This has no doubt been mentioned before (myself and Throb have been verbal on it), but the Reggie and Yogi missions are a game highlight, I wasn't a fan of the Shangri-La parts, but the missions where're you chasing them down in a drug fuelled hallucinatory rage are brilliant and the music is the best I've heard in a game. 

One of the weapons you get in the 2nd half of the game (the ripper IIRC) is a must have for tearing through enemies. One thing I really liked about 4 was the grenade launcher was a sidearm and can be wielded while driving. (bounce). 

As you said, the scenery is amazing. The best bit in the 2nd half is when you're approaching Pagan Min's fortress. If you're in one of the helicopters, you fly over a crest and the whole valley just falls away from you revealing a vast landscape. :D
 

Plus when you complete Reggie & Yogi, you get a transcendental fishing rod.

I don't remember this, so either I did that mission and found it unmemorable, or I never did it. I'll see if I can pull it up on this, my third go-through (I also spent several months in base-reset mode, which I found very enjoyable and aim to repeat).

I always turn off game music before I even begin, because I find it a distraction and seldom share developers' taste in music (I have teh olds).

It's entirely possible, likely even, that my rig is a shade too underpowered to do justice to this game, e.g. the NPC combat animations are unnaturally quick and jerky, simply because the engine is not optimized as well as in later iterations -- 5, Primal, and ND are all relatively smooth and believable.

Some of the game designers' strategies to overcome ca. 2014 technical limitations by other means are inventive and fairly effective. What they couldn't seem to overcome were conceptual limitations in player engagement. I think what I'm trying to say is, they did the best they could, and it's pretty impressive at that.

The game is really good, but it's been improved on at least in those respects.

Another great drug-addled set piece is the John Woo-influenced shootout in the brick works/drug factory, where as you shoot the sacks, your vision becomes increasingly psychedelic and Panjabi MC's Jogi, his wonderful remix of the Bollywood classic Mundian to Bach Ke, kicks in.

For me, in that context, the music blended perfectly. Aceeeed, as the young ones used to say.

I wouldn't mind seeing it remastered against latest engine, along with various other tweaks, such as: give Min and the Minions more airtime, with more meaningful player interactions, and remove mandatory side-missions (such as Shangri-La) -- this also applies in spades to FC5.

Not likely, though.  :-(

I dipped into the Vortex VR hack.

Being there was wonderful, but it didn't use the HTC wands and natch you can't see the keyboard controls. If I'd learnt it on a gamepad, it might have been a goer. Also, non-VR optimised ports = motion sickness.

Looks pretty cool



If anyone is going to get motion sickness in gaming or riding a tightly-sprung auto through rolling hills, it's me.  (puke)