Art's JC2 game impressions

[Art Blade]

I need to get into Panau and do some of the races

Found two more funny races in Panau City, this time Park District. One race is called "Backstage Pass" and the other "Park District Bugrun." The former is again with a Tuc-Tuc (hehe) through narrow passages between buildings, the latter with a beach buggy and leads through the park on some sandy paths and also some streets. Both were rather enjoyable :)

[Art Blade]

Just realised that if you repeat a race (playing again after a while) the "best time" recorded is actually nothing more and nothing less than the last race's time.

No matter how bad you get it the next time, it will be your "best" time. For instance, I just tried to break my record in the Panau City Financial District's race (to be found on a bridge/highway) called "Utara Bridge Insanity." My actual record there is 01:49:xx minutes (!) I forgot the exact count of centiseconds, but in total it was near 1:50:00 minutes.

I failed to break the record and ended up with 2:10:xx (after a funny crash with govmen and facmen who were chasing one another on the bridge) so I tried again, only to see the record was now 2:10?! Sloppy programming, but I don't think that there are a lot of people who actually try to improve their best times, especially for that race that constantly leads through oncoming traffic (left lane of the bridge etc)  ;D

[Art Blade]

I tried playing without HUD and crosshair (to switch off the HUD you change opacity to 0 in game settings, for the crosshair you can use the BOLOpatch). Looks like a merc movie :) It's not that bad if you are familiar with the game, ie played for a good while. I'm nearing 200 hours game play and know how the grapple works even if I don't see a crosshair. I don't need the minimap unless I want to collect items. So it is truly immersive when you drive around or fight without any indicators and ammo counter etc :) I think it is best when playing during (ingame) night because probably every weapon uses tracers. The auto-aim function is still working despite of having switched off the crosshair. The last shooting was a blast :)

[Art Blade]

Switched everything back on. Was just for a while, and I keep doing it once in a while (especially when simply cruising around in nice parts of Panau).

***

Meanwhile I accumulated 1,500km driving, by car and bike. Although you can use everything, including grapple and parachute, I recently found a lot of pleasure driving. You get to see a lot more like that, and if the car isn't too fast, you don't crash all the time ;) That's why I favour the Oldman cars and the Hayama 250 bikes (those with the unmistakable cool phat sound).

Driving around in the Southeast, I found routes you can't see (or, barely) on the map. For example, check the end of the visible road (there's a military Base) at X:27400 Y:30000, perhaps have your BMD extract you there. If you go (better: drive) on, through the base, you'll notice a subtle path that leads on behind it. It's brown soil, hard to tell if it is a path, but to the left and right hand side is green, so it definitely is a path. Actually it picks up the road that seems to be out of place more to the East. Currently I am on my way to the far East of that part of Panau to get to the yet uncompleted military base, and I thought I'd try to drive to that location (bike, this time). It is simply beautiful, kind of a lighter and friendlier version of the Heart Of Darkness area in FarCry2. Truly a pleasure to drive or ride through those parts of Panau :)

By the way, just realised the base I was after belonged to the final Agency mission, only back then I was in a hurry and a bit stressed so I didn't find the time to complete it ;D Completed it now.

[PZ]

Your descriptions are excellent, and make me want to get back into the game just to see those areas you describe.  :-X

[Art Blade]

Me too  ;D

Thanks, PZ :)

[deadman1]

Well I´m now about 20 hours in and I´m liking it more and more. I´ve taken to driving most of the when I need to get somewhere and have so far reach almost 350 km. It´s like playing FUEL only with guns  ;D.

[Art Blade]

Right, that's what we missed the most in FUEL, didn't we  ;D

[deadman1]

You bet  ;D

[Art Blade]

It is amazing how much of a relief it is, sometimes, to just stop on a road, get off your vehicle, and start to blow up all sorts of innocent-looking vehicles which would otherwise have blocked your way. For some reason doing that attracts local authorities which just adds to the relief when blowing them up as well  ;D

[spaceboy]

I think I said once before that JC2 seems like the love child of Far Cry 2 and FUEL.  I'm having difficulty shutting it off again.  Feels good to revisit Panau.  I just keep wanting to parachute around and drive places.  I actually have been mostly non-combative on my recent visits though.  That'll change soon enough  ;D

[Art Blade]

I've recently been a little non-combative, too, driving around in nice parts of Panau. Still, I've got over 20,000 kills so far (including people who dented my grill)  ;D

I think I said once before that JC2 seems like the love child of Far Cry 2 and FUEL.

Nice.. I remember Eeyore saying something like that, too..

I came up with a description of JC2...it's the illegitimate love child of Grand Theft Auto and Far Cry 2.

[spaceboy]

lol - great minds think alike!

[Art Blade]

..and like the same games, too ;D

(including those minds who would have liked the same games if they had got the rigs necessary or the freedom of choice between 3rd person and FPS  ;) )

[Art Blade]

Just realised that if you repeat a race (playing again after a while) the "best time" recorded is actually nothing more and nothing less than the last race's time.

No matter how bad you get it the next time, it will be your "best" time. For instance, I just tried to break my record in the Panau City Financial District's race (to be found on a bridge/highway) called "Utara Bridge Insanity." My actual record there is 01:49:xx minutes (!) I forgot the exact count of centiseconds, but in total it was near 1:50:00 minutes.

I failed to break the record and ended up with 2:10:xx (after a funny crash with govmen and facmen who were chasing one another on the bridge) so I tried again, only to see the record was now 2:10?! Sloppy programming, but I don't think that there are a lot of people who actually try to improve their best times, especially for that race that constantly leads through oncoming traffic (left lane of the bridge etc)  ;D

I'll never learn this. Maybe now I have. Someone once told me, but I haven't raced in like 200 hours game time, now I'm into it a bit more.

This game isn't a "normal" racing game. Here you get a "time buffer" after each goal, counting down, but it adds up if you are faster than necessary. The higher the time you've got ( = the more buffer time you accumulated), the better you are. So in fact, I was better (2:10 time left rather than 1:49). So it is properly programmed and actually it is a best time.

Sorry for the confusion :)