In 2004 Crytek released their first game on the PC, a little game called Far Cry which took place on a tropical island. It was a huge success, particularly in the graphics aspect but then they went on to make another big hit with Crysis. The Far Cry property was continued by Ubisoft Montreal which made Far Cry Instincts and Evolution for the Xbox and packaged together for the Xbox 360. These titles continued the original story set in the original. Well forget about that. Far Cry 2 starts fresh in the depths of Africa with no ties to the original games. Ubisoft Montreal did great with the original Far Cry games. They are typically labeled the “good studio” at Ubisoft and have made games from Splinter Cell to Rainbow Six Vegas. So the premise of Far Cry 2 sounds excellent, great property and awesome developer, will it live up to expectations?

You start the game by picking a generic character that is sent to Africa by an unknown backer to take out the Jackal. The Jackal is a big time weapons dealer that is fueling the fires between the two major factions in this area of Africa, the UFLL and the APR. Both are generic entities fighting for control and in the unstable unnamed country. You start by getting driven into the country and taken to a hotel where your first bout of malaria hits just when there is a major shootout outside. The \Jackal also apparently finds you and gives you a pep talk before slipping away. The premise sounds great but its ultimately superficial, \most of the game you spend working for the two factions making the world a worse place. At times you’ll forget that the Jackal is even out there because it seems like you never make any progress in finding him or even asking people if they know where to find him. There are some cool sequences along the way but overall nothing special. The atmosphere and setting are great; the story is okay but loses sight of the big picture for too long for no particular reason other than to make the game longer.

Far Cry 2 is an open world shooter set in Africa, sounds nice right? Unfortunately the game designers set forth to make an annoying game. It will literally make or break the game for you. For example, you go get a quest and you have to go all the way to the other side of the map. Fine, jump in a car and start driving. Well along the way you get attacked by random cars and guard posts. Okay, I can handle that but here is a typical encounter. You’re driving along, see an incoming patrol car, you stop, switch to the gun, kill driver and gunner and then have to jump out and either repair your car or just steal their vehicle. If this happened once or twice or if you could outrun them but you cannot. It will happen several times along your trek across the world. You’ll also encounter guard posts and sometimes you’ll try to blast through them at top speed, well they just jump into their cars and give chase and as long as the poor AI doesn’t take forever to turn around, they will catch you and you’ll have to repeat the process. Basically you never get the sense of rhythm because the game keeps making you stop and deal with pests. It’s like playing Halo, driving the warthog with no gunner and ghosts constantly attacking you. The driving is great but you have to stop every couple minutes to get onto the back gun. And the enemies respawn after you leave so you can’t clear an area. It’s just annoying. Now the designers clearly wanted to up the ante so you also have malaria which occasionally messes up your vision until you medicate yourself or wait it out. The quests in general are pretty bland and entail you to kill everyone, kill someone, or destroy something. Sure you may get a quest to “deliver” something but it basically means wherever you have to deliver it is surrounded by enemies that you have to kill. And no one is friendly in the game outside of the towns. You’ll work for a faction and they still hate you, they even mention it to expect no friends. The poor AI has a “deer caught in the headlight” quality where they will ignore you for the initial couple seconds and you’ll almost think they are not enemies but trust me; they will always open up on you. And after you open up, no matter how stealthy you are, the enemy will know where you are and come running straight for you. It’s not all bad though, the combat is pretty decent. It has a hybrid traditional and regenerating health system whereas it will only regenerate so far if it gets below a certain threshold. If your health gets too low though, you’ll start to bleed out and have to take the bullet out which is really neat. Health and ammo are plentiful in the game and rarely run low. Guns feel great and react well. Unfortunately the guns gradually deteriorate which means once you finally get into a rhythm in combat and start to see what the game could be, your gun will jam. At gun shops you can spend your diamonds, the currency in the game, to acquire new ones or upgrade your existing ones. To unlock other weapons to purchase you have to do side-quests for the gun shop owners. All the major quests will have an alternate way of doing them which will up your reputation with a buddy. Buddies will occasionally come save you if you happen to fall in combat  and pull you to safety which is really neat. But it’s unfortunate that you cannot get them to ride with you in your car and have them man the gun. There are also briefcases littered along the world which will cause your GPS to blink. This is a fun little diversion as you’re driving around to get more money but their placements get repetitive because they always seem to be on a roof. Overall though, you’ll ignore the alternate method of quests, you’ll ignore all the side-quests, and just do the main mission to progress through the story because the game is just too annoying to indulge in those other quests. Eventually the annoyance level will subside slightly and you’ll hit some neat moments \but the gameplay never hits its stride and becomes anything particularly special. If you’re progression driven, immediately tackle quests, you’ll feel the same way that I do. If you spend hours just wandering around open world games and truly enjoy that aspect, you will like it if not love it. Overall pick your category, it’s not bad, the combat can be pretty enjoyable, but the annoyances just hurt it too much.

The online portion is a lot of fun. It has your traditional gameplay modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the diamond but there is also another one called Uprising. In uprising one of your teammates is a captain and is able to capture control points and once you capture them all, you have to kill the opposing team’s captain. When everyone knows how to play, this is a really cool game type but relying on one person to win or lose the game can become frustrating when they are trying to be Rambo instead of a team player. Fortunately you can vote to kick these people as well as change the map or balance teams. You can play these matches in either ranked or custom matches. Ranked allow you to accrue and keep diamonds to purchase new equipment whereas you lose it all in custom matches. Also the more you use a particular weapon, the more you’ll unlock for it like improved accuracy or carry more ammo. These features really add to the experience but are not  particularly innovative. A cool part of custom matches is that you can  play custom maps that people have created. Yes, you can make maps. The  game includes a powerful map editor that is fairly easy to use but does  come with a pretty big learning curve. To be expected maps range from  pretty good to absolutely horrible, with the official maps still being  the best. After each custom map you will have the option to rank it  which allows the crème to rise to the top. The maps also download  automatically when you join the server and do so very quick, at most  only a minute or two which keeps you in the action. I played for a  couple hours in a custom match and didn’t see the same map twice. The  amount of content is incredible and surprisingly most of its actually  pretty good. Overall a very enjoyable lag-free experience with tons of content awaits you online.

This game really captures the look of Africa from how the car bounces along the dirt roads to the beautiful savannas and cliffs. Sometimes the terrain doesn’t look a little bland but taken as a whole it’s fantastic. You’ll trek through the jungle, swim through the swamps, drive through the desert and all will seamlessly blend into each other. It’s refreshing to see such original locales in a videogame. The low health heal sequences are gruesome and fantastic. You’ll find yourself biting out bullets, ripping shards of metal out of your hand, and popping your shoulder back into places with enough variety that it never gets old. Guns look great and shooting enemies gives a nice visual feedback. Animations and NPCs look great too. Overall the graphics bring Africa into the living room; it’s almost like watching a nature show. A nature show where a ton people die and a couple bullets get ripped out of your flesh. It looks that awesome.

The graphics are complemented by great sound design. The vehicles sound great as you’re driving around the world’s dirt roads. The guns have weight behind them and sound powerful and distinct. Shooting people has a nice auditory feedback to let you know that they have been hit which really helps you out in combat. When you’re taking out bullets, you hear every gruesome detail. The voiceovers are pretty good overall and give you a good sense of the characters in the area and if they are native or foreign to Africa. The music is quite dynamic and heightens during combat but is extremely forgettable other than a couple pieces. Overall, \good sound design brings Africa to the ears almost as good as the graphics to the eyes.

Far Cry 2 ends up feeling like a job you don’t particularly enjoy doing. Its single player is quite long but will feel much longer just due to the fact it’s so annoying. It may even break the game for you but if you persevere, have a little patience and take it slow, you can find the open world to be refreshing and fun. The story is a cool idea and decently executed but is still awfully generic. The combat is above average but gets dragged down by annoyances left and right. Luckily, these are all removed online and you can really enjoy yourself. The map maker is incredibly powerful and in the right hands can create some truly awesome maps and they are so plentiful you can play for hours without seeing the same map twice. The graphics are outstanding and make you feel like you truly are in Africa. They also make you wince when you push a bullet out of your flesh. The sound design is also great with the auditory punch behind shooting an enemy and the well done voiceovers. Overall, the game hinges on the type of gamer you are, if you like open world games and spend hours just walking around seeing what you can find, you will probably like this game. If you are someone who is focused, want to complete the missions, feel the sense of progression, this game will annoy the hell out of you. Both types will enjoy the online aspect but there are better games out there if you’re looking for just that.

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