I heard Africa is nice this time of year
Africa, where Far Cry 2 is places is the second most populated continent. And you can really tell why, after seeing the amount of action in Far Cry 2's jungle. Joking aside Far Cry 2 is story driven first person shooter in based in open world Africa. Far Cry was a generic shooter that was mostly recognized for its beautiful graphics, Far Cry 2 is not too different.
In the beginning of the game you pick you character from six different dudes. All being some form shady characters, such as old IRA man or a smuggler type. You are assigned to track and kill known arms weapons dealer in Africa. The Jackal. Not Bruce Willis, but not too far off. Action in Far Cry takes place in not named African state which is turmoiled by civil war. You are thrown in the mix by doing missions for two opposing factions while getting closer to Jackal. Game has generally a very dark feel which suit this troubled African nation. Only wildlife is missing, which is a good thing actually.
Premises of the story is interesting. Shame only the few decisions you are given won't make any difference. Faction leaders face same demise no matter what. It doesn't help that the main character is the mute type who seems to behave like small girl when being close to Jackal. Hardly a fierce killer.
Gameplay in here is standard first person shooter. Story is progressed by doing missions for either faction. Game world is large and good deal of exploration can be done. By looking for hidden diamonds or unlocking buddies or safe houses. Game also has huge range of secondary missions. Map being mostly populated by dense jungle. Distances between areas of interested are large and for which where games vehicles can be used. These are different set of cars and boats as well as a hang glider which all can be found and taken freely. Game also has fast travelling function in form of buss which is a huge relief.
Far Cry 2 has it shares of of issues but the major being around traveling. Any bigger crossroad, bridge or a building is occupied by number of angry faction dudes. No matter if its the faction you are working on,they will attack. You end up going through the same roads again and again. Each time the outpost has been reset. In addition there is tons roaming jeeps with mounted guns. Environment is supposed to be hostile, but there should be some limit? Other bizarre design decision was the feature to have the main character to have Malaria. I fail to understand how that is supposed be fun. The dude gets malaria attacks every now and then. Popping a pill helps assuming you have done the mundane courier missions to get them.
Graphics as previously mentioned are beautiful. Africa's different landscape and the nature is real like. The full day cycle displays the jungle or the deserts just as one would expect. If there is one thing to complain about the appearance it would be some of the characters eyes which are just odd. Fire effect which is one the games unique feature is really well done as well. Cool thing with this is that the grass and wooden building can be set to fire. This can be used to your advantage in several missions and add similar custom approach to levels as GTA is known for. Music is done with neutral classical music themes as well as ethnic African sounding tracks. Broad range of different accents and languages can be heard from all of games characters.
I really wanted to like Far Cry 2. And there was massive potential for this to be amazing game. Unfortunately that is a far cry. In times game is just broken. Had multiple instances where the story would skip if I happen to approach wrong dude or a sub-mission that would not trigger at all. (Never managed to enter to the first Underground house.) In several cases the vehicle would get stuck in a stone/tree or the character would fall into a pit and could not get back up. Constant battles while using a top range assault rifle with all possible upgrades would constantly jam. Not to mentioned the amount of led the hostiles needed to be killed. This all might make the game more "realistic" like experience. Unfortunately realistic doesn't always mean fun video-game.
