Far Cry 2 Review

Far cry 2 is a state of the art first person shooter made by Ubisoft Montreal and is set in a living breathing world in an un-named African nation that is being engulfed by a conflict between the two factions APR and the UFLL. Be advised that if you are looking for the sequel to Far cry you aren´t going it find it, the only connection between the two is the name.

The game has you start out picking out who you will play as from any of the 9 characters(including a Shia Labeouf look-alike)with the other characters also appearing in the game as your buddies who will provide you with intel about your missions and objectives. It really doesn´t matter who you pick here since all you will be seeing of your self is your hands and elbows.



You then enter the world with a short to the point tutorial that is used to teach you the basics and set the tone for the rest of the game. In the tutorial you learn of your primary objective in the game, to track down and kill the Jackal, a near legendary arms dealer who has been providing guns for cheap to the factions to keep the conflict going.

The story mode is quite open ended and you can almost do what you what when you want but you can only have one mission active at all times. In the final miles of the game you are going to make important decisions that will shape the whole conflict.

Between main missions Far cry 2 is open to exploration with over 200 diamond cases and 9 jackal tapes along with predecessor tapes(that is to say you have activated the code) that will net achievements/trophies to those who will hunt for them, the game also serves up a couple variates of side missions such as hit missions, buddy missions and weapon vender missions that spices things up before you get bored with the main mission formula of traveling from point A to B and kill/intimidate guy X.



You will be traveling a lot trough out the game and because of it you have a large selection of vehicles at your disposal ranging from a pimped out jeep to an old fishing boat, you also have the option of taking the bus to one of it´s 5 stops that are scattered in the corners of the map and in the middle.

You are limited to 4 weapons at all times:
Your machete,main weapon; assault riffles, shotguns, snipers, secondary weapons; pistols, remote explosives, special weapons; flamethrowers, RPG´s, mortars and dart rifles.
To gain access to better toys you must do missions for the weapons dealer that involves taking out his competitors shipment of weapons.

Far cry 2 also comes with a multiplayer component that allows you to fight in one of the 4 available modes with up to 15 other players. It is considerably well done considering that it was an after thought in the development progress. Far cry 2 also adopts what seems now to be the standard in every multiplayer game, the class system. You can play as one of the 5 classes, each class has characteristics that set them apart and makes them fun to play as. It is also noteworthy that you cannot build and outfit your class to your liking like Call of duty but because of that each class has 3 weapons that you can choose from and 2 secondary weapons that go with the classes role. The more you play you get a higher rank witch provides you with diamonds to upgrade the class of your choice. Also using the same weapon pays of in the long run since you can unlock “perks” as you get more familiar with a weapon you get the operation/maintenance manuals along with bandolier.

Far cry 2 was also hyped for it´s remarkable map creator that delivers beyond expectations, it has a friendly learning curve and is really easy to use after a short while. To help you even more out the guys at Ubisoft even included a generator that makes the template that you can work and change to your liking. They also made the option to download other players maps online and because of the rating system the cream stays on the top and is easy to locate.
The map editor will surely be the reason to keep playing Far cry 2 long into the holiday season after the 25 hour single player experience is over since it already has widespread community support and will make sure players always have something fresh and new to play on be it a scene from a movie or a remake of levels from other games.




Good points:

*Breathtaking visuals and effects.
*Everything you do in the game has it´s own animation to make the game even more immersive.
*Clever degration system with the guns.
*Realistic atmosphere.
*The A.I. has it´s moments in some tough firefights and it´s amazing to see them risking them selves to carry a wounded soldier to safety.
*The feel of the weapons is bar-none.

Bad points:

*Guard posts respawn enemy´s.
*On your long drives you encounter atleast 1-3 enemy patrols, it gets annoying.
*You don´t feel any connection between you and your character or any character for that matter since most wont last very long in this harsh world.
*Extremely repetitive.
*You have experienced most of the games offerings in the tutorial.
*The plot is really slow and just picks up near the end.

Overall: