Far Cry 2

Please sit back and allow me to magically whisk you away to a fictional place located somewhere in Central Africa. Far Cry 2 for the PS3, PC and XBOX 360 is based in this lovely backdrop. Here you'll find militant groups attempting to establish power over a war torn, over thrown government. Malaria is everywhere and mercenaries are your only friends. Can you smell the hippo shit? Does it feel like you're there yet? Well I hope not because this place is not for the faint of heart. You will get shot, and when you do, I hope you're prepared to ram a knife in your arm to remove the bullet that just got lodged in there. It's not all bad news though. There are lots of briefcases lying around with diamonds in them, all sorts of fun weapons to play with and who can forget about those beautiful African Savannah sun sets.......the way the light shines through the smoke from the burning fields can at times be breathtaking. Book your flight reservations in advance in order to take advantage of great savings! Central Africa, a mercenary's wet dream.

Far Cry 2 starts off with you in the backseat of a car getting a VIP tour through this great landscape. You'll witness people getting executed, people burning fields and will receive at no extra charge a brief history of the surrounding area. Once you arrive at your destination, you pass out and wake up only to find that you have a dirty, heavy duty case of Malaria. You also come face to face with the reason behind your trip to this remote location, The Jackal. The Jackal is a ruthless arms dealer who is selling weapons to the two rival factions. The United Front for Liberation and Labour (UFLL) and the Alliance for Popular Resistance (APR). By doing this he is providing them the means to fight each other and needless to say, The Jackal will not be a candidate for humanitarian of the year. You start doing some work for a local Mercenary and over time you develop a reputation as being a loyal, hard working bad ass. From this point you are introduced to other Mercs along with leaders of militant organizations that assign certain duties and contracts for you to partake in. All of this happens while you battle a mean case of malaria and track down your intended target.

In this vast landscape (50 km worth to be exact) you will find all sorts of things to do. One of the things Ubisoft Montreal wanted to bring to the table for this sequel was to offer a true sandbox type experience that your traditional shooter normally does not offer. As per Designer Louis-Pierre Pharand "You can do what the fuck you want..." (F bomb gets thrown down at 1:23....fucking awesome....fuck) which isn't exactly the case, but it's close enough. It's a lot like any other open ended style of game where you have one main objective with several other "side quests" that come into play. You navigate form mission to mission in an assortment of vehicles and you receive most of your objectives via your trusty cell phone. The huge landscape is great to look at but it's the driving that really gets me. Your point of view is a realistic one meaning that the frame of the vehicle is blocking some of the perspective of things up a head. It makes driving a bit tricky but especially pisses me off when I need to reference my map. You can either stop the car and check out the map or try driving while looking down at it. Both options are shitty mainly because you're wasting time while idling and checking your map or you're driving all over the place trying to keep an eye on the road while reading the stupid thing. This makes for an extremely realistic point of view but creates headaches while trying to find your way around this massive landscape.

A television theme song once informed me that making your way in the world today takes everything you got. This age old adage falls true to some degree in Far Cry 2. Seeing as how you receive a case of stank ass Malaria, you will need to take medication every 30 minutes or so just in order to survive. On top of that, you carry around syrettes (syringes) to fight of infections after being shot. After you're finished shooting up, don't forget to dig that dirty looking knife into your body as well in order to fish out bullets. You will only see this animation if your health is on its last bar. Keep in mind that it takes about 6 seconds or so of healing animation to pull this off so it may not be in your best interests to start healing yourself in the middle of a heated fire fight. Look for cover and Rambo that wound up. Definitely a cool aspect to the healing process.

One aspect of the game that was entirely not cool was the traveling. As I mentioned before this game has a huge environment that you work within. It also has a shitty driving point of view. With that in mind, you have to practically drive everywhere. See what I'm getting at? You can take the bus but you'll either have to drive for a while to get to a bus station or you'll be jacking a ride as soon as you reach your destination. Not a big deal really. Driving did piss me off but that's nothing compared to having to fight the same rebels at the same location every time you want to drive past their camps. I understand it would be substantially more boring if you had to travel the same route over and over again with no action after killing the first guys at the hide out, but it's just annoying that I have to drive so far, with such a shitty view and have to stop for 5 minutes and fight it out with some bad guys before continuing on. There could be 3 camps situated between your objective and a bus station. Needless to say it takes a long time to carry out some of the most simplistic objectives and it's all due to the constant interruptions and long drives. This adds just enough frustration to make you want to take a break after successfully accomplishing just one or two objective. I'd much rather play a game the has you so in tuned to what's going on, you could play 4 hours straight and you'll want more. Far Cry 2 had me bored and upset at several points and that really took away from my initial thoughts of how this game was going to turn out.

While playing Far Cry 2, I developed a love/hate relationship. I loved the idea of the open sandbox concept for a traditional shooter. It was very realistic and to a point that is what became it's downfall. Having to do everything as if you were actually there became boring and frustrating. If you're going to try to emulate games such as Elder Scrolls or GTA, please pay close attention to the option they have set up to alleviate some of the frustrating elements that come with creating this type of game. These would include an intuitive and well thought out map and driving system a la GTA. A nice little circle in the bottom corner letting you know where you're at and where you're going and is always visible and easy to read. This also includes 'warp' points like in Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. It would be so nice to just warp to special locations from time to time and not having to constantly travel there. It can take up to 50 hours of gameplay to finish Far Cry 2......75% feels like it was spent traveling. Super pain in the ass.

There are some incredible moments in the game however and they should not be overlooked. If you have a lot of time on your hands and are interested in the concept of sandbox type shooter, Far Cry 2 should satisfy your curiosity and will also provide some good times in the process. Just be prepared for a lot of long distance hikes and some deja vu shoot outs with the locals.