Far Cry 2 Review

First off, this is the first FPS I have played that has incorporated a truly open world and has still focused entirely on the combat. There are no RPG elements and the only real upgrades you gain are by buying weapons from sellers across the map, however there is no inventory system and so you have to choose which weapons are right for the job by filling your 3 available weapon slots (with the fourth being for your machete which can’t be switched). These slots offer places for a primary, secondary and special weapons and there are a lot to choose from. I would say that the game does sometimes suffer from being stuck in a first person view, most notably the driving sections, but overall you are provided with a lot to like, and only a few nagging annoyances which can sometimes make playing the game a little frustrating.

 

You are thrown into the relentless setting right from the start after choosing a character from a number of possibilities. Which character you chose won’t really give you any particular advantages or disadvantages in any areas of the game, though you will see the ones you didn’t choose pop up as buddies throughout the game. Some of them will be introduced via the main story, though some will only appear if you manage to find them out in the world. For example, while driving towards a mission objective I came across a crashed plane in a canyon. Laying beneath it was a wounded man shouting for help, it was then up to me whether to help him by giving him some morphine, ignore him and just walk on, or end his misery and shoot him in the face. I chose the first option and saved him by sacrificing some of my medication. This then made him available at Mike’s Bar, which is where your buddies will hang out. Its decisions like this that can have a game changing effect, as you will then receive missions from buddies and these will then eventually upgrade all your safe houses with ammo piles, medication packs and sometimes even vehicles.

 

Buddies will also provide alternative methods of completing the main story missions. After accepting a job, you will get a call on your cell phone and they will ask you to meet them, these alternative missions will often provide a longer, yet more enjoyable and sometimes cooler way to finish a mission. For example, in one mission I had to assassinate a man on board a barge ship sitting in a river; however I took on my buddy’s alternate mission and found the fuse for a warhead which he put on the bridge above, exploding it and causing it to land on the ship and finish it that way. Sometimes however you will find that in order to do your buddy’s mission you will have to screw over the faction it was originally from, and in many cases will require a lot more work, so it’s always your decision. On the other hand, there never really seemed to be any consequences to going against a particular faction, and this was probably the one thing that didn’t make sense to me.

 

The game is set during a ferocious war between two rivalling factions, the APR and UFLL, though throughout the entire game, you won’t see a single instance of these two factions fighting each other directly. You get missions from both factions, no matter what and they don’t seem to distrust you for going and helping another faction, even though in one particular mission (spoilers alert) you actually kill the leader, but then go on to help the same guys again. Not only this, but all the capitals on the map are designated cease-fire zones, but for a start, there is no real government, so I don’t understand why they are cease-fire zones, and more importantly why they remain cease-fire zones and I find it hard to believe that the two leaders of these rival factions can live across the street from one another without even trying to kill each other. At times I found it hard to believe that these guys were actually at war since every mission you took seemed to be covert and no matter what you did to help one faction, they would still hate you. It seemed more like a cold war than anything, though your main objective to find and kill “The Jackal”, the arms dealer who is fuelling this war, would suggest otherwise. And this brings me to another slightly annoying thing. Everyone in this game hates you. EVERYONE. Ok, maybe your buddies (and the underground, but I’ll get into them later) don’t, but they just hang around in a bar all day so they are probably too drunk to care, heck, I actually had to steal two big bags of Khat (like weed…) for one of them. Every time you leave an outpost you get harassed by the nearest person, whenever you are out in an open area anyone you meet will be hostile and this can become incredibly frustrating when you just want to get from A to B across the gigantic map. There are buses which help this, and while these are a form of instant travel, there aren’t many stations to catch them from across the map. There is then the issue that in order to keep the world interesting, they need to have respawning enemies, so every time you clear an outpost, drive off, then come back it will be repopulated by the same three guys who just want to kill you, and if you just drive through, the will hop in a jeep and chase you. All of this can just get so damn annoying.

 

Now maybe I’m overreacting a little, because I am yet to mention the games strongest area, and that is the combat. For every annoying enemy who chases you through an outpost, there is a bomb to be planted, a rocket to be fired and best of all, a field to be burned. The game could have been a flop if the combat wasn’t fun and interesting, but it so is. The sheer range of weapons was a surprise to me, and it doesn’t end there. With weapons such as a flamethrower and petrol bombs, you can make nature your ally. Anything that should burn, will burn, and more importantly, the fire will spread realistically and have a big effect on both the people and objects involved. Fire can be used as both a decoy and an offensive tactic as enemies will shy away from bush fires and it can be great for bottlenecking an attack. Not only that but setting fire to a pile of ammo will make the entire lot go up in flames and stray rounds will fly everywhere, injuring and eventually killing any nearby enemies. Similarly, shooting or burning an explosives pile will offer up an even more satisfying fireworks show as everyone nearby gets blown away. All the guns are fun to use too, especially once you buy the better ones and get your hands on goodies such as grenade launchers and dart rifles, once you have bought a wider range of weaponry, this really opens doors when it comes to taking on fights differently and it is here that the game excels. Every battle will be different. Every assault will have a different outcome; it all comes down to the planning. I have managed to screw up attacks by getting spotted and mortared from afar, while also stealthily taking out all hostiles with a dart rifle and leaving the area unseen. No matter how it ends, it’s a blast, but thanks to this open ended game play you can do it over and over again and still come out smiling. You will also find that while some missions may look daunting, you can often find an easier and quicker way to achieve it, as long as you think and plan your attack.

 

Bodging your attacks will often lead to emergency in-the-field surgery, as when your health gets low, you can occasionally start to bleed out. This becomes apparent when your screen starts to flash red and its now that you have to press the heal button and this activated a short animation where you perform one of a whole number of cringe worthy moves to restore your health. These include snapping fingers back into place, re-locating arms, pulling bullets from limbs and using burning matches to cauterise the wound. It’s gruesome stuff, and really helps with putting across the whole sense of immersion that Ubisoft was so desperately aiming for. This is also supported by having a UI which disappears when not needed, leaving you with a more realistic field of view. You also navigate by a hand map, instead of leaving to a map screen, though the map will update magically which kind of goes back on the whole idea. Not only this but road signs will glow in the colour of your objective to help you find you way which also makes no sense, however they do a good job of keeping you in the experience by never changing the camera view, even moving around car seats will be done as a proper animation instead of teleporting the camera. However, at times when you are driving, being stuck in first person can make it difficult as you can’t see as much as you need sometimes and you can easily get snagged on a rock and eventually bring your vehicle to its knees at which point you will have to get out and fix it yourself. You will also find yourself doing a lot of driving, because the world really is big and very beautiful.

 

The fact is, Ubisoft have really outdone themselves in creating the game world for Far Cry 2. Its huge and it’s packed with things to do, there are over 30 main missions and added to that are missions you get from arms dealers, and also missions you get from anonymous tipsters by picking up a cell phone from a radio tower. While the arms dealer missions are always the same kind of thing, to destroy a convoy of weapons, and the cell phone missions are always the same, assassinate a target, they help with providing a sometimes much needed break from the usual tasks and they also provide you with extra bonuses. Doing missions for arms dealers will allow you to buy new weapons, while assassinations will reward you with the game’s currency, uncut diamonds. Combine the two and you have an excellent recipe to extend your armoury and in turn, make the rest of the game more fun. As well as these and the buddy missions, there are also missions for the underground, a friendly organisation who are the only suppliers of medication for malaria, which you just happen to have. Now, I really don’t understand why you have malaria… it doesn’t really seem to add too much to the game, and at times just becomes another thing to deal with in battle as when you have a malaria attack your screen goes all green and shaky and you have to press the heal button to pop some pills. Once the pills run out its your job to get some more by helping some people working for the underground and again, these missions are pretty much the same.

 

It’s not only the scale of the world that is great, it’s the visuals. The Dunia engine powers this game and does a great job. Even with settings not at the maximum, the game looks great and is optimised well. The fire looks amazing and is by far the biggest visual treat but the lighting is also very good, especially with the day/night cycle which in turn is another factor that should be taken into account when going into combat as you can sleep at safe houses and set your alarm for a certain time. The weapons are also fairly detailed and you will often have to keep an eye on them as they will rust over time and eventually jam and break. These visual cue’s are very helpful and again, bring in an extra level of immersion to the game as you no longer rely on messages popping up to remind you of certain things you need to do, it’s all right there with you in the game. The game also does a good job of providing a pretty good range of environments from swamps and jungles to desert plains and open savannah’s, it’s huge and it’s detailed and it looks fantastic. It’s all made that much better by the fact that you can burn it all down too.

 

The emphasis on this game was clearly on the single player portion, and while there is a multiplayer suite, it doesn’t really compare to the rest of the product. It’s a fairly common set of game modes and a class system that has ranks and unlocks. Nothing new, but hey, it adds a nice little portion to the game in case you want a break from fighting faction wars and hunting arms dealers. You will also find that fire is implemented just as well in the multiplayer and this adds a nice edge that many online shooters won’t provide. All in all, the multiplayer was clearly just an add-on, but it doesn’t detract from the game in any way so you can’t complain. It is also backed by a really strong map editor, and maybe as time goes on the multiplayer will flourish as new maps are made and the community grows because it is very easy to use but you can get some really good results. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with the tools I had created a map that could be played online, so I would expect to see some really well designed and creative maps appearing soon.

 

To sum up my thoughts on this game, I must say that I have really enjoyed it so far and I plan on playing much more of it after writing this. The world is huge and you will be pulled in by the scale of it all as well as the gorgeous visuals. I feel they could have done more with the setting, maybe adopting a similar factions system to the Mercenaries games, where you can actually become friendly with a faction and maybe even add a territory system to allow you to help your allies and take parts of the map. This would have emphasised the idea of a war going on, but with the game’s awesome combat there is probably enough war going on between yourself and everyone else as you fight your way through this hazardous environment by any means possible. Far Cry 2 lived up to all my expectations, providing a memorable and more importantly, a replay-able experience that I’m sure any shooter fan with a fairly decent machine will enjoy. What are you waiting for, there are bushes to burn!

 

Final Verdict: It's vast open world, huge array of weaponry and fantastic visuals offer an action packed treat that shouldn't be missed by any self respecting shooter fan.

 

Josh Marriage/Sweedums.