Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Far Cry 2. We talk about the extreme friction of the game, landmarking and open world layout, and touch a little bit on the buddies. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Several more hours

Issues covered: variations on the same song, high degree of friction, a simulation of a place, allowing for authorship within the simulation, clashing of systems, not mattering which side you choose, making your choices matter, not spending your time doing what you want to be doing, running into natural boundaries, playing jazz or the jam band, having to switch up weapons, not having to switch weapons, not quite getting the recipe right/seeing the proof of concept, the noodling before the chord changes, time of information spread in this vs deeper stealth games, not having the clarity of information, leaning more into the power fantasy, running out of resources in the friction, game scale opposing stealth, engaging with the buddy system, buddies personifying ways of improving, losing some buddies, expendable buddies, boosting Japan's quality control, balancing stability and forward momentum in development, the impossibility of keeping your politics out of games, having to have a theory when you are out past what is known, having to make decisions in development, the nonviolent ending, having to feel balance in games.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sim City, GTA III, Ghost Recon (series), Metal Gear Solid V or V, Thief, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed (series), Patrick Redding, biostats, W. Edwards Deming, Square Enix, UbiSoft, Sam Thomas, mysterydip, BioShock, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia, "The Blink."

Next time: More hours/Finish?

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