Gamertell

Title: Far Cry 2
Price: $59.99 from most retail outlets
System(s): *Xbox 360, PS3 and PC
Release Date: October, 21, 2008
Publisher (Developer): Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: “Mature” for blood, drug references, intense violence, sexual themes and strong language
Pros: High replayability, great story, beautiful and realistic graphics, intuitive controls, buddy system is new and it works beautifully.
Cons: Environment is too big, enemies are localized in certain areas and don’t leave unless they chase you, search for diamonds is not fun nor is it necessary. Glitches occasionally hinder playability.
Overall Score: Two thumbs sideways, 70, C-, * * out of five.

Far Cry was one of the games that made way for large open-world shooters Crysis. Critics met it with skepticism but, in the end, accepted Far Cry as a great game. In some ways Far Cry 2 is very impressive. In every other ways, Far Cry 2 is painfully average at best.

The good

There is quite a bit to like about this game.The animation for everything is absolutely gorgeous and, like Crysis, quite a bit of the world is destructible (if you’re using a high enough caliber of weapon or explosives). Damage happens realistically due to the graphics and physics engine. You get to watch the world pretty much flourish or burn depending on what’s going on and it happens in real-time.

Healing animations (i.e. pulling bullets or shrapnel out of wounds or wrapping burns) are beautiful and happen in real-time looking very realistic. There really isn’t much in the way of flaws in the game graphically.

The story is great. You’re sucked into a civil war in an African country that is spawned by an arms dealer known only as the Jackal. Yes he is slightly based on the real life terrorist Carlos Ilych “The Jackal” Ramirez. While hunting him down across Africa you contract Malaria. To pay for the medication you have to complete jobs while continuing the search for The Jackal, meaning you’ll have to perpetuate the war you’re there to stop for the time being just to live. This means you’ll be working for one of the two factions or both of the two factions at any one time. You’ll be able to also find odd jobs at expatriate bars among other locales across the African landscape.

The biggest gem in this game is the buddy system. As time goes on your reputation grows and you’ll make more friends. These friends will help you out in any way they can. This usually means supplying you with weapons, supplies, medication or more jobs that will lead to more diamonds that allow you to buy useful supplies. They will also offer you intel to let you know about alternate ways that might make a job easier on you. Occasionally if you become heavily wounded and “die,” they will revive you and drag your semi-conscious body to safety to cover you while you treat your wounds. It’s ingenious and, even though it’s inconsistent, works like a charm.

The Bad

If you suffer from anything that makes your attention span very short, you find this game painfully dull. Also, and I never thought I would complain about this being a gamer who is a fan of the Elder Scrolls games, the world is too big. Normally this wouldn’t be a complaint if there is a lot to do in the game even just traveling the lands. However, the game really doesn’t have much to do. If you’re not receiving a job or tearing through the point that a mission needs you to tear through, you’re just driving to and from either employers or objectives.

Since enemies are pretty much localized in specific areas around the map, you have to actually seek them out. They also don’t leave these specified points unless they have to chase you but you still have to find them. If you want to shoot something, even if it’s just a random animal, you have to seek it out and that can take anywhere from 10-15 minutes of driving. It’s not fun.

Gameplay gets repetitive since many of the missions are similar. You have to find the area. Then you have to either kill everyone at the area, destroy some equipment or kill the leader at that point. Then you have to head back. It’s really just tiresome. Sure it looks beautiful but repetition can spoil the war-torn paradise that you game through.

The search for cases of diamonds around the game world really isn’t necessary nor is it fun. Basic idea of the search for these cases is that you walk around with your GPS locator out waiting for a green light to start flashing on the locator. Then you pretty much have to stop and spin in place or move very slowly while spinning slowly until the flashing green light becomes a solid green light indicating the direction the case is in. Then you head in that direction until you either find the case or the solid green light starts flashing again. If it starts flashing again you go through this process again until you find the case of diamonds. Seeing as how you get diamonds for completing jobs, though, there’s no reason for the diamond hunt to be in the game, especially since you’ll make more doing jobs than finding cases. It’s just busy work that, unlike games including Fallout 3, Oblivion and both of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, just isn’t fun and does nothing to advance the character or story.

Lastly and most irritatingly, the game has some glitches that pop up at the most inopportune times. The most infamous one is the “invisible wall” that sometimes pops up in games. Let’s face it. In a wide open world, you shouldn’t be running into an invisible wall. However, on occasion during gameplay, I found myself getting hung up on plains with sparse vegetation and sparse rock formations that were nowhere near enough to hinder my progress while I was on foot being chased militant guerrillas who were driving and shooting after me, let alone stop me all together.

I got hung up on nothing and got run over or shot to death repeatedly in the game, which lead to needing to reload, re-receive the mission, refind the diamond cases that were found, redrive to the objective, redo the mission and start to redrive to receive payment for finishing a job. It’s irritating and shouldn’t happen. Sure, nothing is perfect but nothing should do something like this more than once in one sitting. I thought it might be the disc and after investigating the disc there were no scratches, no dust, nothing to hinder the reading of the disc on either disc or the disc reader.

The bottom line

The game though is, at best, mediocre and occasionally plays like something that just wasn’t finished before it shipped. It does do a lot of stuff right so if you’re interested in giving the game a shot, you’ll do best to rent the game. If you still want to buy it, my recommendation is to either get it at a discount (like Newegg since it is one of the few retail spots offer\ing the game for less than $50).

If you can find it used at a GameStop, Disc Replay or Half Priced Books, those would also be better options for buying the game if you’re willing to buy a used game.

Site [Far Cry 2] Purchase [Newegg]

NOTE* indicates the version reviewed.