A little while ago, a conversation on Far Cry 2 creative director Clint Hocking's blog led to a small experiment amongst the die-hard fans of the game. Manveer Heir argued that ethical choices are meaningless unless those choices are irreversible and backed up by permanent consequence: Clint Hocking argued that such a philosophy is one more applicable for linear narrative, and doesn't take into account the game-specific mechanics of restarting and trying again.
Eventually, this snowballed into an experiment revolving around Hocking's game: how would the player-enforced concept of permanent death change the experience of playing Far Cry 2? What if instead of restarting from your last save file upon death, you simply deleted your savegame and had to accept that your death represented the end of your story?
Though Ben Abraham isn't the only blogger to chronicle his attempt at a permadeath Far Cry 2 run, he's certainly presented his story in a more polished and entertaining format than many others I've read. His story, "Permanent Consequence," is now available for download as a PDF (don't get scared by the pagecount: each slide only holds one or two sentences). Though it focuses more on the experience of creating a story and identifying with one's avatar than it does the actual strategies that a FC2 veteran would need to undertake in order to survive a permadeath playthrough (Abraham forces himself to pretend he doesn't know the endgame twist, for instance) it's still a remarkably interesting read.
And a surprisingly well-timed one, as well: I just completed my first successful no-death playthrough of FC2, and it may have been one of the most meaningful experiences I've ever had in a game. I highly recommend trying it out.
Contest:
3:00 PM on 12.04.2009
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Do you think this relates at all to games like Heavy Rain where death is incorporated into the core of the game as a reasonable and possible story element?
Demon's Souls give the perfect solution for this style of design. Auto-save over your save file once you choose anything, and you only get to keep one save per character.
I'm not sure if I like this kind of design, but that's how to do it. Mind you, if you have any game breaking bugs, and players have no previous save to reload to, that would really suck.
Gameplay = horrible. Thats the first thing that matters. What if passage didn't have a"go right" key? Fucking game would suck, thats what.
This game, sucks ass. The controls are fucking awful and the respawning guard towers and driving times are horrible. Bad game.
Does anyone know if there's a mod for the PC version that makes an outpost stay empty once you've cleared it out? Or stay empty for a few minutes, at the very least?
I can't really say, not knowing how Heavy Rain's player death situation will work: whether it'll be a punishment for shitty QTE performance or a result of ethical choices you make or something, I dunno. In Far Cry 2, your possible death comes about as a result of either getting sloppy, or because of how you manage your buddies. Without spoiling the whole game/my strategy for a successful run through, I'd argue that the more meticulously evil you are in a permadeath playthrough, the better your chances of survival.
kefkaesque:
I'd do a normal playthrough first so you can understand the mechanics and learn survival techniques (if you're on foot and you see a jeep, FUCKING SIDESTEP IT). Death sometimes, but not always comes suddenly, and you need to learn how to avoid such deaths before attempting an ironman runthrough.
If you do, this article is a good point. If you stand by your choices instead of just running through each choice with saves and picking the best, I promise you'll have a much more interesting and rewarding experience in ANY gme with choices.
That light form of cheating is aways there, but it's only cheating yourself.
I'm doing this right now, it's pretty awesome as long as you don't suck, go for it!
I'm pretty sure you don't want to die. That's the entire point. The choices people make in games would be way different if they knew they couldn't load an old file when they die.
I spent about 30mins (no joke) crouched behind a small wall, pinned down by a sniper during the first mission. It was certainly the most intense few hours of gaming I have ever played.
Few games of recent times seemt o divide people like Far Cry 2. Some people get so immersed in it and think it is one of the most incredible games of recent times (self included), while others with similar gaming tastes just can't stand it. I guess that is what happens when someone like Clint Hocking, who seems tohate narrative in games, makes narrative driven games.
I downloaded this pdf yesterday and read through it. I recommend sticking with it; the wring gets a lot better after a while, once he starts treating it like a narrative of a character and less like a diary of his playing through a game.
Its definitely a game about systems, and I really dig that.
I believe that is 'Hardcore' difficulty you are talking about (which I am playing on currently).
@ Reindall;
He'd make a lot of money with those trap-doors opening in the floor, I tell you.
Yeah, I am playing through the game, but I'd only try a 'perma-death' play-through once I got through my backlog of other games.
Second time I got quite far and was eventually killed at kvatch, but it was less meaningful to me.
Unrelated: I really wish I had a PC that could run FC2...
it reminds me of heavy rain
The accepted permadeath constraints, generally speaking, are:
-Normal difficulty
-PC version, with draw distance set to maximum
-Fortune DLC pack included, but only for the purpose of using the new vehicles (the weapons are free and thus kind of fuck up the early part of the game where you're only meant to have a single pistol to your name)
All it needs IMO is a leveling or skill system like Fallout 3.
I don't know what happened then but I stopped playing... maybe something new came out? I don't remember... time to try this once I finish inFamous
(shush, I bought it yesterday)
Gonna need a case of Red Bull.
I don't think that's necessary. I believe you can save your game (to go and do other shit/sleep whatever); you just can't die. If you do, you delete your file.
I actually played through all of MGS3 with permadeath rules, and I have to say it improves the game immensely. It makes your decisions much more interesting. Normally when I play MGS, if I use too many bullets or trip an alarm, I'll just let the guards kill me and restart at a checkpoint rather than bother with hiding/evading them. When you're not allowed to do that, though, the game really opens up as you're forced to use every trick at your disposal (and MGS gives you a lot of them) to either avoid getting an alert, or to dispatch/evade the guards until an alert is cancelled.
And the battle with The End is even more epic, of course.
I. Was. Mortified.
From a steam sale many moons ago this game I did buy
Bereft of time am I
Much else approaches,
The third row of Saints
the very RIM of the SKY!
As in life day-to-day
so this game shall I "play"
Fight onwards till ye fall
and then having fallen
rest
and play... no longer