Alex Amanico: They don’t have stats or anything. They’re basically just different guys, different characters. What’s interesting is that the guys you don’t pick, you get to meet in the world.
Right now you’re playing a guy called Marty. He’s (from the) US. This guy (gestures to a guy on screen), Frank – maybe your buddy who bought the game will be playing as Frank and you’ll be like ‘oh, I just met Frank in the game’.
So, basically there’s no difference in stats, but the guy that you pick you won’t meet in the world. If you play again you can pick another character and actually meet the guy.
SPOnG: So, with the multi-player, will different players be playing as different guys then?
Alex Amanico: In terms of multi-player? No. It’s going to be these mercenaries that you can pick and choose.
(I entered a battered old Datsun and began to drive).
Alex Amanico: We always keep the player in the game. We always remain in first person because one of the key things in the game is we always want to keep you tied to your avatar physically, so you’re always seeing through his eyes.
(I sprinted out into the village I was raiding and started spraying bullets.)
Alex Amanico: So, you’re just going Rambo!
SPOnG: Yeah…
Alex Amanico: You can do it any way you want. The game actually will adapt.
SPOnG: What sort of multi-player will Far Cry 2 actually have?
Alex Amanico: We actually have many multi-player modes. One of the things that’s really cool about our multi-player modes is we’re shipping the game with a map editor, even on console. The map editor is extremely powerful. We give you access to the same tools that we used to create our world.
So, not only can you create maps but you can exchange them, there’s a ranking system, so you won’t have to sift through a load of crappy maps to get to a good one – the maps are going to be ranked.
As I was mentioning, one thing is that, depending on whether you’re playing on casual or hardcore mode, the AI actually is different. Most games just have an incremental AI, where they just add more HP, more accuracy to the AI.
The way we have it is that they will actually be making different tactical decisions if you’re in harder mode. They’ll actually be surrounding you, and obviously their accuracy’s going to be up. They actually use different tactics and more efficient tactics the higher the difficulty level you use. Their main goal, basically, is to stay alive. They try to co-ordinate with each other and try to flank you and stuff like that.
SPOnG: Thanks for your time.