Far Cry 2

The Good
A long, challenging and varied action game, with excellent graphics and sound. If you'll get tired from the non-stop, adrenalin-pumping action, you can always climb onto the highest cliff and stare at the beautifully presented African setting.

The Bad
Sometime can be repetitive and tiresome. Over-the-edge realism and the feeling that some ideas weren't polished enough before entering the game will frustrate you.

The Bottom Line
First of all, while carrying the same name, Far-Cry 2 is not in any way related to the original Far-Cry game, released a few years ago by CryTek. While the latter took place in a tropical environment and featured somewhat of a Modern Sci-Fi shooter experience, Far-Cry 2 takes itself very seriously, presenting a rather realistic campaign and storyline, involving arms trafficking and army uprising in a war-torn African country.

The game begins with our hero, whom his character can be chosen from a bunch of deadbeats mercenaries (though the game experience itself doesn't really change by this decision as all character plays the same) with a clear death wish, arriving to war worn African country, in the pursuit of an arms dealer called "The Jackal".

From the second you'll start up the game, you'll notice the big emphasis and efforts the developers have put on realism in Far-Cry 2. Picking a weapon or opening a door will show our hero's hand reaching to the handle, going up a ladder will remove our selected weapon and feature our hands climbing swiftly between the levels, jumping into a lake will make our character do "swimming moves" with his hands (removing the weapon from the screen). If you played Crysis you probably know what I mean.

Even when you'll treat yourself when getting hurt, you'll see your character injecting himself with a syringe, pulling out a bullet from his knee or taking pills, all from first person view.

But the realism doesn't stop in the visual aspects of the game. Weapons used throughout the game will wear out, jam and eventually explode in your hands, probably causing you to be shot and die by your enemy gun. Clicking the map key will actually remove the weapon and make our hero pull out a map in his hand. No doubt, these all help make the experience in Far-Cry 2 much more realistic, but the fact that you'll get shot while trying to figure out where to head next or while injecting a syringe can be tiresome, especially in your first playing hours.

The action in Far-Cry 2 is very intense. The weapon inventory is huge and varied: grenades, guns, assault-guns, heavy machine guns, missile launchers and even mortar weapons, all free to use and kill with.

You can cause mayhem to your foes in so many different ways it's amazing. You want to attack an enemy post with your guns blazing? Go ahead. You prefer to snipe them silently from a hill? Good for you, there's a hill right up there. Want to take the stealth approach? Be my guest. The game also features a cool fire system - just throw a Molotov bottle to a twig field in a hot day and watch your enemy burn up in the spreading flames.

On the highest difficulty levels, the enemy in Far-Cry 2 can offer quite a challenge. Enemy soldiers will often flank you and perform what looks like clever tactics. But while your foes will sometime act pretty smart, there will be occasions in which they'll act absolutely stupid - running over each other with cars, crashing into trees or just staring at a tree blazing in a flame you started, waiting to be shot.

Far-Cry 2 features a huge world to wander on. There are dozens of storyline and side missions that'll keep you busy for a long time. Some missions will reward you with diamonds (the money in the game), others will advance the plot or give you different perks. The missions are fairly what we're used to from other games in the genre, but the excellent level design greatly compensate for it, making each mission feel practically new.

The game also presents a nifty purchasing system to buy weapons, equipment and upgrades for your guns. A full day/night cycle is also introduced in Far-Cry 2, so you can choose whenever you want to perform your next assignment.

Throughout the single player campaign you'll venture hundred of real-life kilometers walking, swimming driving cars, trucks, assault vehicles, gunboats and licensed Chrysler Jeep models. Since mission goals and briefings are spread across the entire game world you'll find yourself spending a lot of time behind a wheel. And while driving a Jeep Wrangler throughout an African savanna is fun, long road trips can become repetitive and boring quickly.

Aside from mission locations, enemy soldiers can also be found in outposts and road barricades which are scattered throughout the land. Since there are so many of those, almost every road trip will require you to pass via one of these posts, immediately causing all of its residents to start shooting you.

Evading a post is possible by going around it (what will usually extend the trip) and attacking it will cleanse it only for a short while - until the next time you'll have to pass through that post - as enemy regeneration is used greatly in Far-Cry 2.

Strangely enough, there is no way to take more than one mission on the same time in Far-Cry 2. You'll often find yourself accepting a mission which its target is located 20 minutes of driving from the point you've taken it. And after you'll drive to the mission site and complete it, you'll have to drive all the way back to tell your employer you're completed the assignment. Add to those 2-3 outposts on the way you'll need to go through, some of them you probably already cleansed a couple of time before, and you'll get a nice recipe for frustration.

While the storyline in Far-Cry 2 is fairly banal, with all the usual predicted plot-twists, it is presented very well and indeed captures the African experience. Too bad though, that the developers insisted that Far-Cry 2 will remain a standard action game, and didn't add some adventure elements to it.

For example, through the game the player is acquainted with "Buddies", who are also mercenaries like him. They'll offer different ways to complete storyline missions and provide side missions of their own. Your Buddies usually hang out in shady bars which you can visit, and while you can read a (very, very) short background story on each of them, it would've been nice if you could actually talk with them about other things, beside the missions they want you to do.

The graphical setting in Far-Cry 2 is very pretty. You'll see lovely waterfalls and lakes, amazing sunsets, trees moving gently in the wind or being torn by storms. Zebras and deer will roam the land freely, if sometimes bumping foolishly in your car. The human models are also impressive, and the same goes for the vehicles. The animal models look a bit uninspired, but all-in-all they do manage to catch the overall feeling of the African savanna.

Sounds include various music tracks, which help getting in the African mood. The sound effects are really good, too. The guns sound great, vehicles roar as expected and the whistle of a mortar slowly getting louder and louder is really terrifying. The voice acting is also great.

Aside from the single player campaign, Far-Cry 2 comes with a great and easy-to-use map editor, and a 16-players online multiplayer option, which includes standard death match and classes based multiplayer games.

Far-Cry 2 took a lot of time to develop, and it can be seen in the product outcome. The journey to find and kill the Jackal is indeed epic, both in size and feeling, mostly due to the excellent graphics and level design. While some parts of the game are frustrating, it is no doubt Far-Cry 2 offers a unique and challenging experience that shouldn't be ignored by any action lover.

The Good
I’ll disclose this up front - I’m a bit biased. I married into an East African family, so there’s a special place in my heart for a game set in Africa. Although the story is set in a fictional central African nation, the scenery looks very East African (and the development team went to Kenya for research).

And when I say “looks”, I mean it “looks fantastic”. The graphics are just gorgeous. Big, open plains. Exotic vegetation. Grass slowly moving in the wind. Zebras and other animals roaming freely. And a dynamic time-of-day and weather system. You’ll find yourself on a river, gazing at the early morning fog tinting everything in yellow.

So let’s get into the story - you’re a mercenary, sent to said country to assassinate an infamous arms dealer, the Jackal, who is selling weapons to two big warring factions. However, you've barely even landed and immediately contract Malaria (wow, that was quick?!) and pass out, waking up to see the Jackal mock you. With your mission now basically failed, you spend your time doing random jobs for the two major warring factions.

Those jobs are pretty similar - go somewhere, kill someone or destroy something. As you play, you’ll meet random NPCs who can become your buddies. Those serve several purposes: For one, they serve as a “get out of jail free” card - if you’re about to die in a firefight, a buddy will appear and save you. That works once every day or so. (The silly part is that a buddy will save you whenever you would have normally died, even if that was because you fell hundreds of feet. How does the buddy save you? Scrape you up off the ground and put you back together?!)

The other purpose of a buddy is to provide an alternate solution to a mission. Once you receive your assignment, your buddy will call you and offer you a different way, which usually includes additional waypoints, but results in an overall easier job.

I have to say that the buddy system actually works quite well. You always have one primary buddy, and you almost feel something like an emotional bond to them. They can actually die - you can save their lives, but only so many times. At some point, they’re mortally wounded on the ground, and the medication that used to immediately heal them stops working. That leaves you with the option to put them to rest by over-medicating them, abandoning them, or shooting them in the head, which allows them a final line like “I’m sorry, mama”. I was impressed how effective this is when you experience this scene for the first time.

There are side-missions as well, but there’s not much to them. You can receive assassination missions (go to position X, kill person), or jobs to destroy convoys (which conveniently drive in a circle, waiting for you to ambush them).

How you go about a mission is up to you. The map is open, so you can approach from different directions. You can be stealthy. Or just blow everything up. Engage in lengthy firefights or try to rush through the opposition.

The Bad
This game is repetitive! There are so many missions that feel identical: Go to contact person. Receive mission. Get call from buddy about alternate route. Go to waypoint A. Firefight. Go to waypoint B. Firefight. Rinse. Repeat.

What’s really annoying is that enemies always appear at the same location, even outside missions. Every major intersection and every checkpoint has a bunch of people out to get you. You can kill them all, but drive for a while and come back, and there’ll be another set of people waiting for you just where you killed (or ignored) the last bunch.

Really, it seems like you’re the most hated person in this country. Everybody is out to get you! Whenever you see someone, you can be sure that they’re about to take shots at you. There are no civilians in the game. Sure, it makes it easier to identify friends and foes, but it feels a bit weird.

The only mission that really stands out is the last one. It seems like all of a sudden, the level designers woke up. Why couldn't more missions be like that? Really, so many great things happen during the final 30 minutes of the game.

The enemy AI is a mixed bag. It’s touted as being super smart, and they sometimes appear to be tactical - they flank you, hide behind obstacles, etc. At the same time, they just look completely lost sometimes. There've been many occasions where I saw somebody in plain view, looking roughly in my general direction but not doing anything in particular. After staring that person in the eye for a few seconds, I wondered - was that an NPC? A civilian? Do those exist after all? So I walk a bit closer, almost touch him when he finally springs to life and shoots at me. So it was an enemy after all, just a stupid one.

As for the story, there are several problems: First of all, there’s the old problem of the silent protagonist. The entire game is played in first-person perspective. Even during “cutscenes” (i.e. people talking you, the camera never ever leaves the first person perspective), you’re fully in control of the player. You never say a word. It just feels weird.

Next, all the characters are completely and entirely interchangeable. I completely lost track of who is who. None of the characters have any distinguishing features or characteristics. Later on, you can somewhat side with one faction or another. But which one do you pick? I don’t know! They’re all the same!

Same with the buddies - they look different, but that’s the extent of it. If one dies, another one takes their place, but it doesn't seem to make a shred of a difference to the actual gameplay. You also have this reputation system, but it doesn't seem to serve a purpose. It seems like the developers initially planned a lot more depth but ended up cutting a lot.

At the same time, parts of the writing is actually nice - and the best parts are even kind of hidden. A little side quest is to find audio tapes of an interview with the Jackal, and those are great! But those tapes have no bearing on the rest of the game, so players are unlikely to find many of them. And it’s a shame, that’s where the writing really shines. It often feels like Far Cry 2 paired a great writer and a bunch of not so great level designers.

The map is big, which is nice. You can travel using jeeps or boats. The problem is that both are destructible, and there’ll often be random patrols on vehicles just chasing you and trying to take you down. It’s a matter of time until your car breaks down. You can either fix it if it’s not beyond repair, or you commandeer the vehicle of said patrol after you eliminate the owners, but sooner or later, you’ll be stranded without a car, forcing you to walk, run (which makes you dizzy after a few seconds due to Malaria), and eventually find a car. This can take a while.

This problem was solved in Red Dead Redemption with the ability to whistle, where a horse would appear within seconds. Grand Theft Auto avoided the issue by being set in a city where you are surrounded by cars (and starting in GTA IV, you could call for a cab on your cell phone). But here, in the big open plains, you’re forced to just walk for ages, in a huge open area with nothing but plants and a few animals for miles.

And for all the boasting about the game being so open and free, it usually ends up being pretty linear in the end. You go through the main missions one by one. In the end, there aren't that many different solutions to the core parts of a mission, and the game doesn't really handle you trying to outsmart it very well. In one mission, I was supposed to assassinate somebody with a sniper rifle from the building across. Instead, I managed to make my way into the building of the target itself... who simply stared at me, not saying anything, even after I started hurting him.

The Bottom Line
Again, I must remind you of my bias - I couldn't dislike this game. It does such a great job conveying the flora and fauna of sub-saharan Africa that I enjoyed just walking around and taking the scenery in. And the graphics are great.

The game itself isn't bad - lots of interesting guns, reasonable shooting mechanics, lots of driving and firefights. It just feels repetitive and unspectacular sometimes. The story barely moves at all (and the lack of cutscenes and the completely silent protagonist really don’t help here), and the characters are so flat that you couldn't possibly care about any of them.

And - don’t worry, this is not a spoiler - a word about the ending. A quick Google search reveals that it is universally hated. I personally loved it. It’s different and brings a nice touch to the whole storyline. But that may again be due to my attachment to Africa. People who don’t care much about the continent might not appreciate the ending.

The Good
The graphics are very good and quite extensive and the maps are realistic. The spread of fire and explosions are among the best seen. We have total freedom of movement and exploration. The system of healing is new and very creative. In addition to highly diverse.

The Bad
Problems. Being in Africa, where are the animals? Why not have the same system as Oblivion, where they were attacked by animals when they were in the middle of the woods? The missions are quite diverse, but very repetitive. It is almost always the same thing. These factors fatigue and quickly bore you.

The enemies are very weak and stupid. But it has excellent sight, as you hit over long distances, even with short arms.

The Bottom Line
Despite all the innovations and themes, I consider the game as disappointing. The absence of animals is very frustrating. And it's the first thing I remember, when thinking about the Africa region.

But I believe the most frustrating thing is that the missions are repetitive. There is no variety. They are basically the same thing, only varying the region.

Finally, after much expectation, I am saying that Far Cry 2 is one of the great disappointments of the year. Unless you are impressed only by graphics.

The Good
I loved the fact that it was set in Africa, and had a real African flavour. Thanks to the makers for consulting with Afrikaners and Zulus and using authentic voice overs.

Understanding the languages makes the speech so much more funny and interesting, and often I'd get shot up cos I couldn't stop laughing at the comments coming from the mercs!!

The sniper rifles were awesome and the being able to burn veld fires to chase and burn the peasants at road blocks was cool...

Graphics are beautiful and cover different ecosystems, that is forest, desert, lakes, Savannah.

Weapons are authentic (The AK47's shouldn't jam though) I enjoyed the fact that there was FAL Paratroop rifle (South African touch there) although a Paratroop rifle should have a shortened barrel and folding stock.

The Bad
The game gets a bit much having to drive endless km's shooting re spawning mercs at road blocks and often having to runaway by foot after your vehicle is destroyed!.

Missions that are kilometers away from the starting point are irritating, especially if it takes a few seconds to complete them and then in some cases having to return to the starting point, dodging shooting and driving over mercs in the process. Its get a bit much after a few missions.

The treasure hunt for cases is stupid and pointless, you climb mountains swim lakes etc.. to get a suitcase with just 1 diamond in it! you can't even buy a 9mm with that.

Came across some African Buffalo in the game, pity they didn't attack, you can walk up to them and literally pet them, i challenge anyone to do that in real life. Should have been able to exploit the wild game in the game, that is shoot Zebra, Wildebeest and Springbok for skins, for diamonds.. Earn diamonds from this. Why not! in war in Africa everything gets exploited especially the wildlife!, No elephants though, probably already been shot out by the waring clans.

The Bottom Line
Very original, fun to play, although it can become monotonous and boring at some stages with all the driving, running and swimming, it's simple, save the game and do something else and within a few hours you will be itching to put your hands on the Machine gun mounted on the jeep and shooting the #%#$^ out of another check point.

The Good
Far Cry 2 has nothing to do with Far Cry 1. This alone is a bit of a disappointment, but if you can ignore that and call it something else, like "Blood Diamond: The Game" or "Burn Down Africa," or if you really want to be simple "Jackal hunt," you'll find a compelling action game.

The first thing you'll notice once FC2 starts up are the amazing visuals. The game looks absolutely incredible, better than anything currently on the PC. Plus it helps that the engine here is 10,000 times better coded than CrySis (Before you flame me: CrySis is a great game, but the engine is terribly programmed with no optimization) so that my 5 year old computer can run it on a high quality with a great frame rate. Everything from the shadows to treetop canopies and of course flames licking every square inch of burnable terrain.

The game itself is sort of like a mixture of Grand Theft Auto minus the large immersive city, and Fallout 3 minus the role playing. It is a sandbox first person shooter with great car controls, and an immersive jungle environment. It can be a little monotonous sometimes, but at others, it is great fun to explore the jungle. Firefights are intense and fun. The missions are good, but they can be repetitive, and side missions aren't that fun.

The AI is surprisingly smart for a game like this. Many firefights play out like cat and mouse chases.

The multiplayer, while standard for the genre, is extremely well executed and fun.

The Bad
Although the guns sound alright, the music is somewhat droning and the voice acting is awful.

Repetition is relatively common in this game, while it can be fun in short bursts I wouldn't recommend long periods of time.

The bus system isn't too helpful, it only takes you to the four corners of the map. It would've been nicer to have more bus stops so that if you are trying to get to a target in a hurry that isn't right next to the corner you go to you wouldn't have to walk so far.

The story is confusing, muddled, and meaningless. It had a lot of potential, but the game didn't tap into it.

The gun jamming happens too easily, which makes it annoying. Although sometimes it can help the immersion and make firefights more intense, more often than not its frustrating if anything.

The Bottom Line
FC2 is a fun sandbox shooter. Its not for everyone, and some may be off put by the fact that it is not a true sequel to the first and best game in the series. While it can be repetitive, it can also be very fun, and it is very easy on the eyes, and blowing stuff up and shooting the guns is fun. The immersive world is great as well.

The Good
This open world game really has a believable environment with its enriched graphic detail, be it jungle, savannah or dessert. Interesting details like roaming wild animals make the locations you're in very lively. Efforts were also made to make the buildings you enter look like habitable or serviceable places. Music and realistic sound effects add to the atmosphere. If VR could be implemented, this game would go to the next level.

The plot in this game is very elaborate. Even for a villain, the Jackal is a very likable character for his experience, his wisdom, his resourcefulness and the choices he makes. The more you listen to the tapes, the more you want to meet him. Even the buddies' missions have interesting motives for carrying them out.

Weapons in the game are well-balanced. The machete works properly and deals effectively killing blows, something it didn't do in the game before. It's fun to earn better weapons and upgrades, giving the game a sort of pseudo-RPG mechanic. The jamming mechanic is an interesting, but sometimes inconvenient way to add a survival element to the game.

The Bad
The game breaks away many of the most important elements from the first game. There's no radar to indicate where enemies are currently positioned, so expect to be ambushed all the time. Your buddies are one time savers, but they don't really do anything to help you like Valerie Constantine did in the prequel. You can no longer push vehicles effectively and certainly not push boats, forcing you to get a new one every moment or so with a lot of walking, running and catching your breath all the while. Also there's no body armour to protect you, just your own body as a meat shield. And don't even think about hiding underwater, because the system eats your health bars very quickly.

Stealth is rare in this game and not easy to utilise. You'll need the camo suit and all the silent weapons you can stock up as soon as possible. You cannot throw stones to distract your enemy, forcing you to improvise. The game really could have done with gas grenades to stealthily take out a group of enemies. The monocular is useless, only good for tagging guard posts, but it obscures your vision so you can hardly spot enemies. Far Cry 1's binoculars was so much better. It can also be difficult to traverse with scree and trees almost everywhere. Sometimes there are cliffs and mountains that have invisible barriers that stop you. Why make it look like you can ascend when you can't? And there's also trees that have thicker boundaries than shown so you end up messing up a sniper shootout before you know it.

The enemy AI completely breaks the scale, you'll have a hard time trying to match it. Perfect marksmanship for headshots is a must, otherwise enemies are going to take entire clips to kill. Even when you're careful, enemies seem to know where you are and nail you down in your hiding place. And switching a weapon is sluggish, even more so when reloading or cocking the current one, it's like an unfair rail shooter. Half the time you'll get killed before you can press the heal button, you'll be wishing you could auto-heal. One of your greatest enemies will be falling damage, especially from falling off edges that don't let you jump on walkable terrain. And there's the malaria, which requires the tedious process of taking pills.

The Bottom Line
Everything will punish and frustrate you, even if you're a brilliant FPS player. This is not a game you can go full rampage without dying repeatedly. Avoid playing the highest difficulty, this is for masochists. It's a great shame that the player character does not do sensible things like don a disguise or turn vehicles into VBIEDs, but instead choose to take the full plunge in the face of danger. There's so much missing from what you expect from any good fashioned FPS from a radar indicator to auto-saving.

I really wanted to give this game a merit, even a distinction, but its sadistic difficulty level and,abundance of flaws drive it away from being the perfect time spender. This title is in dire need of remaking and improvement and nice array of achievements to give the feel of accomplishment. If you decide to play this, take it easy and do your best to master its mechanics if you want to get far, otherwise just cry.

The Good
I liked the idea behind the game. Unfortunately...

The Bad
... it just doesn't work.

From the absolutely horrible and most annoying rapidly re-spawning enemy AI ever to feature in a video game, the immersion breaking "town" which contains six mercenaries and a priest, the maze-like map and right down to stupid details like road signs coloring to indicate which path to take (as if the ever-present GPS and a detailed interactive map weren't enough). It just doesn't work.

The Bottom Line
Here's some selective commentary on the typical Far Cry 2 session.

You arrive back into the "town" and check the map for a triangle with an exclamation point (indicating quest givers). This will invariably be one of the two faction HQ's for the main missions. You arrive at the door and all your weapons are removed by the guard to prevent you from ending the game early, upon which you ascend the stairs and listen to the mission details. You then either accept or refuse, although you have to accept to progress in the game, making the choice rather pointless. The faction leader then gives you twenty diamonds and tells you that it's a super secret cover ops mission, so don't expect any helps from his troops. In fact, he says, they will actively engage you. This is in a way convenient since there's no way to distinguish, visually or otherwise, between the two sides anyway. There are no civilians whatsoever anyway.

You hoof it back to your vehicle or take a conveniently placed re-spawning town vehicle and immediately get a call from your best buddy to meet him in some safe house or another. You check the map. Oh great, your friend is on one side of the map, and the mission objective on the other? Oh well, lets go. Wow, this car sure feels like a spaceship. Is that a shack I see at the end of the bridge? Suddenly, machine gun fire everywhere. A second after you pass the checkpoint you're being pursued by an amazingly fast accelerating assault truck that's carrying a gunner who hits you with sniper-like accuracy with a heavy machine gun, all while speeding down Africa's dirt roads at 90 mph. The inhuman assault truck never ever gives up.

Okay, you made it to your friend's safe house at the other side of the map either by destroying five assault trucks or stalking through Africa walking or swimming. Your friend tells you how she would like you to alter your mission to suit her. Why exactly couldn't you have told me this over the phone?

Ten assault trucks later, you arrive at your mission objective. You snipe (sniping is easy, no bullet drop, perfect aim, always a kill) a few stupid enemies, throw a couple of grenades and it's over in a minute. After this pseudo-climax, you feel very empty and alone.

But wait, your friend calls you. She's in trouble just a bit off the objective. You rush to help her, kill a couple more stupid AIs and you're presented with a menu option "press X to medicate your best buddy" and "press Q to mercy kill your best buddy".

You press escape, click on Quit, click Quit in the main menu, confirm that yes, you do want to Quit and are thrown onto the desktop. You bask in the ineffable complexity of situations which bothered to publish this trash.

The Good
The sequel to 2004’s PC smash hit Far Cry. Far Cry 2, is a different beast. It has little to nothing to do with the original game. And it is a freeform game, or sandbox game if you prefer. But will such a system work for a FPS?

Heart Of Darkness

In Far Cry 2, you play as a mercenary. Whom you get to choose. I picked this badass looking Indian dude. You are sent to a war torn and unnamed area of Africa. And not unlike the protagonist in Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness, you mission is to kill an arms dealer, no, not Col. Kurtz, your target is known only as The Jackal.

You take jobs from either the APR of the UFLL. Two faction vying for control of the region. You can also take work from both. Along the way you meet many people all who seek to use you. But that’s cool as you only goal is to kill the Jackal. Not everyone is Far Cry 2, is out to use you. You will meet others, mercs like yourself. They will be your buddies. And serve a multitude of functions. They can come to your aid when you are in trouble. They can also help you on a job. If they get into trouble, you can help them. Or if they have wounds to severe, you can put them out of their misery. Or you can be a dick and abandon them.

There are also, special “buddy-missions”. In these scenarios, you go and do a job for a buddy. Which increases your reputation, in the game world. And it increases your buddies view of you.

There is a lot to do in Far Cry 2. Aside from the main missions. You can work for the weapons dealer. And destroy convoys. Thus unlocking new weapons to purchase. And there are lots of real, weapons. Which you even must keep in good shape, or they will jam, and possibly explode. You can also take assassination jobs. Upon finding satellite towers, you receive a phone call, from a creepy sounding guy, giving you the coordinates of your target. The job pays diamonds upon completion of the job.(The currency of choice in Far Cry 2.-MM-) These are the most fun side-jobs in the game. In one such scenario, I had to sneak into town and kill my target. Of course towns and villages are cease-fire zones. So, I snuck up into a bell-tower. And pulled out my Dragnov. And making like Chow Yun Fat, I killed the target. And then had to escape. As the entire militia was after me. Not all of the hit man jobs are this dramatic. In some cases you just have to kill your target in a secluded area, or blow up his vehicle.

Not all the danger in Far Cry 2, comes from enemies. As earlier upon your arrival, you contract malaria. You are given pills to keep your symptoms in check. When you are running low, you can take jobs for the underground. In these you must deliver, travel papers, in exchange for medicine. Thus you get to continue living, and you also get to save some poor refugees. It’s a win-win situation.

“I bless the rains down in Africa, Gonna take the time to do the things we never had…”-Toto, Africa

Aside from all the missions, you can spend and probably will, spend a lot of time just exploring. While exploring, you can find diamonds, your GPS, will lead you to them, as it blinks more fiercely the closer you get. You can also find recordings of the Jackal. Which can be given to a reporter. You can also unlock safe-houses. Here you can rest, save, and replenish your supplies. The area you explore is huge, so going on foot would take too long. Luckily, there are many vehicles, to be used. Cars, SUV’s Jeeps with gun turrets, go-karts, and many boats as well. Unfortunately there are no flying vehicles. You can also scout out all guard posts. This will let you know what kind of things can be found there. There are many different regions to see. From deserts, to swaps and jungles. This game actually reminds me of Oblivion. Even more than Fallout 3 did. It is also very long. Consider that most first person shooters only take 10-20 hours to complete. Far Cry 2, took me some 47 hours. Of course, I did just about all the missions, and explored most if not all of Africa.

The graphics are very good. All the people, places, and things look great in Far Cry 2. As one would expect. The lighting effects are amazing. And the attention to detail is outstanding. Say, for example, that you have a flamethrower. As you burn down your foes, you are bound to catch the trees and grass on fire. When you do it burns, and chars. The combat is visceral. Partially when dressing wounds. When you have a serious wound, you can bleed to death if not treated. When, you heal, your avatar will either bandage his wounds, or pull out the bullet with pliers. Or in some cases rip it out with his teeth.

There is also wild life to be seen in Far Cry 2. No lions, or anything like that. But you will see gazelles, water buffalo, and zebra. The game is just gorgeous. From the days, to the moon-lit nights. Either on standard of high definition, both look great.

The music and sound are good also. From, the African music, to the sounds of fire-arms, and wild-life. And how could I forget the great voice acting? All the characters sound great. And have accents from were ever they are from. For example, my Chinese, buddy had a think mandarin accent. The chatter of enemies if interesting as well. While I was attacking I heard them say, “How many are there?” “I think it’s just one man..” Great stuff.

The Bad
Far Cry 2, is far from a perfect game.(You could say it’s a Far Cry!-MM-) First off all. You fight way too much. This may seem, strange, considering that this is a FPS. But I felt that it was excessive. When you are going to a mission all these jack offs keep attacking you on the road. Even if your reputation is high. Now tell me, why would they attack you if they were afraid of you?

What is worse, is that say, you just clear out a guard-post. Then you come back, a short time later. And already it is fully staffed. WTF? There would not be that many people. Every time you got to a mission it is crawling with enemies. Why would all these places have so many guards?

The A.I. is also often cheap. One dumbass, will have mortar, or and RPG. To take out one man…right.

What is the point of these so called, sandbox games, that have a reputation system, if it rarely effects the game. It would have been so easy to implement. Just get attacked less, as you reputation grows. How hard is that?

The game has some minor bugs and glitches. That can get very annoying. If with the updates.

This game can be very tedious. As it follows the same basic patterns per mission. Say that you let your buddy help you out. At the end of the mission, you always have to bail them out of trouble. Every single time. Which makes the game to repetitive.

The Bottom Line
Overall, Far Cry 2, is a step in the right direction. For the genre. But there is lots of room for improvement. Of course I don’t think that this style of style of FPS will replace the tried and true type. Hell, they still make games like Painkiller and Serious Sam, to this day, and that is the very first type of FPS. If you are an FPS junkie like myself, you should at least give Far Cry 2 a go.

The Good
I like that there's actually an ending in the game so it doesn't repeat itself more than it already does. Other than that, I don't like anything else.

The Bad
Those who cried about how Quake looked so brown, you will cry even more about this. There's is up to four shades of brown in this game. And some blue which comes from the sky.

All the missions are the same, go there, kill that, return. It's a long way to your mission. The enemies spawn way too fast. The weapons of the enemies never break when they use it but when you get it from them they do almost directly. Searching for diamonds is useless since the diamonds you find aren't worth a damn. The malaria feature is useless and always shows its symptoms when you're in a firefight.

The faction choosing is weird since you do one mission for one side and when you're done you can't go back so you must choose the other faction.

The Bottom Line
A loss for us veteran Far Cry fans, a punch in the groin and the face at the same time is too kind do describe how bad this game is.