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Far Cry 2: The Non-Sequel FPS Sandbox Identity Crisis The release of 2004’s Far Cry set quite a high standard in gaming technology in terms of amazing graphics and extremely intelligent AI. However, does its so-called *ehem* ‘sequel’ push the envelope or innovate for today's standards? To be honest, it doesn’t, yet its beauty and mostly fun gameplay indeed makes Far Cry 2 a decent addition to the somewhat fresh franchise. While Far Cry 2 is a decent game, there are some downfalls that could potentially destroy your experience. However, the good mostly outweighs the bad, and this should be recommend to any FPS or sandbox oriented gamer.
Unlike the original sci-fi focused Far Cry, the setting and plot of this installment takes a more realistic stance in a fictional part of Africa during a civil war. There are no more Trigens here (thank God!), only mercenaries and factions battling it out to either establish their rule or simply kill you. The game starts off with your character taxied into the war-zone where you are informed of the troubled times the region is facing, as well as your overall mission: kill an arms dealer named “The Jackal.” During this trip you are overcome by the effects of malaria and pass out to soon awake to the Jackal himself and his brief monologue. You are then spared and begin the actual game, which is incredibly repetitive to say the least. The gameplay simply consists of tediously obtaining jobs to kill someone, blow something up, or deliver a package in return for diamonds (Far Cry 2’s currency), malaria medicine, or new weapons/upgrades for purchase—GTA lite, basically. What really blows here is actually traversing the African landscape to find your assignments. Sure, a massive sandbox world is great and all (about 50 square kilometers in size), but commutes can easily run past thirty minutes. Thankfully they added bus stops that instantly transport you to various locations on the map, but you still have to make the trek to them. Further adding to the annoyance of travel, you are constantly attacked by respawning mercenaries along the way, thus eating up valuable ammunition, health, and weapon quality. Adding to the overall annoyance is the fact that your weapons wear down over time, thus requiring constant reequipping of your arsenal in fear that your gun will jam out of the blue in battle. Finally, the whole malaria thing was an interesting idea, but every 30 to 40 minutes you have to take medication to combat its effects, or you quickly die—simply wonderful when you’re in the middle of a heated battle.
In terms of the good aspects of Far Cry 2’s gameplay, the FPS foundation is solid. Gunfights are incredibly realistic and almost always intense. This game puts a huge focus on strategy, as the AI enemies are quite smart for the most part. We’ve seen many games where enemies will hide, use cover, surround your location, etc., but it seems that Far Cry 2 masters this to a certain degree. I’ve read some complaints about the AI spotting you too easily and seem to take a direct path towards your character. Indeed, enemies do often spot you from a distance, but consider the fact that a group of people are actively looking for you and usually have a sniper perched up on a cliff. In terms of taking a direct approach to attack you, this isn't exactly true. If you’re out in the open and there are more than two enemies, they will surround your location and indeed force their way toward you. However, if there are only a couple or less, they almost always run for cover. Being trapped in a building is always a fun experience, as the AI will often strategically flank your position. In terms of your own strategy options, you can truly approach each area with varied tactics. Stealth, run and gun, or just blow everything up and hope for the best can be applied to literally any situation. However, stealth is an aspect that truly reveals itself later on in the game, as you must purchase various items like a camo suit and silenced weapons to actually not be seen or heard. Far Cry 2 also makes use of a day/night cycle, which plays a huge role in your stealth. During the day your chances of being spotted are quite high, while at night you can easily sneak up on unsuspecting victims. The available arsenal is pretty standard for FPS games with pistols, light/heavy machine guns, explosives, and so on. The most exhilarating moments come from the use of fire weaponry like molotov cocktails and a lovely flamethrower, as fire behaves just as it should—it spreads. Picture this: you creep up to a heavily populated mercenary camp low on ammo and health, but you’ve got a drip of fuel in your flamethrower. Why not set the surrounding fields on fire and watch it consume the camp? This, my friend, is what your pyromaniac ass needs!
Far Cry 2 also includes a hefty multiplayer experience with a user-friendly map editor. Although I haven’t had a chance to truly dive into multiplayer as the single player mode was designed for at least a 50 hour experience, there is a lot of content here. You’ve got your typical gameplay modes like deathmatch, team DM, capture the flag (or diamond), and another capture style game where only one player is allowed to obtain certain points of the map and the other team members must keep that player alive. The map editor has an immense amount of content ranging from birds to explosive fuel tanks, and is surprisingly easy to use: think Little Big Planet, but 3D. As you’re creating your map you can easily jump right in and test it all out on the fly. I’ve seen some excellent remakes of our favorite Call of Duty 4 maps as well as quality original maps after a brief browsing user created content. It’ll be interesting to see how Far Cry’s multiplayer experience grows in coming months. In short, the single player Far Cry 2 experience is hefty in itself, and the multiplayer features only add to the overall value of this game.
While the original Far Cry with its CryEngine broke new grounds in gaming realism, it seems as if the sequel merely attempted to match the standards of such graphically intense games as Crysis. Don’t get confused here, this definitely isn’t up to par with the photorealism of Crysis by any stretch, but it’s still damn purdy to look at! I’ve heard surprising reports that the PC version looks quite bad, but both the Xbox and PS3 versions are stunning, despite a limited color pallet heavy on browns. As noted earlier, fire is simply amazing as it spreads across the African wilderness. However, you can often see a clear pattern for the flames with large burning areas. Besides the lush jungle areas, most of the landscape can be extremely bland as it consists of deserts and wide open fields. Still, the deserts look very realistic with sand dunes, dried up desert plants, and an HDR/bloom effect that truly gives you a sense of heat. The open fields are also surprisingly life-like, as grass is incredibly dense and moves with the wind. Where Far Cry 2 truly shines is in the jungles that are filled with an absolutely huge amount of variation in trees, bushes, and other plants. Adding to this great sense of realism is how plants react to gun fire or explosions. Merely shooting at a tree will result in branches falling off, while a grenade will grant you a lovely display of leaves raining down all over the place. Animals add a nice touch as you'll encounter zebras, gazelles, water buffalo, and other grazing species, but many of the African essentials are missing. Where's the lions? Giraffes? I WANT MY DAMN GIRAFFE!!! I've heard talk of DLC content of predators, but that's still very much up in the air. With that said, Far Cry 2 is still one of the best looking games to hit current generation consoles, even considering the deserts and open fields are a tad uninspired...and there are no giraffes to be found. *sadface*
Far Cry 2 obviously made some bad choices in the development process. Travel is harsh and time consuming with very little reward. The story is honestly a bit weak, but suffers from the problem many developers face with non-linear games: how to tell a story and make it flow somewhat chronologically when the player can do what they want and when they want? Answer: keep it simple, and this one is stupid simple. As noted before, the plot consists of this: two factions at war, you work for both, btw kill the Jackal, k? While many may not agree, I am impressed with the AI. They definitely give me a sense of smarts and make firefights a hefty challenge at times. Visually, Far Cry 2 is absolutely beautiful and indeed captures the sense of an African wilderness. This game is a solid FPS trapped in a massive sandbox world that can be a little bit too much at times. Bottom line though, Far Cry 2 is fun and that's the only thing that truly counts in gaming.
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