Sometimes when I play Far Cry (1), I come by enemies that have their arms sticking to sides like with a scarecrow, and I think they don't move around either. But they do shoot back.

For example when I arrived to the carrier in the beginning of the game and scouted it with the binoculars, the motionless enemy soldiers were just standing there. It looked quite comical.

However, when I exited the game and loaded the latest save point again (arriving to carrier, automatic savepoint), the soldiers were normal once again, moving around a bit, interacting with each others etc.

Has anyone else seen this bug? I've seen it in a couple of places now. One notable thing is that I've been using the instant save from console ("\save_game 1", "\load_game 1"), so I am unsure if that could affect it too. But I don't recall if I saw this bug a long time ago when I played it through the first time.

Playing on Windows 7/64bit, hardest difficulty level.

Seen it. For me, they act normal once I get closer and they start to react to my actions.

Hmm, I've never noticed this. I don't use quick saves though. I just use the default autosave points.

Yeah, Far Cry is having all sorts of minor issues with the animations, AI and stuff. They seem to occur pretty much at random, even without using console commands or mods.

Ok, I didn't recall that from the first playthrough but maybe it was there already back then. Anyway, played it through again now so at least the little glitches here and there didn't prevent from playing nor finishing the game (and the little problems seemed to disappear if one just exited and reloaded the game).

Currently playing Far Cry 2 (and I love it how it at least supports save-anywhere by default)...

I don't use it during firefights or like that, but I use save-anywhere in Far Cry 2 to skip having to replay over and over again the boring parts. Like driving a long way from a safe house to my mission destination. I rather make a save game just as I have arrived near to the destination, at least if I feel I've had to do it several times already.

The good thing is that the game gives you the choice to play it any way you want (including how often to save). I understood the console versions lack the save-anywhere in this game. Good thing then I am not playing them.

I can tolerate savepoint systems if I have to (e.g. XIII, Halo 1-2, GTA3 etc.), but the fact is they usually just end up irritating me, not so much making me feel the game is more challenging.

Far Cry 2 (on the hardest difficulty) feels quite a bit easier game than Far Cry 1 though, so maybe I could tolerate the lack of save-anywhere in this case. At least I don't recall instant deaths in Far Cry 2, like there was lots of time in the first game. It seems you can usually escape the battles, as long as you don't go head-on in the middle of the enemies.

I know what you mean and that's how I feel about games where saving is limited in a bad manner. For example it always annoyed me in the GTA III generation that failing at the mission usually meant having to again travel to the guy giving you the mission and then possibly a long distance to the destination within the mission (especially frustrating in case of the more challenging or heavily luck based missions). Not to mention badly positioned checkpoints in shooters where you may have to repeat both a long and boring journey plus multiple challenging fights in a row.

But I must say, I'm not really sticking to the saves spots in FC2 to make it more challenging but to make it more immersive. I get to improvise more and additionally the rescue buddy (who is IMHO a brilliant idea) will save my ass occasionally. So even if I die because of crazy circumstances like one of those psycho drivers coming out of nowhere I don't end up being frustrated. And indeed, the combat itself just isn't as tough as in similar other games (like say the Stalker series), on normal it almost feels rather casual. I'm considering to try it on the hardest setting one day, hoping that it will make the game feel like a real survival experience. On normal that feeling doesn't occur that often but when it does I love it.