Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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326 of 400 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Supurb game if you give it time., 20 Nov 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
First of all, this is not a game you should spend all day playing. It is best played in chunks of an hour or so. I've been playing it for over 20 hours in total, according to the game time, so in actual fact a whole lot longer, what with saves etc, and I am only half way through.
This is a big game. A lot bigger than you think too. Contrary to most of the reviews here I have played it long enough to come across the SECOND map. There may be more too, though I doubt it.
So what is the game like?
Graphics: I am playing it with a new XFX 9800GTX+ and it is quite simply supurb. I upgraded from an 8600 and it looked pretty good then too. If anybody thinks it looks like a 2004 game then they must be using a 2004 card. Thats all I can say.
Sound: nice, ambient. Some of the weapons sound great.
Gameplay: so far I have played the following:
Tutorial: lasts about an hour and is designed to show you how to play the game. The rest of the game is not like the tutorial, you have far more freedom.
Part #1: you get a big map to play with, with loads of locations marked on it. These locations range from:
Gun shops. Here you buy guns and get missions which can unlock more guns. The missions are of the format: go and blow up the ammo train at the following location.
You can also get ammo etc. Once you have bought a gun, you effectively can pick up a brand new one for free whenever you enter any gun shop. Later on you can also buy upgrades and repair enhancements etc.
Radio turrets: Here you can get missions which pay you in the diamonds you need to buy guns. The missions are of the format: Go to a location and kill somebody. The fun often begins when you have to escape having killed somebody.
Safe Houses: these are not safe until you kill the people at the house, but once safe you can sleep there. This means for instance, that if you want to do a mission at night, you can sleep in a safe house beforehand to advance time. As the game progresses, the safe houses get upgraded so that a jeep will also be available, and more ammo and health etc. Also, you can buy crates at a gun shop, and stick a weapon in the crate. That weapon will then be available at any safe house. There really is no excuse other than sheer desperation to use a knackered gun. Just learn how to use the gun shop and safe houses properly. At safe houses you will also occasionally meet buddies.
Bars: your buddies hang out at the bar. Occasionally just as you are about to die, a buddy will appear and save you. However, don't rely on this as they don't do it repeatedly and can be killed. Buddies can give you missions. They really become useful though, when you do faction missions...
Faction Houses:
There are two opposing factions, and you can do missions for both of them. Once you accept a mission you have the advantage of being paid up front. Also, you will get a call from one of your buddies. They will suggest an alternative to the actual mission. You can either do the misson proper or follow your buddy's advice. I always did what my buddy wanted, as it was more fun, so I can't say what happens if you do a vanilla faction mission. If you do the buddy mission you get more reputation and history. I have no idea what the history actually does, but it increases.
Finally, you also get Underground missions. These only appear when you need anti maleria pills, and are fairly straightforward affairs.
With the exception of the underground missions, you can do the other missions in whatever order you choose. I went immediately for the gun shop missions, as it unlocks weapons quickly.
You don't have to do missions to get diamonds though. They are also scattered about the island in suitcases. The island map is divided into sections. If you zoom in the detail map actually has a number at the top which tells you the amount of suitcases in that section, so you at least have a clue as to how thorough you should search.
The other buildings you come across tend to be mission related or guard posts. You can explore them whenever you want though. You don't have to wait for a mission beforehand. Opponents respawn fairly quickly, so if you wipe out a guard post, go and finish a mission and return via the guardpost, it is likely to be repopulated.
One other thing to note, there are bus stations at the extremities of the map. So if you get a mission on the other side of the map, don't spend half an hour driving across the map, just get on a bus and you will be instantly transported.
Weapons: weapons vary. You will soon have a decent variety though. I currently have an Uzi for close range spraying, a decent sniper rifle, and a flame thrower. The flame thrower is just about the best weapon I have ever come across in a game, especially in the second half. It even beats the HL2 gravity gun! Avoid picking up guns from dead foes unless absolutely necessary, otherwise they will invariably jam.
Vehicle: small on realism, big on fun. There are a variety ranging from lorries to jeeps to racing cars. There is even the odd hangglider.
Second Half:
When you get to the second half, things also get harder. People take more hits to die for a start, and wounded people still shoot at you. I am enjoying the second half, though it was frustrating at first as I had got used to the ins and outs of the first map. Plus the enhancements to the safe houses were reset.
this game is big. It isn't a run of the mill shootemup. If you play it all day it will bore the pants off you probably, but if you play it in shorter bursts you will be able to appreciate it to its full. It deserves to be played properly.
+++++ UPDATE +++++
I'm nearly at the end of the game now. I just thought I would say a bit more about the buddies. In the second half I got more attached to them. Whether it is part of the programming or just chance, I don't know, but they seemed to hang around more in part 2. This gives you a chance to get to know them a bit better. Plus, as the game gets harder, they will need your help too. If they come to rescue you it is possible for them to get injured in the process. You have the option of healing them or leaving them behind. You have to find them first though, but luckily they set off flares to enable you to locate them when they are down. You also have a third option of blowing their head off, but this only happens when you press the wrong button by mistake. I might have done this once...
But get this, one time I went to heal a buddy, but it didn't work. I thought it was a bug in the game (so far I have only found one other.) so I tried healing him again. He just looked at me vacantly. I healed him a further time, but his head just rolled back and he died in my arms. My game character closed his eyelids with my hand, and I had to leave him there.
It was quite touching really, and I almost reverted to a save game but decided against it in the end.
As I said before, there is a lot to this game, if you take the time to find it...
++++++++++ FINAL UPDATE +++++++++++++++
Well, I finally finished the game. It has a definate ending, unlike, for instance Crysis. There are a few surprises and I was left wondering how much the decisions I made earlier on in the game affected some of the events at the end. I have to be vague so as not to give any plot elements away. Suffice it to say, that the next time I play it, (this time with the difficulty maxed out) I will make some different decisions.
That's the sign of a good game, whether you will want to play it again.
I won't start again for a month or two though. Need to have a breather first. What I will do first is go back to some old save games, and do some more exploring. I only did 3/4 of the side quests, and that surprised me, as I thought I hadn't missed anything. Also, I want to try some of the missions using stealth. There are stealth weapons I never used and it would be interesting to see how they work. And if I'm bored one rainy day, I can see if I can get from one side of the map to the other using only a pistol, or set myself any number of other challenges. I haven't tried MP yet either. The potential there is enormous...
To summarise this game, it is a genuine sandbox. You can attempt each mission exactly how you want to, especially once the game has progressed a bit and you have had a chance to get a variety of weapons. If you attempt each mission using exactly the same weapons and doing exactly the same thing each time, it will get boring. If however, you use your imagination, and get creative, then the game will open up a whole new world (well a few km at least) for you to explore.
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95 of 125 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
activation, 24 Oct 2008
Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars
I have exactly the same problem, with activation. when i got the "product despatch" notification yesterday i thought "oooh, maybe itll get here on release day? how awesome of amazon!" and it did, and fair play to amazon for getting that together. as always a pleasure doing business
however, the activation is a NIGHTMARE. you get to the part where you put in the serial code and........"cannot be found on server" (activation server) further investigation reveals that the number of people with this problem is HUGE. as mr lawrence said, the problem is with ubi not placing all the serials in the server database, so when your product searches for it, it obviously wont be there.
once again its the securom curse in action again. there is no excuse and quite frankly i cant see the point of it.
i was really excited when it turned up this morning, read the manual and perused the small map while i waited for it to install. now im just plain pi**ed off with it.
as far as i could see, they are working to get these serials in, but its just something for people to be aware of.
EDIT!!!!
i got hold of a cracked exe on the net and pasted that over the existing one. THE GAME NOW WORKS!!!!! i dont see this as wrong however, as i have paid full price for a genuine game and it would not work properly the normal way and im not sure if it ever would.
id post the link but i think that would rub too many up the wrong way
ah well, im enjoying the game now, thats all that matters!!!!! see you out in africa!!!!!
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372 of 499 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ubisoft decide to join EA's sinking ship., 22 Oct 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
If your idea of computer ownership is to drive down to PC world every 5 years a buy and new computer, then never open it up then you might think Securom is not an issue for you. If you only play games for a year or so after you buy them, never return to them years later you might think Securom is not an issue for you. If you never sell your second hand games then you might think Securom is not an issue for you.
BUT.... Most gamers will upgrade their hardware one item at a time every 3/4 months, some more often. This burns an activation. Most serious computer users will reinstall their operating system every 6 months due to the registry becoming a mess over time. This burns an activation. Most gamer enjoy returning to old games years later. Some will sell their second hand games when they get bored of them.
What most gamer don't do is Pirate games (yet). But when a distributor decides they are going to treat all their PAYING customers like criminals, and sell them rentware games that will only last a user like myself less than a year at most, then their customers stop buying those games. A lot will even think if I am going to be treated like a criminal I might as well pirate it anyway. Spore is a classic example. The heaviest DRM ever became the most pirated ever.
I want to buy this game, but I won't due to DRM, I don't rent games at £25. If they want to sell me a years license at £10 I might consider it. Or if they don't want to include digital cancer on my product I'll happily pay £35 for it.
The distributors would try and tell you its about stopping pirates, RUBBISH. Securom has had no impact on piracy, in fact indirectly it has boosted it to new highs.
Securom is all about making you buy new games regularly and killing the second hand market. Its greed of the highest order. But what they are doing is not just killing the second hand market, their also killing the first hand market. Notice how every title with Securom has to go straight to discount price before even being launched, that's because customers won't stand for this treatment.
So think your unaffected? Well you can tell us all how it doesn't matter to you. And when the PC games market is dead because all the paying customers have been driven away you won't have any new titles to be ripped off by. Everyone loses with DRM, Us, you, distributors and game makers.
Take a look at Stardock, they have been successfully selling millions of copies of Sins, and they use zero DRM, it's a major selling point for them. Most Pirate sites don't even list Sins. Why would they, the original product is superior, regularly updated and customers are respected.
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Suitable for 18 years and over. Not for sale to persons under age 18. By placing an order for this product, you declare that you are 18 years of age or over.
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