prick that he is -- at least topped you by not even TRYING to base his stupid posts within the bounds of the conversation. He just led in with "UR GAME SUX AND UR SCREENSHOTS SUX". Again, totally worthless, totally without merit or redeeming value, but at least it didn't waste our time trying to tear apart fabricated BULLSHIT.

GET OUT OF MY FUCKING BASE, BOTH OF YOU.