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
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
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.