Tears, Bullets and Blood: Far Cry 2 Reviewed

Suddenly, the roar of a vehicle engine approached, the tell-tale beam of headlights coming around the corner. I retreated, grabbing the RPG of the downed guard, running for cover with the vehicle behind me in close pursuit. I aimed the RPG at the vehicle, and watched as the round spiraled down into a crevice below. The dud exploded, serendipitously killing two approaching soldiers. The vehicle veered from the explosion, as its occupants were pinned on the ridge below. The explosion started a rapidly expanding brush fire, and as I entered the village I heard the screams of the passenger trapped in the fire. As the fire sieged the west side of the village, I swept through the east; and spotted my target, preoccupied with the explosions sweeping the shanties town. One headshot later, payment was due.

                                                   Let your feet do the walking, and the SAW-249 do the talking!

Although the adrenaline-soaked example seems like Mack Bolan fan fiction, it is one example of the firefights I experienced while playing Far Cry 2. The title masterfully blends some of the best unscripted action sequences to be seen on the 360 with an open-structure play style. Whereas most first person shooter are linear affairs, pushing games through scripted paths, FC2 gives players an open world to explore their inner mercenary. Unlike most other open world shooters, (World in Flames and Just Cause spring to mind) the title feels surprisingly fresh and expertly crafted.

As the story begins, players pick one of a handful of characters for their antagonist. All the characters not chosen will be become AI buddies that assist you through the title, until their demise. Reminiscent of Half-Life 2’s opening sequence, you take a short, tense taxi ride through FC2’s African landscape. Here, you’ll experience the stunning recreations of Sub-Saharan flora and fauna. The game skillfully creates unique vistas, rivers, savannahs, jungles and canyons. A developer less adept than Ubisoft Montreal could have easily turned the landscape into one homogenous environment.  The landscape itself is surprisingly fluid, with fires and floods spreading through the game’s fifty square mile terrain.

                                  Wussies call that collateral damage. I called it a confirmed kill with bonuses.

Along with Far Cry 2’s hybridizations of genres, comes its unique rhythm. As intense as firefights often are, they are often separated by uneventful stretches as the player travels by foot, boat, land, and air through the world. Gamers expecting a twenty-five hour roller coaster ride will be disappointed; those with a bit more patience may grow fond of the game’s cadence. 

While missions are typically of the ‘go here and blow this up’ variety; there’s a myriad to ways to accomplish this task. Players can elect to drop guards once a sniper rifle in unlocked, or set explosive charges around the villages. Starting a huge brushfire with a flamethrower as the guards unknowingly patrol downwind always gives me a sadistic smile. Halfway through the game, the intensity ratchets up, and the game becoming overwhelmingly engaging.

                                                 This game is like that late 90’s band- Yep, Porno for Pyros.

While the game’s class based multiplayer modes are fairly characteristic of the FPS genre, its powerful map editor isn’t. FC 2 offers an incredibly powerful and fairly intuitive application to design multiplayer maps. We were able to create a natural looking map in minutes, using an adjustable cursor to raise and lower and ground, plant trees, and dig rivers. The only problem we had was the inability to cover the countryside with explosives. The game limits the amount of combustibles the map creator can put in one area.

The game’s does have its share of weaknesses – while the framerate is generally steady, large firefights can slow things down, and put the player at a disadvantage. However, the successful player will learn it is advantageous to battle smaller groups of antagonists. Enemy intelligence is often weak: foes repeatedly fired at us when we were heavily covered. Even worse is the enemies tendency to respawn, requiring the player to massacre the same check-point guards repeatedly. Lastly, we would have loved to see a single player map editor; allowing the player to drop in enemies and customize their AI would have given the title nearly infinite longevity.

                        That smoke and muzzle flash brings a distant tear to our eyes. Get it, distant tear? Hello!