We also had stuff like the Dynasty Warrior series (for sheer number of enemies) and RPGs like DQVIII (with large open-ish worlds) so it's hard to imagine doing anything BIGGER that strictly needs that power. To meet a certain level of graphical fidelity perhaps, PS2 GTAs looked and ran like shit, and DQVIII looked as good as it did half because of Level 5, half because the graphics just weren't really all that busy so you could afford to render a large, sweeping landscape when it's just the main character and maybe a few roaming enemies.
Probably. The largest RPG world of all time still belongs to Elder Scrolls II which came out in 1996. Part of that though is development issues: procedural generation, money, man hours, etc.
I did not enjoy Far Cry 3 at all. Most of my fustration stemmed from just a technical perspective. I don't know what it was but that particular game just didn't perform well at all on my PC. It didn't appear to matter what file tweaks, drivers or option settings I was using the game just never performed very well. Plus the inventory, crafting and upgrading UI systems are perhaps the worst I've had to experience since trying to manage Mass Effect 1's inventory system.
The environments and scenery were gorgeous once you disabled the over-the-top depth of field effect. The gameplay only really got fun once you began to roam around the open world and started to explore the islands and stumble upon some funny random encounters. I felt like the vast majority of the game was pretty standard and generic in many regards with the only real excitment coming from liberating the pirate camps rather than the actual story missions. The crafting, RPG elements and collectibles all felt very tacked on or largely unnecessary.
The overall story, plot and setting had lots of potential that was largely hit n' miss. It had some crazy moments and reveals but nothing to write home about. As for the characters Vaas, Dr. Earnhardt, Dennis and Willis were pretty well written, acted and realized but the rest were pretty boring and forgettable.
Overall, I just felt like Far Cry 3 was nothing more than a run of the mill generic shooter with a boring story set in an admittedly pretty open world with some RPG elements tossed in for good measure. Luckily for me, I was patient and got it on a steam sale for about $13 so it wasn't a big loss... Still had to force myself to finish it though.
I think I'll be far more interested in Far Cry 4: Blood Dragon 2 than Far Cry 4 itself.
I think this is a great description of Far Cry 3. I enjoyed FC3 a lot because I spent most of my time just running around the open world liberating bases and encountering random events. Ubisoft needs to understand that's probably the best part of FC3. The most memorable event in the game for me (I actually still haven't finished it) was hang-gliding and seeing a battle erupt about 200 feet below me on a beach, and swooping down to finish off the enemy.
Like I said earlier though, Ubisoft's open world games of recent seem to betray the "open-world" part to some degree. They mostly fall into a pattern of linear main missions with some tiny side activities. Far Cry just so happens to be an open-world first person shooter which is rare on consoles.
There are so few open world FPSes that it should be impossible for one to be run-of-the-mill and generic, but since most of FC3's missions are linear and separate from the open world they end up being generic anyway. Doing a mission is like starting up some other game that's totally different from the open world one you were enjoying. I prefer FC2 where your missions are goals like "blow up the water pump" and the water pump is something that exists as part of the open world you've been exploring and you can use whatever tactics you can think of to blow it up. That's how an open world mission is an open world mission instead of a linear minigame.
This is the main thing I miss from Far Cry 2. FC2 is a tragically flawed gem. It contains most of the elements of my dream FPS but has serious flaws: nothing to do except shoot people, annoying respawning enemies, etc. It represented an alternate direction that I would love to have seen console shooters take but was too flawed to really catch on, even within Ubisoft.
I think I would be satisfied if FC4 ended up being like FC3 but with FC2's mission design. That's about as much as I think I can expect from Ubisoft. The only ray of hope I have right now though is basically one sentence from the press release:
Using a vast array of weapons, vehicles and animals, players will write their own story across an exotic open-world landscape.
A little bit after Far Cry 3 came out and got a good reception, and around the time Assassin's Creed IV was first revealed, Jade Raymond talked about how Ubisoft was beginning to realize players wanted to define their own experiences or something like that. I hope they've taken that to heart in FC4.
The shooter we all really want is just FC2 with a bit more structure and variety.