No doubt some of you are sick of me banging on about Ubisoft Montreal’s incredible open world shooter. But – hey – it’s my website.

At EB right now you can pick up the Far Cry 2 collectors edition – that’s the one that comes in a wooden box with a t-shirt, art book and other merch – for just $46. They’ve got it on both PS3 and Xbox 360, too. (Sorry, PC gamers, you get the standard edition for the same price.)

I’m going to buy it today. Now, what to do with the review copy I already have…

I got going on this idea because my first night on the job for Kotaku — covering a Godfather II event — I sliced my foot open and spent the next week limping from junket to junket. But whenever I thought I had it bad as a games journalist, I’d always remind myself that journalists in video games usually have it way worse. They wade through zombies, deal with emotionally unstable people and more often than not wind up on the front lines of wars and stuff. They’re the ones that deserve a bottle of Cristal and a hug. But instead, they get this photo gallery.

Taylor — Suikoden 5
[Image Cred]

Irene Ellet — Valkyria Chronicles
[Image Cred]

Frank West — Dead Rising
[Image Cred]

Elena Fisher — Uncharted
[Image Cred]

Joseph Schreiber — Silent Hill 4

Keith Helm — Disaster Report
[Image Cred]

Ben Bertolucci — Resident Evil 2
[Image Cred]

Ulala — Space Channel 5

Everyone — Michigan: Report From Hell (never came out in North America)
[Image Cred]

Madison Paige — Heavy Rain
[Image Cred]

Laura Parton – D2

Keats — Folklore
[Image Cred]

Maya Amano – Persona 2: Eternal Punishment

Alyssa – Resident Evil: Outbreak
[Image Cred]

I give honorable mentions to the news announcers in King of Fighters 12, the sportscaster characters in any sports game ever and one to Reuben Oluwagembi in Far Cry 2 (couldn’t find a good enough picture of him). Other than that, these are all I’ve got — hit me up in the comments if you think of more. Owen Good nominated Paperboy I assume on grounds that he would have been promoted to copyeditor by now, but I don’t know…

P.S. I still have the cork from that bottle of Cristal in my purse. It reminds me of everything that’s happened in the last year and how much of it I owe to Kotaku. Here’s looking at another year of blogging!

LittleBigPlanet is an innovation award machine, so it stands to reason that it would be on the list. We knew that before we even looked at it. Sure enough, there it was, nestled comfortably among other surefire innovators like Flower and Noby Noby Boy, though I suspect the latter only made it mainly for the confusion factor and the tiny frogs. The only unfamiliar game on the list is MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade, a WiiWare title from Mindware that I don’t recall ever seeing in action.

Rounding out the list are two bigger titles, Far Cry 2 and Left 4 Dead. I’m not exactly sure where the innovation is in Far Cry 2, other than perhaps the map editing tools (Oh boy, do you really want me to start? – AU Ed). Left 4 Dead, on the other severed zombie hand, pretty much created its own sub-genre, so I can definitely see where Edge is coming from.

Where are they going? Find out next week when the winner is announced at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival over in England somewhere..

Fans of the critical blogosphere may have noticed several bloggers trying their hand at what they’ve termed Permanent Death Far Cry 2, a self-imposed rule that means if you die, you’re really dead. No reloading.

The idea is to test how the experience of Far Cry 2 – or indeed any game – alters when your actions and your inevitable demise are irreversible. Does it lend greater weight to the decisions you make? Does it become more affecting when your buddy dies and you can’t save them? Does it give more meaning to your ultimate fate?

The hypothesis is that, in the normal course of play, the death of your Far Cry 2 buddies is trivial when you can reload an earlier save. Indeed, your own death is rendered irrelevant, as you will no doubt “die” numerous times on your way to finishing the game.

Far Cry 2 designer Clint Hocking claims the answers to those questions aren’t as important as the player’s ability to ask them in the first place. Hocking is a firm believer in the primacy of “play” in as much as he contends that it is the player’s engagement with the game’s systems that results in interesting and – dare I say – emergent stories. He writes on his blog:

Ultimately, when I reject narrative techniques in favor of ludic ones, what I am really saying is that I reject traditional authorship. I reject the notion that what I think you will find emotionally engaging and compelling – and then build and deliver to you to consume – is innately superior to what you think is emotionally compelling. By extension, I reject the idea that I can make you feel the loss of a friend in a more compelling way by authoring an irreversible system than you could make yourself feel by playing with a system wherein a friend can be both dead and alive simultaneously and wherein his very existence can be in flux based on your playful whim.

My interpretation of this is: Frank Bilders’ death in Far Cry 2 carries meaning because your actions lead to it happening, while in Final Fantasy VII, to use a very hoary example, Aeris’ death has no meaning because your actions can have no effect on it whatsoever. The former is the game; the latter is just something that happens while you are playing the game. (Clint, let me know if I’m putting words in your mouth here!)

Anyway, I’m off to play some Permanent Death Far Cry 2. Then I’ll try some Permanent Death Invisible Archery.

The interior ministers of Germany’s 16 states have unanimously asked the German legislature to ban outright the distribution, sale, and development of violent video games. Such games have been a big part of the national conversation since a 17-year-old went on a gun rampage March 11, killing 15. Naturally, the shooter owned a shooter – Crytek’s Far Cry 2 – and playing it for two hours before the killings was enough to link games to the tragedy.

The demand is definitely politically timed – the interior heads want it ASAP, before German elections Sept. 27. Again, this is (snicker) a Far Cry from legislation introduced to parliament, but it was enough to fire up German readers who sent it to us, who already point to the country’s extremely strict youth protection laws, and are generally disgusted by lawmakers’ tendency to blame technologies they don’t understand.

Germany’s Interior Ministers Ask Bundestag For Total Ban on Violent Games [GamePolitics; also tipped by reader Michael J.]

It’s been almost seven months since Far Cry 2 hit the shelves, scoring all kinds of crazy-good reviews, but according to GamesRadar, the game is still crazy-broken.

The four page article “Warning: Far Cry 2 is still a broken game” details the chronology of the game’s issues from the first reports of crashes to the promised patches in the Far Cry 2 forums. In addition to the the numerous and apologetic posts from Ubi officials in the forum threads, it also has the latest “update” on the forthcoming patch:

April 1
Community Developer Atmon did respond to a private inquiry of ours, stating
“An update is still on track with several new features and enhancements, as well as fixes like any good big patches.”

It may sound like a lot of whining, but the piece does raise some good points. Why wouldn’t Ubi correct game-breaking bugs within weeks of the release instead of waiting more than half a year? And why not reach out to customers with more than just a paltry price drop?

Still, I don’t know that I’d go so far as to speculate that they’ll charge users for the new patch:

Actually, this release leads us to think that Ubisoft may plan on charging for the update.

But what do I know? I’m the kind of sucker that would have bought the game based on the shiny reviews that don’t mention the bugs.

Warning: Far Cry 2 is still a broken game [GamesRadar]

More details of the shooting linked to video games over in Germany: The shooter was playing Far Cry 2, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering what could be done to limit access to violent games.

Merkel did not give specifics in this Reuters story (via International Herald Tribune) so perhaps it’s just a politic response to vox populi blaming games. It was part of a broader statement that Germans “must be attentive to all young people — that’s true for parents and educators,” Merkel said. “We must do all to prevent children from having access to weapons and from them having to face too much violence.”

Sounds reasonable. The shooter’s father had 15 guns at home. Fourteen were locked up, and the kid used the one that wasn’t. Oopsie.

What’s just silly is trying to link Far Cry 2 to this. Der Spiegel mentioned yesterday the killer played the game prior to the shootings (it even got timestamps!) So The Times of London devotes a tortured two paragraphs explaining all the coincidences of the game and the shooting, leaving out that both took place on planet Earth.

Remarkable parallels emerged between the video game and the 17-year-old’s rampage. In the game it is essential to hijack cars to move around. Kretschmer hijacked a car, held a pistol to the driver’s head and asked: “Should I have fun and pick off some more drivers?” Characters in the game, which is made by the French company Ubisoft and has sold 2.9m copies, wear black camouflage uniforms – the clothing Kretschmer wore on Wednesday.

Most sinister of all, Far Cry 2’s killer uses a Beretta 92 handgun, the weapon fired 112 times by Kretschmer. The game, which carries an 18 certificate in Britain, includes sequences in which the aiming, firing and reloading of a Beretta are portrayed in vivid detail. It also rewards players who shoot their victims in the head, the style of killing chosen by Kretschmer.

And 12 contains the numbers one and two, just like the toilet yesterday where somebody went number two instead of number one.

If blaming Far Cry 2 makes people feel better, fine. I’ll blame the facts he was a disturbed teenager who had a bondage porn kink way too early in life and was snubbed by a girl he had a crush on, who was among the first of his victims.

Mass Killer ‘Rejected’ by Girl at Party [Times of London]
Merkel Urges Greater Focus on Youth after Shootings [Reuters on International Herald Tribune]

The next set of patches for for Far Cry 2 will deliver a “hardcore mode” begged for by players in Ubisoft’s forums. It will deliver “a more realistic experience” in multiplayer.

Ubi community manager Atmon spread the word on Friday. Hardcore mode delivers a new damage model (meaning, increased damage) and rebalanced weapons. Also:

• Enemy names will disappear after the spawning invincibility period is over.

• A new option lets you tweak spawning time, but not spawning rate.

• A search option will be added to multiplayer that allows you to find games on hardcore mode.

• These features will be available on all platforms.

“The hardcore mode has been designed as an answer to a community request. When designing the multiplayer game our team wanted to provide a balanced experience for most gamers. However some players were seeking and expecting a more realistic experience,” Atmon writes. “We hope that you will like the changes our team has implemented to let you enjoy the game, and play it the way you want.”

Hardcore Mode [Ubisoft Forums: Far Cry 2 General Discussion]

Ubisoft and Charles River Media are keen on having gamers school each other, announcing The Official Far Cry 2 Map Editing Guide, one of the first game design books written by gamers.

All three versions of Far Cry 2 contain a robust set of level design tools, but there is a big difference between tossing down a few boulders onto a blank map and crafting a sublime multiplayer experience. Ubisoft now turns to the Far Cry 2 players themselves, accepting submissions on various topics for inclusion in “Designing Wargames: The Official Far Cry 2 Map Editing Guide”, to be published this spring.

“This is the next milestone in gamer-generated content,” says David Hutchison, Associate Professor at Brock University. “Far Cry 2 makes it easy for both PC and console gamers to create cool new multiplayer maps that they can then share with other gamers. We want to honour this effort by inviting the Far Cry 2 map-making community to contribute to this first-of-its-kind game design book.”

While the backbone of the book will be authored and edited by Professor Hutchinson, the author of “Playing to Learn: Video Games in the Classroom,” the meat will come directly from articles submitted at www.farcrybook.com. If you’re interested in becoming a part of the project, just follow the link for the submission guidelines, but act fast – submissions close tomorrow.

It sounds to me like a collection of user-written FAQS and strategies you’d find online, only without having to worry about burning your thighs with your laptop while reading it in the restroom. I approve.

Ubisoft® Announces “The Official Far Cry® 2 Map Editing Guide”

A Book Written by Gamers for Gamers

LONDON, UK – January 27, 2008 – Today, Ubisoft announced a unique partnership with Charles River Media, one of North America’s leading publishers of video game development books. Both companies are working together to create one of the first game design books written by gamers for gamers.

“Designing Wargames: The Official Far Cry® 2 Map Editing Guide” will be published in the spring of 2009. Written and edited by David Hutchison, author of “Playing to Learn: Video Games in the Classroom,” the book will comprise of map making techniques and advice contributed by Far Cry 2 map makers around the world.

“This is the next milestone in gamer-generated content,” says David Hutchison, Associate Professor at Brock University. “Far Cry 2 makes it easy for both PC and console gamers to create cool new multiplayer maps that they can then share with other gamers. We want to honour this effort by inviting the Far Cry 2 map-making community to contribute to this first-of-its-kind game design book.”

As underlined by Jessy-Gosselin Gant of the Far Cry2 development team:”Level design is a defining factor in how the player will experience a video game. It constitutes a key role in production by having the responsibility of presenting all the different game components such as art, animation, AI and gameplay mechanics at their best, so the player can enjoy them in a convincing and attractive environment.”

Far Cry 2 map-makers who are interested in contributing to the book can learn more at the book’s website – www.farcrybook.com – where they can submit Far Cry 2 map reviews, map editing quick tips, tactical analyses, and feature articles.

Be careful what you log into, Steam users. A new account phishing scheme is targeting users of Valve’s digital distribution platform, luring in gamers with the promise of gifted copies of Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2.

While Steam users are regularly warned by messages from Valve not to provide their login details to anyone — “Steam Support will never need your password for any reason” — this particular tactic capitalises on the service’s ability to “gift” a copy of a game to another user.

The authentic-looking e-mail uses a spoofed, support@steampowered.com address, forwarding recipients to a dummy version of the Steam Community web site. That page simply harvests login and password information, potentially giving the phishing schemers access to personal account information.

The most obvious indicator that you’re not at the official Steam Community web site is the cloned page’s URL, which should be the secured https://steamcommunity.com/.

If you weren’t affected by the phishing attempt, we’d still recommend brushing up on Valve’s account security recommendations. And if you think your account might have been compromised, we’ll forward you to official documentation on reclaiming a hijacked Steam account.

We’ve contacted Valve to get comment on the matter, but in the meantime, don’t be lured in by this nonsense.