Ah, Far Cry 2. One of my most anticipated games of the year. I've been fully on board with this game ever since first reading Giantbomb's preview of it many months ago. I was excited with the new direction the series was going in, and the game's new setting in war-ridden Africa definitely peaked my interest. In fact, when reading the preview, I found that the game had quite a bit in common with a game I intend to create myself when and if I become a game designer some day. Since then, I felt confident enough with the concept of the game that I didn't pay much interest to other previews and information that followed, until the game's final reviews. The reviews came out and it did pretty good, but not quite as well as I had hoped. I've also read a lot of negative comments about the games from forum users. So I finally got my hands on the game, and I've probably put between 5 to 10 hours into playing it and am now officially pulling the plug.

Far Cry 2 has been one of the most frustrating, and at times one of the most downright stupid games I have played all year. It's a shame too, there seems to be a lot of quality to be found in the game, but some nagging problems have pushed me to the edge and as a result, I'll never get to see much of the good this game may have to offer. As early as the game's tutorial mission, I found myself getting incredibly annoyed and frustrated by some stupid design choices. In one part of this mission, you're supposed to drive down to Mike's Bar. That's not too hard. By this point you have most of the basics of the gameplay figured out, and are given a map with the location of this bar, as well as a car. Driving there wasn't a problem. When you get there, you find the Bar has two entrances, yet neither of them can be opened. What the heck? Your goal is to get into this bar, but you can't open the door. So then you check to make sure this is actually the bar, and it is, and you start looking for some alternate entrance you may have missed, but find nothing. Then you start thinking a little. Hmm.. maybe the door is locked and if I shoot out the knob and lock, I can push it open. Of course that doesn't work. Let me pull out my assault rifle and shoot the thing down. Hit it with a grenade. Melee attack it with my knife! Dude, nothing is working. Hey, there's some explosive barrels kinda close to the back entrance, let's see if I can use those to blow off the door. Negative. Okay, obviously this isn't working and I gotta do something else. I jump into the jeep nearby that has a gun turret attached on the back. I'm supposed to meet someone in this bar, so clearly somebody must be inside. I start shooting the bar with the turret, ramming the side of the bar, anything I can that might cause dudes to run out. Okay, it's very apparent that I'm missing something here. I start checking through the pause menu, looking through logs and whatever I can find to see if I actually missed something. Nothing of any use is there to help me. I start searching all the small, vacant buildings nearby. I find a gun shop, but the owner isn't there. There's also a computer inside that I can use to buy better weapons, but considering how I don't have much money as it is, I don't do it and go back outside and run all over the place, desperately looking for some way to get into that God forsaken bar! I'm well beyond the point of not having fun. I'm hating every single minute that I can't seem to get inside to fulfill my objective. Something is definitely wrong, but the answer isn't so clear. Finally, the answer presents itself when I pause the game again, it seems now that I entered the gun store, my objective has changed, and I must buy a new gun, for no apparent reason. I go back inside, reluctantly buy a new gun, and magically, I can now open the back door of the bar. SUCCESS! How unnecessarily stupid and frustrating was that? It's a miracle I didn't stop playing the game after that, but like I said, this is one game I was really stoked about playing, so I wasn't going to give up that easy. Sure, maybe it took me unusually long to figure out the problem, but dude, what the freaking heck? I was told to go into Mike’s Bar, not go into the gun shop near Mike’s Bar and buy a new weapon. Besides, I’m armed with a freaking rocket launcher, I’m good to go. I already got all I need, except for maybe some correct directions from these incompetent game designers.

Then, the frustration continues inside the bar. I go in, meet up with the friend I rescued earlier and make a new ally as well. There's also some obnoxious dude that calls me a "jack boot" every time I go near him. Apparently he's supposed to give me something, and he says something that makes me think he set this thing down on the table for me to grab or something, but when he said it, I was looking away as I was scoping out the bar. Okay, there's nothing on the table, what, did he drop it? So I'm checking the floor, checking the nearby table, and anywhere in the vicinity. This guy is obviously a jerk and is insulting me for no reason, for all I know, he could have thrown it on the ground somewhere. I'm checking all over this stupid bar, and nothing. Every time I approach him, he's calling me a "jack boot" again and I'm wanting to beat the living heck out of him for it but combat is disabled inside buildings, so I can't. My friend can't seem to help, my objective hasn't been updated, what the heck is going on here?! Frustration continues to build, eventually I just exit the bar thinking I'm done there, but it turns out I'm not. I go back in and go up to this punk, wanting to punch him in the face, he calls me a jack boot again, but I'm still standing there next to him, and he says a new line of dialogue. Whoa! Then surely I must have stepped back, only to be called a "jack boot" once again when I reapproached him. Well, I had figured it out. It turns out that every time I take a step away from the dude, his whole dialogue resets, therefore I must stand still next to him and listen to every word he says. After a few lines, he pulls out a tape recorder, sets it on the table, and I can grab it. Finally. Jesus Cripes, dude. How does that happen in games? How does that get overlooked by the game designers? Despite what the last 2 paragraphs may have indicated, I am a smart person. This wasn't a result of my own stupidity or anything, but poor design. No doubt many people have experienced the same problem and it amazes me no one working on the game addressed the issue. Mike's Bar alone has turned into quite a long rant. I hope by the end of the game, that place burns down and that "jack boot" slangin' fool dies in a horrible, horrible death.

Moving along... I got past that and played the game a bit further. Throughout that time, I discovered that I have some problems with many of the implemented game mechanics in Far Cry 2. Take for instance, traveling. Now, Far Cry 2 has a very large map. In fact, I haven't even see more than half of it. Apparently you open up two additional large territories as you progress further in the story. Nevertheless, it is huge. Also, it's not very linear or ideal for traveling. Nearly all the roads are curvy, dirt roads surrounded by trees and foilage, that lead you through enemy camp after enemy camp. Now, there is a form of instant travel, if you can get to it. On this map, there are 5 bus locations you can go to, which can instantly warp you to any other bus location. However, five isn't that many, and although it helps, you'll have to go out of your way to the bus station to warp you to the bus stop closest to the objective, which will still likely be quite far away. Here's where traveling becomes a major hassle. You're going to need to use a vehicle since the map is so large and your guy can't sprint very fast or very long distances. The sprinting also seemed a little glitchy and inconsistent, by the way, but anyway, you drive along these maze-like roads and repeatedly come across enemy camps. Oh, and guess what? Every single freaking person in this game will shoot you on sight, no matter what. With the exception of one neutral no-fire zone in the middle of the map, every other person I encountered wanted me dead and I have no idea why. I’m freaking dying of malaria as it is, leave me the heck alone, ya jerks! Can a malaria-stricken man travel through in peace? Yeesh! It goes even further than that, though. Not only do they attack on sight, but if you’re anywhere within the same vicinity of these dudes, they automatically know where you are. This is a trait that I think is becoming far too common in games these days. It was something I suspected fairly early on in the game, then I ran into one instance that proved it is totally true. I found like a vacant shack somewhere, I arrived on foot, and you got these gun-turret equipped jeeps that seem to just randomly drive along dirt roads, and every so often, you’ll encounter them and they’re a total pain. So I’m in this shack for a few minutes, checking it out… I hear a car approaching from the distance so I crouch down out of sight. Sure enough, as soon as the vehicle gets near, the gunner is shooting right at me despite the fact that I’m hidden in a dark shack, completely out of sight to him. God, I freaking hate this stupid game.

So you got these frequent enemy camps, with their Superman-see-through-vision-soldiers and all, not to mention they have shockingly good aim, and you can either get out of your car and wipe them all out, or try to drive past them. Either way, you’re screwed. Go ahead, get out and kill them, but what happens? You really start to run out of ammo. You don’t seem to be able to carry too much, though certainly the enemies you just killed have plenty of ammo for you to use. Well, kinda, but not quite. The game discourages you from using enemy weapons because they regularly get jammed, and in some cases, they break entirely. Ah great. That’s cool. If you drive past, well, your car isn’t going to make it long past two of these camps. You’re almost always trailed by a car with a gunner who is pretty much impossible to escape (there seems to be some major rubber-band effect going on here to keep them close to you), and you have to stop your car to switch to the gunner seat, and even though it can be done without actually getting out of your car, your vehicle is going to take some severe damage. So yeah, after just a couple of these enemy encounters, you’re going to need to get a new vehicle because yours is going to explode. Now, apparently there’s a trick to fix your car, which I was completely unaware of. I actually found out through Giantbomb’s never-ending trivia. I guess you can get out of your vehicle, pop open the hood, and turn a bolt to magically repair your car. They kind of demonstrate this right at the beginning of the game, however, in that particular instance, you’re installing a car battery and then turn a bolt and can drive it. I may be wrong here, but I don’t recall any sort of indication being explained in the game that this could be done to repair cars. Besides, it makes absolutely no sense. If a car is on fire, pop open the hood, turn a bolt, and presto! Voila! Just like new! Man, if you guys are still following at this point, you’re really awesome. I hate to say it, but there’s still a whole lot more I intend to rant about. Okay, in fact, I’m going to make this a two-parter. This ends the beginning of my rant. Tune in some time later for the next installment of why Far Cry 2 is totally whack.

Edit: Forget it, there's no way I'm wasting my time writing a second part to this rant about a lousy game. Sorry to disappoint you all so greatly. Please, try to be strong.

Ah, Far Cry 2. One of my most anticipated games of the year. I've been fully on board with this game ever since first reading Giantbomb's preview of it many months ago. I was excited with the new direction the series was going in, and the game's new setting in war-ridden Africa definitely peaked my interest. In fact, when reading the preview, I found that the game had quite a bit in common with a game I intend to create myself when and if I become a game designer some day. Since then, I felt confident enough with the concept of the game that I didn't pay much interest to other previews and information that followed, until the game's final reviews. The reviews came out and it did pretty good, but not quite as well as I had hoped. I've also read a lot of negative comments about the games from forum users. So I finally got my hands on the game, and I've probably put between 5 to 10 hours into playing it and am now officially pulling the plug.

Far Cry 2 has been one of the most frustrating, and at times one of the most downright stupid games I have played all year. It's a shame too, there seems to be a lot of quality to be found in the game, but some nagging problems have pushed me to the edge and as a result, I'll never get to see much of the good this game may have to offer. As early as the game's tutorial mission, I found myself getting incredibly annoyed and frustrated by some stupid design choices. In one part of this mission, you're supposed to drive down to Mike's Bar. That's not too hard. By this point you have most of the basics of the gameplay figured out, and are given a map with the location of this bar, as well as a car. Driving there wasn't a problem. When you get there, you find the Bar has two entrances, yet neither of them can be opened. What the heck? Your goal is to get into this bar, but you can't open the door. So then you check to make sure this is actually the bar, and it is, and you start looking for some alternate entrance you may have missed, but find nothing. Then you start thinking a little. Hmm.. maybe the door is locked and if I shoot out the knob and lock, I can push it open. Of course that doesn't work. Let me pull out my assault rifle and shoot the thing down. Hit it with a grenade. Melee attack it with my knife! Dude, nothing is working. Hey, there's some explosive barrels kinda close to the back entrance, let's see if I can use those to blow off the door. Negative. Okay, obviously this isn't working and I gotta do something else. I jump into the jeep nearby that has a gun turret attached on the back. I'm supposed to meet someone in this bar, so clearly somebody must be inside. I start shooting the bar with the turret, ramming the side of the bar, anything I can that might cause dudes to run out. Okay, it's very apparent that I'm missing something here. I start checking through the pause menu, looking through logs and whatever I can find to see if I actually missed something. Nothing of any use is there to help me. I start searching all the small, vacant buildings nearby. I find a gun shop, but the owner isn't there. There's also a computer inside that I can use to buy better weapons, but considering how I don't have much money as it is, I don't do it and go back outside and run all over the place, desperately looking for some way to get into that God forsaken bar! I'm well beyond the point of not having fun. I'm hating every single minute that I can't seem to get inside to fulfill my objective. Something is definitely wrong, but the answer isn't so clear. Finally, the answer presents itself when I pause the game again, it seems now that I entered the gun store, my objective has changed, and I must buy a new gun, for no apparent reason. I go back inside, reluctantly buy a new gun, and magically, I can now open the back door of the bar. SUCCESS! How unnecessarily stupid and frustrating was that? It's a miracle I didn't stop playing the game after that, but like I said, this is one game I was really stoked about playing, so I wasn't going to give up that easy. Sure, maybe it took me unusually long to figure out the problem, but dude, what the freaking heck? I was told to go into Mike’s Bar, not go into the gun shop near Mike’s Bar and buy a new weapon. Besides, I’m armed with a freaking rocket launcher, I’m good to go. I already got all I need, except for maybe some correct directions from these incompetent game designers.

Then, the frustration continues inside the bar. I go in, meet up with the friend I rescued earlier and make a new ally as well. There's also some obnoxious dude that calls me a "jack boot" every time I go near him. Apparently he's supposed to give me something, and he says something that makes me think he set this thing down on the table for me to grab or something, but when he said it, I was looking away as I was scoping out the bar. Okay, there's nothing on the table, what, did he drop it? So I'm checking the floor, checking the nearby table, and anywhere in the vicinity. This guy is obviously a jerk and is insulting me for no reason, for all I know, he could have thrown it on the ground somewhere. I'm checking all over this stupid bar, and nothing. Every time I approach him, he's calling me a "jack boot" again and I'm wanting to beat the living heck out of him for it but combat is disabled inside buildings, so I can't. My friend can't seem to help, my objective hasn't been updated, what the heck is going on here?! Frustration continues to build, eventually I just exit the bar thinking I'm done there, but it turns out I'm not. I go back in and go up to this punk, wanting to punch him in the face, he calls me a jack boot again, but I'm still standing there next to him, and he says a new line of dialogue. Whoa! Then surely I must have stepped back, only to be called a "jack boot" once again when I reapproached him. Well, I had figured it out. It turns out that every time I take a step away from the dude, his whole dialogue resets, therefore I must stand still next to him and listen to every word he says. After a few lines, he pulls out a tape recorder, sets it on the table, and I can grab it. Finally. Jesus Cripes, dude. How does that happen in games? How does that get overlooked by the game designers? Despite what the last 2 paragraphs may have indicated, I am a smart person. This wasn't a result of my own stupidity or anything, but poor design. No doubt many people have experienced the same problem and it amazes me no one working on the game addressed the issue. Mike's Bar alone has turned into quite a long rant. I hope by the end of the game, that place burns down and that "jack boot" slangin' fool dies in a horrible, horrible death.

Moving along... I got past that and played the game a bit further. Throughout that time, I discovered that I have some problems with many of the implemented game mechanics in Far Cry 2. Take for instance, traveling. Now, Far Cry 2 has a very large map. In fact, I haven't even see more than half of it. Apparently you open up two additional large territories as you progress further in the story. Nevertheless, it is huge. Also, it's not very linear or ideal for traveling. Nearly all the roads are curvy, dirt roads surrounded by trees and foilage, that lead you through enemy camp after enemy camp. Now, there is a form of instant travel, if you can get to it. On this map, there are 5 bus locations you can go to, which can instantly warp you to any other bus location. However, five isn't that many, and although it helps, you'll have to go out of your way to the bus station to warp you to the bus stop closest to the objective, which will still likely be quite far away. Here's where traveling becomes a major hassle. You're going to need to use a vehicle since the map is so large and your guy can't sprint very fast or very long distances. The sprinting also seemed a little glitchy and inconsistent, by the way, but anyway, you drive along these maze-like roads and repeatedly come across enemy camps. Oh, and guess what? Every single freaking person in this game will shoot you on sight, no matter what. With the exception of one neutral no-fire zone in the middle of the map, every other person I encountered wanted me dead and I have no idea why. I’m freaking dying of malaria as it is, leave me the heck alone, ya jerks! Can a malaria-stricken man travel through in peace? Yeesh! It goes even further than that, though. Not only do they attack on sight, but if you’re anywhere within the same vicinity of these dudes, they automatically know where you are. This is a trait that I think is becoming far too common in games these days. It was something I suspected fairly early on in the game, then I ran into one instance that proved it is totally true. I found like a vacant shack somewhere, I arrived on foot, and you got these gun-turret equipped jeeps that seem to just randomly drive along dirt roads, and every so often, you’ll encounter them and they’re a total pain. So I’m in this shack for a few minutes, checking it out… I hear a car approaching from the distance so I crouch down out of sight. Sure enough, as soon as the vehicle gets near, the gunner is shooting right at me despite the fact that I’m hidden in a dark shack, completely out of sight to him. God, I freaking hate this stupid game.

So you got these frequent enemy camps, with their Superman-see-through-vision-soldiers and all, not to mention they have shockingly good aim, and you can either get out of your car and wipe them all out, or try to drive past them. Either way, you’re screwed. Go ahead, get out and kill them, but what happens? You really start to run out of ammo. You don’t seem to be able to carry too much, though certainly the enemies you just killed have plenty of ammo for you to use. Well, kinda, but not quite. The game discourages you from using enemy weapons because they regularly get jammed, and in some cases, they break entirely. Ah great. That’s cool. If you drive past, well, your car isn’t going to make it long past two of these camps. You’re almost always trailed by a car with a gunner who is pretty much impossible to escape (there seems to be some major rubber-band effect going on here to keep them close to you), and you have to stop your car to switch to the gunner seat, and even though it can be done without actually getting out of your car, your vehicle is going to take some severe damage. So yeah, after just a couple of these enemy encounters, you’re going to need to get a new vehicle because yours is going to explode. Now, apparently there’s a trick to fix your car, which I was completely unaware of. I actually found out through Giantbomb’s never-ending trivia. I guess you can get out of your vehicle, pop open the hood, and turn a bolt to magically repair your car. They kind of demonstrate this right at the beginning of the game, however, in that particular instance, you’re installing a car battery and then turn a bolt and can drive it. I may be wrong here, but I don’t recall any sort of indication being explained in the game that this could be done to repair cars. Besides, it makes absolutely no sense. If a car is on fire, pop open the hood, turn a bolt, and presto! Voila! Just like new! Man, if you guys are still following at this point, you’re really awesome. I hate to say it, but there’s still a whole lot more I intend to rant about. Okay, in fact, I’m going to make this a two-parter. This ends the beginning of my rant. Tune in some time later for the next installment of why Far Cry 2 is totally whack.

Edit: Forget it, there's no way I'm wasting my time writing a second part to this rant about a lousy game. Sorry to disappoint you all so greatly. Please, try to be strong.

From what I've played of Far Cry, I totally agree with all your points, this game had some serious potential, but idiotic design choices just ruin the game.

I bought Far Cry 2 on the PC from the Steam store during its recent holiday sale. And so far I must of put 15 hours or more into the game and I can't bring myself to play it anymore, I just can't torture myself like that. So much potential wasted. I've started playing Bioshock again, a game for all intensive purposes has poor gameplay, but its so much more immersive. Something FC2 could of done with being.

Still I agree with you OP, I too just cannot bring myself to finish Far Cry 2 at all.

I finished Far Cry 2 shortly after it was released. I still refer to it as Far Drive 2.

I did have a slight problem with the bar at the beginning, but a glance at the map shows the objective is at the gun shop.

I didn't have any problem with the dialogue, but I can see how people might have trouble with that.

This is why I refer to it as Far Drive 2. I feel that if respawning of checkpoints and camps was removed and the enemy actually had to send resupply trucks from the nearest camp or town to that checkpoint, then it would have been so much better. I mean there's that convoy of technicals and 5-ton trucks at the beginning... why can't a 5-ton or two resupply a checkpoint? The only thing that kept me sane through Act 2 was the Mk 19 grenade launcher technical. The technicals are always the best option for dealing with a camp since they can't run out of ammo, just overheat the gun. I thought repair was pretty obvious after the start where you have to repair that car, and I just started another game to dick around...I don't recall installing a battery.

AI is one of those things that few people can get right. I'm not claiming I can program AI or anything...just that a lot of it fails at the believeability/reality portion. Even the bots in Left 4 Dead have x-ray vision - they'll shoot special zombies in trees. It's primarily because there's an issue with scalability of programming AI. You could give one bot image recognition or something else akin to human perception, but the moment you try to give it to 10 at the same time your CPU will turn into a single-file line waiting for the AI routines. At the same time they could have implemented a vision raytracing sort of system, to see if their eyes ever collide with your person or if they hit an object in the middle first... The camo suit does help but that just basically makes the AI stupider.

Sadly, there is no official SDK where people could go all Oblivion on the game and turn it into something better ala the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, any of the number of overhauls, etc. I don't know that there are any plans for an SDK either. People are working on extracting the game data, but it's not easy as the data is not named, only hashed, so people have to guess resource names until they get a hash collision. I've messed with a partially functional un-archiving utility but it doesn't have all the object names and there's no re-archiving utility still. I think I remember hearing the scripting is in Lua, so at least something's relatively standard, but even that's still locked up in an archive.

That game is a major pain in the arse.

Best rant ever

I was considering Far Cry 2 as a game I'd maybe check out, but all the negative feedback has convinced me otherwise

I totally agree with everything you said.
I haven't even finished the first area. :D

That is one giant wall of text.

"That is one giant wall of text.

Err...from what I read, I agree. It could have been better in many ways, though there were definitely memorable moments for me as well. 

But the enemy AI really frustrated me:  how can they keep shooting at you AND hitting you when you are speeding off in a SUV into the distance? It doesn't make sense.

"

I definitely agree, this game could of been so much better without a couple annoying flaws. The flaws are very obvious too and could have been easily fixed. I mean seriously, the malaria was a real pain in the ass.

Ah yes. I hope more people learn the truth of this shitty game and spend their money on a better product. I was a victim of the half ass programing from Ubisoft that allows certain portions of the game to be un passable after spending countless hours. According to tech support I need to start over from scratch. How about not.

I remember hating this game when it first came out, having a lot of the same issues as TheGreatGuero, but I decided to give it another shot and am really enjoying myself this time. I think one of my main problems was that I approached it like any other shooter and expected it to be a fast-paced game, but it's not. Missions require a lot of driving, and along the way you're going to encounter some enemy camps and patrol jeeps. When I was trying to hammer through missions, that was mad annoying. Now that I'm sitting back and taking my time, I actually enjoy it, and it's not as bad as it used to seem.

"So you got these frequent enemy camps, with their Superman-see-through-vision-soldiers and all, not to mention they have shockingly good aim, and you can either get out of your car and wipe them all out, or try to drive past them."

I don't think that's totally invalid, but I think they're just not clinically blind like enemies in most games are and can see more than two feet in front of them. Their aim isn't all that great, either; again, they're just more competent than most goons in games. If you want to sneak around, you should try purchasing the camo upgrade, some sileneced weapons (I suggest a silenced MP5, the Dart Gun, and a MAC-10 as a loadout), and start taking your time when approaching hostile territories. I've done entire missions without the enemy spotting me, and whenver they do I usually feel like it was my own fault.

As far as some of the other gripes go, just know the game to do too much hand-holding. It does tell you a number of things, but sometimes you just have to learn shit the hard way. However, there's only a few things you may need to learn about on your own to get by, and once you learn those few things you're set.

I agree with a lot of your points, very good blog.  I had about 3 game ruining bugs happen to me.  Was not much fun at all.

I agree that Far Cry 2 is far from perfect, but I think your main problem with the game arises from your own ADD.  You missed the part where the game told you to go buy a weapon from the shop (they did tell you).  You missed the part where they told you how to repair a vehicle.  And, you couldn't figure out the conversation system because you were so busy randomly running around the bar and looking at everything but the guy talking to you.

No wonder he insulted you, you wouldn't sit still and listen!

tl;dr

I completely agree with all the faults you posted.  Its a shame because the game gives amazing first impressions with setting and the landscape.  The environment is astonishing, if a little repetitive. 

It all falls down with gameplay.  Its frustrating and ultimately boring.  Nearly all the missions involve the same thing, shooting people, and that aspect of the game isnt even that satisfying.  I tried setting up explosives and remote detonating vehicles in some missions and that was pretty fun, but get caught in an enemy area you either have to leg it or very haphazardly fight your way through people.

The worst part for me that stopped me playing the game was:  Escort the tug accross the lake mission.  As soon as you set off the boat gets flanked by turret mounted speed boats that waste your health in record speed.  Then you get out into open water and some guy about 2 miles away is killing you with mortars that are incredibly accurate.  I had to actually abandon the boat, swim accross the lake to kill him and then swim back to complete the mission. 

Not one part of that mission was fun, and if a game isnt fun, I'm not playing it.  That is why its called entertainment after all.

i liked lots of ubisofts past stuff so i gave it a chance and it is sitting on my shelf collecting dust i think i played like 8 hours. i might try again when i have forgotten about how frustrating it was.

I know how you feel, I think it should be illegal to sell a game this fustrating. Still I wanted to know what happens for the story so I kept trying my best to finish the game regardless of how fustrating it was.

I agree 100% with all your points. I really wanted to like this game, but there was just too much stupid stuff that brought down the experience.

What you get out of Far Cry 2 is what you put in. It's simple -

Pay attention to your objectives and on-screen prompts. ALWAYS travel with a gun-mounted truck (all you have to do is press A and you switch to the gun), enemy camps are useful because its your main source of ammo and health until you upgrade your safe house plus you can even drive through them and keep going until they stop following you, as for travel - boats are useful and buses cut down travel time immensely and if you like just turn down the difficulty level it makes the enemies much less super-human. It has its niggles but I still found it a very rewarding game.

Your character is also the world's best one-handed driver.

Wall of text crits End_Boss's attention span for over 9000.

It's super effective!

Okay fine, I'll read it.

The game has some interesting and fun mechanics, which makes its (obvious) flaws all the more frustrating.

Hell, I could live with some of the minor issues if they would just slow the respawn of enemy camps. Having to deal with cluster after cluster of enemies on my way to every single objective got old very quickly, and even once you get better guns and/or drive a jeep with a mounted gun you still have to stop and clear them out, as blowing through usually results in them destroying your vehicle as you drive away, where you have to run back and kill them and steal one of theirs.

Also, yeah, enemy accuracy is ridiculous.