anone know if this being a stand alone means it will still be open world like far cry 3 or linear?

They have said that it will be open world

The game director recommends that you play the first 2 missions until it turns open world, then do everything else and get buffed up to hell before returning to the critical path so that you can plow through enemies like a proper action star.

It's open world but I still advise against buying it, it really feels terrible, and Far Cry 3 was my GOTY..

Don't lie to people, OfficeGamer. This is better than vanilla Far Cry 3 by miles. No more stupid self-serious plots, and no more lame main characters, and more 80's and neon.

Everyone needs to preorder this, so we get more awesome spin-offs like this in the future.

Has he mentioned if this recommendation is made clear in the game? It doesn't seem essential to enjoying the game, but if it makes it that much better maybe once players complete its second mission the game could suggest that it's probably better to "explore" or something like that.

Then again that sounds like a personal opinion, and not the whole development crew might agree. I'm just wondering if there was any mention of an in-game promotion for that type of progression.

@sonnycheebah said:

Exactly.

Well I've played it annnnd.. the game sucks. Stealth feels very weak, the sky is red/the camera is filtered red all the damn time which gives you a headache and strains your eyes. Imagine someone spraying red spray on all over your TV screen and you have to look through it. Also, all your guns are enormous and loud. That means they blocks half the screen, need quite a while to swap and reload, and shoot loudly and inaccurately like a rocket launcher.

The first 30 minutes were fantastic, but when you realize this is open world and your best bet is stealth, yet the open world looks grim and the stealth is like I said very weak, you end up closing the game.

@officegamer: I could be totally wrong about this but I'm pretty sure this one isn't intended to be played stealth. It's meant to be loud and obnoxious and kind of stupid. If that's not your thing then I can see this not being fun.

I also played it and none of your complaints seem valid. It's the game's vibe. It's not really meant to be played stealthily a lot (even the "save the hostage" missions don't require that, since if you're obnoxious enough no one will even get to him in time), considering the guns are deliberately crazy stupid (explosive rounds for the sniper rifle, anyone?), you get health up the wazoo and there's so much enemies that leveling up is a non-issue. Everything gameplay-wise is precisely the same as in Far Cry 3, which you call your GOTY, so you calling the stealth weak while the game mechanics are exactly the same as in the vanilla game makes no sense. Hell, the stealth is arguably less clumsy since you begin with the more "core" stealth abilities you actually had to spend some time unlocking (like most of the takedowns and dragging bodies) in FC3.

@arabes said:

Oh... In that case... I have some tests to run. I'll withhold judgement for now!

Yeah.... no. You're quite wrong there, you're not a fragile human with standard physics and snappy "earthly" guns in a clear tropical environment, the weight of the cyborg character's movement and the difference in weapons and environment and aesthetics makes it feel very different because it does in fact handle differently.

I won't get into this much further because at the end of the day it's about the way it feels and that's not up for much discussion, but I do disagree.

I think it's just his opinion. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that the game lets you get intentionally overpowered to the point of broken, so I think that he just thinks it's probably more fun to go through the missions in god mode with a shotgun that has like ten barrels or whatever.

Wow, you guys got to play the game early. I wonder how that happened?

The PC leak. I'm not proud of it nor I endorse it, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I went through the prologue, fucked around a bit and am currently waiting for the legit release.

Got this coming as a freebie with my AMD never Settle Reloaded Coupon, it seems pretty cool, I'm excited to check it out.

@snail: Not from what I gathered. It's just a personal recommendation from him to fully encapsulate that "Fuck yeah! 80's!" vibe.

PC leak..why does this shit happen? Opportunity occurs, ppl. will check it out. For myself, I pre-ordered it. You always take a chance of being a fool that way, but I wanted to believe. At any rate this discussion has a pro and con, so I wil stop reading and wait till Tuesday.

Mr. P Klapeck(sp?) pushed Singularity well enough that I am 2/3'D's through that game now...and it could be worse! I didn't trust it because it was a 'summer' game if I remember correctly, but the reviewer was right about this one. Raven did decent. So much better than that Wolfenstein one..think that was Raven also(?)

Way off subject, looking forward to Far Cry 3...Blood Dragon!!!

@ghostiet: You're not playing it stealthy? How are you dealing with dragons? Those fuckers are bad-ass and kill me within seconds if they spot me.

I'm at the point where you have to kill two dragons and I totally understand why you're supposed to go and do open world stuff for a bit. The game doesn't necessarily make that obvious in terms of in-game text, but neither did Far Cry 3 and when you attempt a mission several times and keep getting killed it's fairly obvious that you need to level up a bit. Same experience with Skyrim.

Is the stealth any less wonky than the stealth in the original FC3?

I recently bought FC3, and am enjoying the hell out of it. Becoming more powerful by unlocking skills and weapons feels like a major part in building yourself up into a badass.

When I look at Blood Dragon, I'm kinda hoping to walk into that with the whole aesthetic and weird weapons unlocking. If it's comparable to Far Cry 3, except with the weird weapons (ie: like RoboCop's gun), and strange world (ie: cyborg animals)...I'd be happy with that.

Dragons are essentially the only thing you should tackle stealthily. And even then, open combat isn't that hard - run around a lot, use the shotgun or the sniper rifle with exploding bullets.

I'm suddenly really excited to play this. I'll have to wait for Jeff's review for a final confirmation, but it's almost a given that I'll play it this week.

Quick look is now up & watch it as it is a smaller island but seems just as open world as Far Cry 3 on many things.