"It could have been a contender"
Far Cry 2 is a good game at it's core, sporting an amazing world, and great selection of weaponry, FC2 is unfortunately muddled by many problems that range from annoying to extremely frustrating.
If you have read Brad's review, you know this game has a completely different premise than the original, so lets get to how the actual game works.
In FC2 your a mercenary dropped in the middle of a fictional African country in turmoil. Two factions, the UFLL and APR are fighting for control in two sectors, Leboa-Seko and Bowa-Seko, and your mission is to kill a weapons dealer, named "The Jackal". You can take missions from both factions at any time, giving the game a more sandboxy feel.
As for the graphics, it looks spectacular, plants sway in the wind, dirt rises behind your car when on the road, guns get dirty over time, wildfires spread as you would expect them too. FC2 can definitely be compared to other graphically amazing games, possibly even to Crysis. Sadly, as a result of the quite amazing graphics, the frame rate will often drop drastically in high activity situations, like when there are large fires, large amounts of enemies fighting at one time, etc.
Speaking of fighting, FC2 gives you many ways to accomplish just that. Sporting a huge arsenal, ranging from supressed weapons like the MP5 for stealth players, to long range sniper rifles like the AS50, to more extravagant weapons like flamethrowers, and grenade/rocket launchers. Weapons are divided into 3 categories, Primary, Secondary and Special. Primary weapons are comprised of mostly two handed weapons like assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, and a few miscellaneous guns. Secondary weapons are one handed weapons and are a bit more varied than the primaries, among them are sub machine guns like the Uzi, a grenade launcher, remotely detonated IEDs, and pistols. Finally, Special weapons are even more varied than secondary weapons, Special weapons come in all shapes and sizes. Just some of these are the rocket launchers, a flamethrower, and a mortar cannon.
The problem however, is that you wont feel like you get to adequately use your weapons, as most of the time you spend in game will be simply driving from one area to the next, the map is absolutely huge, and the developers seem to have gone out of their way to make sure the mission objectives are spaced out as much as possible. The bus stations are almost always too far away from the objective to be only mildly useful, and the numerous guard posts and patrolling trucks will only serve to make your trips longer. And in the later parts of the game, the trucks will be equipped with much more powerful weaponry, which can quickly decimate you and your vehicle, possibly setting you back a very long ways, and 10 or more minutes could have been lost making up the distance, as save points are usually quite a pain to navigate to when on the way to a mission, the constant being set back frustrated me to no end, especially during the excessively long load times. Possibly the worst problem with the game is the enemies extremely quick respawn times. I have often completely torched a village with a flamethrower, left for about 5 minutes, drove past it again, and the village looks as good as new, like I hadn't completely burned it to the ground 5 minutes earlier.
Other than this, FC2 has many small problems that should have been addressed by the developers, that don't have much excuse. Many of the voice actors speak like they just drank 10 cups of coffee, not taking a moment to pause, it can often get quite humorous, though I have mostly noticed this with the female actors and the random grunts you fight throughout the game. Vehicles will often get stuck on small obstacles like a twig, and the game gives you no option to push them over unless the vehicle is upside down, so you may find yourself stranded if you do not have any other vehicles nearby.
In the end though, Far Cry 2 is a good game, that is setback by numerous bugs, glitches, and just not the best design choices, but FC2 definitely warrants at least a rental, and perhaps a buy if you can find it for $30 or under, and find the content to be more than enough to satisfy you in the rental period.
