I picked up both UT99 (which I played the crap out of not too long ago) and UT04 (which is mired in the drunken hazes of memory). I think I'm enjoying '04 more than '99 at this point, though I'm not too keen on Double Domination myself or those random 1-on-1 CTF matches.

That has to be one of the most in depth and well though-out analyses I've seen about someone trying to decide between two games in a series. Very nice. +1

Also, UT had the greatest multiplayer map of all time, which inspired numerous future games (such as Halo) - "Facing Worlds". Every modern game I play seems to have some sort of map that is similar to Facing Worlds.

Just getting back to this. And forewords: it always helps if you think of Far Cry 2 as a GTA-clone (in first person view), not a similar FPS game to the first Far Cry, or Crysis games. That helps to understand some of the gaming mechanism better IMHO (because they are usually quite similar in other GTA games too, but not on other FPS games)

I agree the malaria is kinda useless effect in Far Cry 2, not really adding anything to the game. On the other hand, I didn't feel it detracted much from it either. What it just meant in practice was:

- Every now and then you'd get a blurry vision, meaning a malaria attack. You just press the healing button to take a pill to cure the attack (not the whole disease), and you're back on track instantly.

- Rarely you find out that you are running out of pills. So it means you have to execute one special mission (I think it was always "deliver passports to refugees"), after which you get a new can of malaria pills. After that you can again forget about the disease for a long time (besides having to press that health button occasionally when you get a blurry vision), until the next time you run out of them.

I never got to the state that you mentioned, ie. passing out and ending up in the church or something, but maybe I was just diligent about going for those malaria pill missions as soon as it seemed I was going to run out of them.

In a way I found it a similar, and even less irritating, special mission as in e.g. GTA San Andreas the girlfriend "missions", or the attacks of rival gangs to your turf. In those cases you also had to drop everything else you were doing at the time, and concentrate on either taking one of your girlfriends out, or go kill the rival gang members attacking your area... or face the consequences.

I must say I personally found those extra activities in GTA San Andreas worse, at least at one point of the game I felt my areas were constantly being attacked by rival gangs, and e.g. yesterday when I was hunting to get 100% of the gang tags and photo snapshots (using my new rocket pack, yay!), I was irritated to quite often getting reports "You missed your date with Denise!" etc. as I was busy finding the hidden objects. Then again, the girlfriends are mostly optional in GTA SA, I guess I could just forget about them...

It would have been silly if the enemies would not respawn at all in Far Cry 2, because then you would indeed be driving in an empty world void of any enemies or opposition quite soon. Again, it helps to think this a GTA clone where you are constantly driving the same areas over and over again after your missions, not a generic FPS where you move from one area and level to another, never coming back. Think of e.g. GTA SA where enemy gangs, policemen, pedestrians or other cars wouldn't respawn, It would be an empty world quite soon.

However, as it has been said, the implementation of the enemy respawn in Far Cry 2 could have been done better, because it can be unclear to someone when exactly the respawn happens. I think it was confirmed before that it happens if you enter a new map (e.g. if you exit a map area and come back right away, the enemies are respawned in that area you had just left). So this is mostly annoying if you keep going back and forth all the time, but less so if you are just driving one way to your next objective. Don't go over the borders of the current map, unless you are really going to travel somewhere else.

I personally would have preferred that respawning (of the whole gameworld) would have happened only when you e.g. receive a new mission, or maybe it could have been based on elapsed time. I presume it was made this way due to memory limitations of the console versions, ie. only one map is kept in the memory of the system at any time, and when a new map/area is loaded, everything is resetted on it. And the PC version has the same.

Also, remember that when the enemies in the checkpoints/outposts respawn, also the ammo and healthpacks on those outposts respawn. If you feel you don't need any extra ammo or health packs, you can usually just forget about the respawning enemies and either drive through most of the outposts at full speed (taking little damage to your car, which you can easily fix yourself without penalty when the chase cools down), or drive offroad to avoid the respawned enemies (and ammo/health).

So if I felt I was running out of ammo or health syringes, I quite often used the respawning mechanism to my advantage to replenish them.

Strong promo.

Wow. I have almost every single game on this list (in box or GOG form) except two. System Shock 2 and Blake Stone: Planet Strike are missing. Maybe I'll pick up the second Blake Stone game.

Damn good collection here other than that.

Oh really? I put it on my wishlist cause I heard it's open world and has quite a good story. Since I usually suck at shooters, story is important for me.
Might have to watch a let's play or something before buying it. Or do you have any other recommendations (this goes to everyone reading this post :D).

Its not open world as in a one big giant landmass like Morrowind or San Andreas or even later Far Cry games just level to level, but the lands are big so the game is sort of like a Halo campaign (wide open areas, but the linear go straight foward)

And the story is meh infact I barely paid attention, thats how unimmersive it is and neither are the characters.

And be prepared to get you ass handed to you by Trigens and awfully observant Soldiers because the stealth is somewhat broken. And the lack of quicksave few/far in between checkpoints.

It's not broken. Seriously, I don't know where people are getting this from. Ever since I got the silenced MP5 I've been killing the vast majority of mercenaries without ever being seen and without ever feeling that they see me when they shouldn't - with very few exceptions when I'm crawling in grass and feel that I should be fully covered. But even then, the "attention meter" fills up so slowly that I can easily hide before they have spotted me.

I know I always take the MP5 with me along with Sniper Rifle, M4, and Rocket Launcher. But don't expect Thief level stealth. The stealth in Crysis is WAY better and no the Cloaking is not 100% overpowered it drains and if you move to fast it drains faster. Just walking should takew about a minute until the Cloak disengages, but also the enemy AI is more improved and you can even hide in foliage and they won't see you even without cloaking, provided of course your not too close to them.

I picked up UT:GOTY last year, and only just now got around to installing it. I've been out of the gaming loop for quite a while, so I don't know how modern shooters play, but oh man, is UT99 a ton of fun!!!

Agreed, UT99 is still great (although when I played an online match with a friend a few weeks ago we got our asses kicked by some psychopath and I could hardly call that fun - it felt like fighting a perfect bot :P). UT2004 is the best in the series, though, IMO, and provides by far most variety, not even counting all the mods and maps made by the community. UT3 isn't bad either but the "problem" is that it's not modern at all - it's like UT99 with improved graphics and vehicles on some maps. And apparently a modding community never quite emerged for that one.

Thanks Gog, now I`ll get UT2004 and Medal of Honor. system shock and farcry saga can wait... :D

That's why I play games. :)