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theweaselkingWell, my enchantment has worn off. I got a lot more out of it than I would for spending equivalent cash on, say, movies, so I got my money's worth, but now I need to play something else because the little things are adding up and they're driving me crazy.
Thing #1: Enemies are often very hard to see - there's so much light and motion and cover and waving grass and all the rest of that aweseom-looking stuff and sometimes you can be looking *right at* the guy and not pick him up out of the background noise until there's a flash and a puff of smoke as he fires at you. But they don't have any problems seeing you.
Thing #2: Stealth is crap. Silenced weapons? Useless, because enemies all know when one of their own dies, even if he dies silently, and they all know where you were when you shot him even if not one of them had LOS on you *or* the target. And my expensive camo suit, supposed to make me harder to see when I'm crouched in cover and not moving? Uh, yeah, buggy. Guys driving past, at night, when I'm a fair distance from the road and *behind a large rock that breaks LOS*, can see me.
Those two really wouldn't be that bad, honestly. Frankly, all those two mean is that there are some tactics that are less practical. However, the real issue comes when you combine that with the next two:
Thing #3: HOLY FUCK WHY AM I FORCED TO DRIVE EVERYWHERE? I really, really, REALLY don't care about the driving! I've seen the scenery, and it's awesome. Now stop, and let me *fast travel* to *the place I want to be*, you fuckers. And the person who designed it so that every mission *always* takes you across at least half of the full map, because it places the missions *based on where you acquire them*? That person is an asshole and I want him dead. If I could fast-travel, he could live.
Even #3 wouldn't be so bad if not for #4:
Thing #4: FUCKING INFINITELY RESPAWNING STUPID-ASS GUARD POSTS.
Every time - EVERY SINGLE TIME - you leave the vicinity of a post guarding a crossroads or a bridge, the equipment, guards, trucks, explosives, etc respawn. And these guys are, with the exception of a few really nasty ones, not well-armed, not well-equipped, and not really dangerous. Thing is, you can't avoid them, you're CONSTANTLY driving all over the map, and this means that the guards are always seeing you and giving chase.
And, thing is, enemy-driven cars are *significantly* faster than the PC one. They *will* catch up to you. You *must* stop to kill them. And since you can't drive and shoot at the same time, this means you have to stop your truck, climb out (or into the gunner seat), mow them down, mop up, and go on.
You get NOTHING for killing these guys. There's no XP, no money to be earned, you can't even take their guns and ammo because
A) they use crap
B) weapons you take from dead guys are in crappy condition and jam and fall apart.
It costs you ammo (which isn't a big deal, because ammo is plentiful), it costs you health (again, health is plentiful), it costs you wear and tear on your guns (but replacing them is easy and they really do last a long time if you're not swimming with them), and, most importantly, it costs you TIME. I'd say I've spent half my total playing time so far fighting *nameless, pointless, respawning mooks that I cannot skip past despite having killed that specific one five times already*. And, I mean, the toys and explosions are cool, the shooting is fun, but ENOUGH ALREADY.
Thing #5: Any mission that isn't part of the main quest is generic and boring. And I mean *really* generic - they didn't even bother to record unique sound files for the briefings, and *all* of the "I need malaria medication" missions are "Go to place X, receive travel papers from a civilian, go to place B, kill all the generic mooks menacing the target, give the papers to the target and receive pills". All of them. No exceptions. The assassination missions? Same thing. Same sound file introduces that you have a mission, target appears on the other side of the map and you kill him, for money.
This is really sad, because the main story is *great* fun, the missions are intelligent, the story is engaging, and I really want to keep going on it. The results of my missions have real meaning to the game world and make permanent changes. There are costs for making various decision. It's *truly excellent*, and I'm absolutely going to go back and finish this game to see how it ends. I'm just going to take a break, because the awesome is so surrounded by awful repetitive crap.
Make the guard posts *stay dead*, dammit! Let me fast-travel between safehouses I've unlocked! Remove the assassination and malaria-medication missions unless they're going to mean something, and maybe tweak the enemy awareness a bit, and this would be a *great* game. As it is, it's a great game embedded in a miserable MMO-style grindfest due to some poor design decisions.
Thing #1: Enemies are often very hard to see - there's so much light and motion and cover and waving grass and all the rest of that aweseom-looking stuff and sometimes you can be looking *right at* the guy and not pick him up out of the background noise until there's a flash and a puff of smoke as he fires at you. But they don't have any problems seeing you.
Thing #2: Stealth is crap. Silenced weapons? Useless, because enemies all know when one of their own dies, even if he dies silently, and they all know where you were when you shot him even if not one of them had LOS on you *or* the target. And my expensive camo suit, supposed to make me harder to see when I'm crouched in cover and not moving? Uh, yeah, buggy. Guys driving past, at night, when I'm a fair distance from the road and *behind a large rock that breaks LOS*, can see me.
Those two really wouldn't be that bad, honestly. Frankly, all those two mean is that there are some tactics that are less practical. However, the real issue comes when you combine that with the next two:
Thing #3: HOLY FUCK WHY AM I FORCED TO DRIVE EVERYWHERE? I really, really, REALLY don't care about the driving! I've seen the scenery, and it's awesome. Now stop, and let me *fast travel* to *the place I want to be*, you fuckers. And the person who designed it so that every mission *always* takes you across at least half of the full map, because it places the missions *based on where you acquire them*? That person is an asshole and I want him dead. If I could fast-travel, he could live.
Even #3 wouldn't be so bad if not for #4:
Thing #4: FUCKING INFINITELY RESPAWNING STUPID-ASS GUARD POSTS.
Every time - EVERY SINGLE TIME - you leave the vicinity of a post guarding a crossroads or a bridge, the equipment, guards, trucks, explosives, etc respawn. And these guys are, with the exception of a few really nasty ones, not well-armed, not well-equipped, and not really dangerous. Thing is, you can't avoid them, you're CONSTANTLY driving all over the map, and this means that the guards are always seeing you and giving chase.
And, thing is, enemy-driven cars are *significantly* faster than the PC one. They *will* catch up to you. You *must* stop to kill them. And since you can't drive and shoot at the same time, this means you have to stop your truck, climb out (or into the gunner seat), mow them down, mop up, and go on.
You get NOTHING for killing these guys. There's no XP, no money to be earned, you can't even take their guns and ammo because
A) they use crap
B) weapons you take from dead guys are in crappy condition and jam and fall apart.
It costs you ammo (which isn't a big deal, because ammo is plentiful), it costs you health (again, health is plentiful), it costs you wear and tear on your guns (but replacing them is easy and they really do last a long time if you're not swimming with them), and, most importantly, it costs you TIME. I'd say I've spent half my total playing time so far fighting *nameless, pointless, respawning mooks that I cannot skip past despite having killed that specific one five times already*. And, I mean, the toys and explosions are cool, the shooting is fun, but ENOUGH ALREADY.
Thing #5: Any mission that isn't part of the main quest is generic and boring. And I mean *really* generic - they didn't even bother to record unique sound files for the briefings, and *all* of the "I need malaria medication" missions are "Go to place X, receive travel papers from a civilian, go to place B, kill all the generic mooks menacing the target, give the papers to the target and receive pills". All of them. No exceptions. The assassination missions? Same thing. Same sound file introduces that you have a mission, target appears on the other side of the map and you kill him, for money.
This is really sad, because the main story is *great* fun, the missions are intelligent, the story is engaging, and I really want to keep going on it. The results of my missions have real meaning to the game world and make permanent changes. There are costs for making various decision. It's *truly excellent*, and I'm absolutely going to go back and finish this game to see how it ends. I'm just going to take a break, because the awesome is so surrounded by awful repetitive crap.
Make the guard posts *stay dead*, dammit! Let me fast-travel between safehouses I've unlocked! Remove the assassination and malaria-medication missions unless they're going to mean something, and maybe tweak the enemy awareness a bit, and this would be a *great* game. As it is, it's a great game embedded in a miserable MMO-style grindfest due to some poor design decisions.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:52 pm (UTC)Ummm... I'm glad you're enjoying it?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:59 pm (UTC)But, more than anything else, I find myself hating the driving and HATING the guard posts. I can't even have someone else drive while I man the guns, or have someone else man the guns while I drive!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:04 pm (UTC)Yes, I *do* plan my video games out weeks in advance. Why?
(GTA4 releases Nov 18th. I'm just sayin'.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:41 pm (UTC)It's pretty fucking great.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 12:23 am (UTC)-- Steve thought it looked seriously pretty, like FC, but was so burned by FC's gameplay he didn't dare pick up the nominal sequel.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-07 11:10 am (UTC)There should be a law against game designers using any real-world weapon that they've never actually seen in person, let alone actually tested.