PZ's impressions

[PZ]

Darn, I was hoping for a grapple  ;D

[eor123]

SPOLIER ALERT Re Faction Items










































You don't get a damn thing after having collected all the faction items-- no "Thank You's" "Attaboy," or "I want to have your baby." [Bolo  ;D] no trophy, no rewards unlocked...nada...zilch.

Major suckage, IMO.

[Art Blade]

well, you got the experience  ;D

[PZ]

It would be cool if something else opened up when you completed collections of any kind.  For instance, opening an additional bonus faction mission or the like.  That would make collecting things a direct benefit rather than it just being a sense of accomplishment.

I would have collected all the diamonds in FC2 if an additional mission or area opened up.  ;D

[spaceboy]

sure you do - You get free usage of their faction vehicles at all strongholds...oh wait...you already have that  :P  I agree that it sucks.  It would be nice to get something.  I think the trophy is at 100 faction items.  Will I ever get them all?  I don't know, it depends how much I visit Panau once RDR comes out.  I'm at about 43% so there is plenty to do and discover.  I'll probably just keep doing this rather than starting a new game (although I'd like to replay a few faction missions at some point). 

A bit of an incentive to complete things would be nice.  But - I'm having a good time doing it for now.  I've cleared out a large section of the beach front north and south of what's his names house where the Agency RV is at.  I spent a bit of time at that huge facility where the ninjas were at as well, but I still have a long way to go.

[PZ]

I've started collecting things because as you mentioned earlier today, there are lots of ways to travel, etc. to the area where you'll find the items.  Whenever I'm in an area now, I'll look for the dots indicating the location of something, and will spend the extra minute or two to find the item.  It's kind of fun thinking of the quickest way in and out of an area, which depends on the transportation method you use.

[Art Blade]

Whenever I find a new place, I try to complete at least those collectible items to be found there, and if it doesn't seem to belong to any mission, I destroy the rest, too. Maybe that's why it takes ages for me, as those govmen keep popping up when I whip out my weapons  ;D

[spaceboy]

so true PZ - I actually find myself doing all I can to avoid a gun fight and complete an area as fast as possible.  I try to get rid of the communications antennas first, then the SAMs so in case they do get a call in for air support and I hijack the chopper I won't get shot down.

Then I run around or grapple/chute to find and pick up as many items as possible running, rolling, destroying a few things along the way.  Eventually when I find myself near a mini gun I'll take it off it's mount and use it on all destructibles and govmen. 

[Art Blade]

oh yeah, I love to slowly walk around with an UnmountedGatlingGun wreaking havoc as I see fit  ;D

[PZ]

A couple more observations (slight spoilers)

• I cleared out an oil rig with my armed Rowlinson, and it was a piece of cake - keeping my bird low to the water, I ascended where you find the SAM and took it out - then it was a simple matter to clear all the chaos items.  Sometimes they call for air support and sometimes they do not.
• Those Japanese soldiers are pulling some kind of scam - when on the cargo mission, I returned to find a govman and his vehicle shooting at my cargo pilot.  Yeah, right, they're 100 years old and no one knows anything - except the govmen of course.
• After doing an oil rig, I took the govman boat and started collecting black boxes in the north sea - there are beautiful tropic waters there, and I saw the most beautiful sunrise I've seen in the game yet - much better than FC2 actually.
• As I was swimming and boating in the tropics, I noticed the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and longed to return, which I did after collecting one more black box.  Once back on the mountain, I discovered a military installation I'd not cleared out before.  This one was very large - the one where you blow up 4 generators or some kind of power source.  Because the area was so huge, I guess the developers might have placed faction items in areas where you should look, because there were some widespread items to find.

In the tropics one minute, and then up on a mountain with snow flurries swirling around me - kind of reminds me of southern California.  ;D

Man, I love this game.

[Art Blade]

nice descriptions there, PZ :)

Recently I found a small island down in the south, X 20666 Y 31111 (coords easy to remember) where you get ammo and health, some collectible, and two MTA Powerrun 77. That was when I decided to max out that vehicle with my black market dealer. Since then I prefer to grab my boat, drive to costal locations, leave the boat so I can escape easily, and take out whatever there is. Good for simple stuff like propaganda trailers etc, but also for big stuff like harbours. That boat outruns everything from patrols to helos, and pursuing boats can be downed with onboard guns if you are so inclined ;D

[PZ]

I'm taking a short vacation from RDR and have entered into Panau again - I must say that it is quite refreshing!  I started a new game, and as a whim, went into the PlayStation store and was pleasantly surprised to find free DLC in the form of a heavily armed tuk-tuk.  I also purchased an assault rifle with scope for 99 cents and the monster truck for 99 cents.  Both are now available in the black market dealer's offerings.

I did the "Driving Miss Stacey" faction mission this morning - the one with the pink limo.  Your task is to drive Miss Stacey to a safe place in the limo, but that car is a bit awkward to drive so I substituted the monster truck.  ::)

It was hilarious - Captain Boom-Boom was standing behind his barricade, and shot an RPG at me - didn't even phase the monster truck.  The funny part is that I ran him over while he stood in the road  ;D

This was definitely the easiest time I have ever had on that particular mission.

[spaceboy]

i go the tuk tuk but your description makes me want the truck.  I'll have to drop the $1 for it...

[PZ]

I probably wouldn't have made the purchase either, but I had $2.05 left on my PlayStation account so I spent $1.98 on the truck and the assault rifle.  Of the two, the truck is the best, but I like the high powered scope on the assault rifle.  Two things about it though, I have not found ammo in the field yet, and it seems to be semi-auto rather than full auto unless I'm missing something.

[Art Blade]

When I found out about the tuk tuk it was already available (automatically downloaded via steam). I purchased it from the BMD, flipped it by accident and dropped into shallow water. I couldn't get it back out.. very expensive moments. I bought a new one and wrecked it before I could do some damage with its impressive cannon. Fired a few shots into some trees, though. That thing is rather useless I think, it is quite unstable (tends to flip) and doesn't stand much damage it seems (well, it's still a tuk tuk, after all).

Regarding other DLC.. man, let me tell you what happened to me. I bought the game as a special edition that came with some codes to unlock stuff (so called Black Market Chaos Pack). On the pack and inside on a sheet of paper was the info that I could unlock it using games for windows live!  which angered me (this is a steam game, why the heck use ms live! -- I didn't want to). So I left the pack on my desk and never used the codes. By accident I found an entry on steam stating that it was a misprint, that we couldn't use MS live! but instead use steam (makes sense). So I grabbed the pack and found the sheet of paper (very thin paper) which had the codes imprinted on it (very thin imprint, like a dot matrix print). When I tried to pick it up, it ripped, quite badly. Apparently some coffee found its way onto that sheet and glued it to the pack, so I tore it apart without realising. The code was face down, I couldn't read it, and when I tried to pick up the shreds, they crumpled and messed up even more.. and the code got washed away, glued to the pack, glued to parts of the sheet, to itself, and torn apart.. useless! It was bloody useless! I couldn't recover it for the life of me. Stupid idiots to use paper so thin it dissolves with a drop of coffee, and an imprint that used ink that you could have rubbed off with your bare fingers. Alright, I don't care much about whether or not I get that DLC, but it really angers me when I think about all of the above.

[PZ]

Sorry to read about your mishap regarding the special addition - sometimes the "logic" of the companies making packaging decisions amazes me.  >:(

[Art Blade]

indeed.. but life goes on  ;)

[fragger]

Sorry to read about your mishap regarding the special addition - sometimes the "logic" of the companies making packaging decisions amazes me.  >:(

Too true... reminded me of the days when a game would come in a package almost the size of a cereal box, just to contain a CD, a thin game manual, and about a square yard of cardboard box-filler. I guess they finally realised they weren't fooling anyone - or that kind of packaging just became too cost-ineffective (more likely).

I too am sorry to hear about that, Art - bloody cheapo nitwits >:(

[Art Blade]

Thanks, but don't worry. I didn't buy that special edition because I really wanted to get those gimmicks. I bought that special edition simply because there wasn't any other version available at all (the bastards had snapped up every regular game ;D )

[fragger]

 :) I see. Still...

[PZ]

I forgot to post this one - I did the faction mission where you are to kill the Colonel at his villa - when you get there, you find 4 SAMS that you need to destroy and then the Colonel will come out to do battle with you - careful though; he is deadly accurate with a rocket launcher.

Here is my variant - because I knew he would appear after the last SAM was destroyed, I waited to bomb the last one until I'd planted 4 C4 charges on his front porch  ;D

Then I ran out to the yard and threw a fragmentation grenade at the last SAM.  Sure enough, he came out of his house with all kinds of attitude, but I was hidden behind a building when I detonated the C4 - you should have heard the "ah...ha..." as he met his demise - he never did manage to get a glimpse of me.  ;D

[Art Blade]

very nice and wily :) :-X

[PZ]

I've returned to Panau for a while now, and am still having a blast.  Now I'm in the southeast corner of the map, enjoying chaos and destruction in the many military outposts.  As I was playing (and developing experience with how to approach an area) I wondered why I hadn't become bored with the same old mission types.

I think the answer is that although there are a limited number of Panau items (buildings, SAMS, fuel towers/tanks, etc., each site has a different arrangement of them.  Plus the fact that the terrain is almost never the same twice keeps me interested.

Another aspect that I appreciate is the ability to go to a snowy area when I tire of being on the beach.  ;D

[Art Blade]

You make me think of returning to Panau :) Right now I'm not deeply into any game, I'll still have to gather 9 feathers in AC2 to achieve all feathers for the first time, and then I'm open for other games. I've still got to test Serious Sam 2, a copy of which sits on my shelf untouched (a gift), but I'm not in the mood to play that. Panau and perhaps some FC2 sounds good :)

[spaceboy]

I've been visiting Panau this week as well.  I downloaded the 3 DLC vehicles, Monster Truck, Hovercraft, and Chevalier Classic.  I LOVE that Monster Truck.  The hovercraft was good but slow.  Great at taking out an oil rig (which I felt kind of weird about due to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf).  The hovercraft can tip easily though and I had to buy a new one after only like 1 minute  >:(

The Chevalier is a sweet ride too.