So I picked up a copy of Far Cry 2 this week and boy am I glad I invested in this game. Aside from being an excellent game from a game-play standpoint, it looks spectacular when you turn up the graphics on the PC (and looks amazing on the XBOX, though the PC settings can go higher than that of the console if you have the processing power). Only issue I had with the game thus far was the day I bought it. When you go to start the game for the first time you need to register the game with your cdkey. Problem was that the validation servers, on the day of the release mind you, weren’t up and running yet. So I actually couldn’t play the game for a short while. Solution? Serial Bypass from a very special someone. Made me quite mad that I had to use a crack for a game I bought though.
Anywho, Far Cry 2 changes things up for those who have played the first game. This time the game takes place in an Africa without the mutants and Government research of the first game. Instead, realism was the goal. This includes the real time weather and time-of-day systems, zero loading times between areas (everything is loaded as you travel so no area loading times, even between indoors and outdoors), realistic damage to vehicles you’re driving (they don’t just blow up anymore), and realistic damage dealt to NPC’s (Non player characters to those of you unfamiliar with the term) and yourself, which means you’ll find yourself digging bullets out of your arms and legs pretty often as well as trying to put out that fire you lit and accidentally burned yourself with!
*****WARNING, POTENTIAL SPOILERS*****
You start the game, as with most games, selecting your character. Yes, I do mean “selecting” as there is no character creation process for single player, but you can select from a group of 9 playable characters. Every selectable character will be found in game (minus the one you select of course). All of them can be befriended, or killed, all based on decisions you make, but I suggest saving them if you can. Once you select the character you want, it will cut to a semi cut-scene after you’ve stepped off a plane and get in a “African taxi” (AKA Jeep). You can look around while you’re driver is talking to you and taking you to your destination (hence semi cut-scene). He explains the situation in the country and how much of a mess it really is, and at some points while driving you can see how much of a mess things are with all the mercenaries and soldiers there. As you arrive into town your vision begins to blur and you slump over in the cab. When you wake up again, you still feel sick (and you can see that visually as a blurring with cells shaded in at the edge’s of the screen, which is a pretty neat effect) but you’re in your hotel room, don’t expect a Hilton either folks :P, as someones going through your briefcase and throwing papers everywhere. He grab a particular paper and begins walking over to you reciting its contents. Long story short, he is the guy you’re there to kill, but you’ve caught malaria. He figures you for dead, makes a point of the fact that your going to die, and he leaves. Meanwhile you pass out again from the sickness. When you awake again, it sounds like a war zone outside with gunfire everywhere. An explosion rocks the hotel outside your door as you try and get up to grab your gun in hopes of escaping whatever is outside.
Now you can survive outside and escape the town, but I kind of died outside and even if you do escape, you pass out outside of town and get picked up. I personally don’t like using the front door in any possible instance so I happened to jump out a second story window onto some rooftops to escape. Yeah….that failed a little bit. Six or Seven men with assault rifles vs you with your little pistol are pretty good odds, but not with malaria constantly blurring your vision over. Needless to say, I “died” but was rescued by some folks on the “good side” of the war.
So, once your rescued and all that junk, you find yourself owing some favors to an army officer for one of the two factions at war. Completing these missions will earn you some daimond’s (the currency in this country as paper monies useless) and your freedom from him. Meanwhile, your still sick and need to find some medication somewhere.
*****YOUR CLEAR OF THE OPENING STORY NOW, YOU CAN READ THE REST :3*****
Now that your done with that guy, your free to explore the rest of the game and do mission for various people and such (theres a little more to the intro missions but thats going into too much detail to be honest. All you need to know is that your stable at this point). At first you might be a little lost as the game doesnt tell you specifically where to go, but as you find agents and buddies and such to help you out and run missions for, the game progressively gets faster paced (as you choose, you can take as much time as you want between missions and who you do them for as well as how slowly you do missions, so the game could potentially be a bit slower for some folks).
The games pretty fun. You can play however you wish, either stealthily killing your enemies with a machete, silenced pistol or a sniper rifle (though you need to change positions a lot when sniping, else they find you), or simply getting on a jeep with a mounted machine gun and parking somewhere advantageous and gunning down the inhabitants of an outpost, choice is really yours. If your playing on Infamous (thats the stupid hard setting btw), I suggest stealth, as you go down only taking 2 direct hits to the torso or head. The games pretty huge to boot. Takes probably 10 minutes to drive across the map in a straight line in a dune buggy, though thats nearly impossible to do cause some one somewheres gonna be on a patrol and your gonna be in a car chase at some point. I’m not saying it *might* happen, I’m saying it will happen! Each faction has guard posts and checkpoints that send out routine patrols via jeeps or cars. They are going to attack anyone that isn’t aligned with their faction (and at the start you really aren’t aligned with any faction). So it makes for a hectic car drive at the very least!
Getting around is pretty simple. Either walk, take a vehicle from one of your safe houses, or (my favorite) stealing someones vehicle at an outpost. Cars are much faster, but attract attention of people around you as you travel, so sometimes its better to walk that 4 kilometers then it is to try and drive it. Movement controls (on the pc) are easy enough and pretty straight forward controls on the XBox version (explains everything in the beginning). There are a system of buses that you can take to travel around the edges of the game world and to the very middle of the game world, so they don’t get overused by the player. Basically they go to the four corners and each runs to all the other bus stations as well as the neutral zone/town in the middle of the game world. Aside from that, there isn’t any other way of getting around. Its all getting yourself from point A to point B which makes for a fun time in Far Cry 2.
Controls are very easy to learn on the Xbox, and on the PC they are simply customizable, though I used all default controls. The game teaches you everything you need to know at the start of the game as you progress, so there really shouldn’t be any problems learning how to play. Only control the game doesn’t teach you is the running slide, which is probably my favorite way of avoiding bullets! While running forward, hit the crouch button and hold it. Your character will slide across the ground for 10 or 15 feet before getting to a crouch and keeps running again. REALLY useful for getting past corners while taking fire! Accidentally found out that one while trying my damnedest to get behind a rock and avoid AK fire!
The Buddy idea is pretty neat too. In the game are all the other characters you could have chosen to play as at the start of the game. Most of them have to be saved from various things around the map (randomized, they aren’t always in the same situation each time you play. One guy I found was laying near a downed airplane, had to go over and revive him with a med kit I happened to have on me), and they become your friends (or enemies) when you help them out (or work against them). You can, alternatively, simply kill them, though that doesn’t get you too far in the game. It’s still possible to complete the game but you miss out on lots of missions and side quests or (as your best buddy does) the mission alternatives for each factions. Your “Best” buddy will give you alternate ways of completing storyline missions, giving you the option of simply doing the mission the way you were assigned it, or changing things up a little to make it easier to complete (or harder as I found out a couple times).
Your second best buddy is basically your guardian angel. He follows you around on occasion and saves your ass when you go down from serious wounds and such (he/she is basically the occasional extra life in a way). To be Honest there was a lot of times that my buddy was available for missions where he can come and save you that I died on purpose just to watch him come in cut-scene-esque and basically ooze awesome. My Buddy is the big russian guy in his late 40’s. That man radiates awesome in my own opinion! When you do go down and your buddy can save you, you’ll awaken in a fuzzy discolored haze while he’s attempting to help you stand up, you watch him fire his AK at near-by enemies with one arm, then he continues to pick you up to move you away from the fighting so you can heal yourself. Best thing is, the scene you see in the semi-cutscene is almost always different and is based on the situation your in.
Hell, first time it happened, I woke up to him picking me up, killing a baddy with his AK one handed, dragging me a little ways away. The enemies followed him while he attempted to move me, so he drops me in the second section of the semi-cutscene, only to pull out his desert eagle and start dumping the clip firing as fast as he can at them! He empties his clip and hastily picks me up again moving me YET AGAIN to a safer place behind some rocks. He is STILL firing at some bad guys that followed us even there, this time with a shotgun while I can now fully control myself (and need to pull some bullets out of my left leg). He sticks around until the areas clear to boot. Second time that happened was totally different and had about 6 or 7 of those mini cutscenes. Now I just abuse that and use him every time I have a mission!
Now, there are TONS of weapons to pickup and buy in this game. I mean LOTS! Hell you can get to a point where your special weapon is a mortar, so that should give you an idea of the variety. You can shell an outpost or enemy patrol before they even know where you are. The currency in this country is rough daimonds, since paper money is pretty much worthless (you know, there being a war and all). Gun dealers can be found every here and there where purchases can be made to upgrade weapons and buy new ones. All the weapons you buy are kept in an armory located next to each weapon dealer (once a weapon is bought its stored at every armory you visit). Once bought, you never need to pay for the weapon again. If you lose it or your weapon degrades to the point of rusting (which makes it more prone to jamming and such), simply visit the armory and grab a new one off the wall.
OverView: Far Cry 2 is story based game as I have come to realize. There isn’t really much worth doing aside from missions (unless you simply want to rampage, but even rampaging’s a bit slow). Driving around and raiding guard posts can be fun for a while, but gets old after a couple days and exploring is about on the same par. Missions on the other hand, are quite fun as they give you a purpose as your out there fighting through checkpoints and car chases. The large variety of weapons guarantee’s some destructive fun and working up the money and missions to get them all takes some time as well. Storyline missions are awesome fun. Anywhere from breaking out of jails to being kidnapped, the storyline is great. Improving reputation with different characters and your buddies adds some more playability to it all as well.
Good
- Lots of missions, nearly endless
- Gorgeous game, amazing environments
- Aggressive AI that can actually think
- Engrossing Stroyline
- Great Game Mechanics
Bad
- Roaming around gets old quick
- A number of High Ground area’s are not accessible, shrinking the actual map size
- Had to crack the game when it came out AFTER I BOUGHT IT (I hate validation servers)
SCORE: 8 / 10
I’d give Far Cry 2 an 8/10 for amazing graphics, decent gameplay, and an engrossing story.
Far Cry 2 is out for the PC, XBOX 360, and PS3
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