Unlike its predecessor (with which it shares only the most tangential thematic bonds of environmental openness and.shooting), there are no supernatural or science fiction elements to Far Cry 2.Ĭertainly, the player can soak up more bullets than the enemies, and the AI is not going to win any strategic matchups, but when it comes to the setting and the feel, few exaggerated liberties are taken - a surprisingly (and, to me, unfortunately) uncommon approach in video games.Īfrica is not rendered in a particularly stylized way, and the events that take place are often only as over the top as the player makes them (and that potential is there, if you want it). Part of the game's success is its sense of restraint - another area that works against it in the short term, but for it if you decide to take advantage of what it has to offer. These events, just a few examples of the many Far Cry 2 moments I take pleasure in relating, are not even particularly remarkable in and of themselves. Or the time I had just blown up an entire base in a domino-like chain reaction, with a single well-placed rocket turning to leave, I found myself blinded by the reflection of the high noon sun on bright white sand dunes - and out of the shimmering brilliance trotted a pair of zebras. Or the time I was patiently scouting out an enemy encampment with my sniper rifle scope and startled by nearby sudden movement, reflexively snapping my crosshairs over to the source - and finding my sights trained on a young gazelle that had wandered out from some overgrowth. There was the time, very early in my playthrough, when I got out of my 80s-era hatchback to track down a diamond in the jungle using the game's No Country For Old Men-esque homing beacon, forgot where I parked the car, passed out from malaria trying to find it, and was safely awoken by the buddy character I had recently rescued. This is not something I usually find myself doing. Sometimes they involve the game's rather basic plot, and sometimes they don't. I find myself constantly telling people stories about my own Far Cry 2 experience. In addition to progressing the game's main quest line, you can help out your buddies with their own tangential objectives, sabotage arms dealers' competition to open up new weapon options, or perform hit jobs for that old game chestnut, the deep mysterious unnamed voice. The game's persistent component parts feel designed to convey a convincingly (but not flashily) coherent world, but even more importantly to increase the chances of memorable things happening. There's your recurring sickness the unreliability of found weaponry the combination of almost uniformly dry environments, video game-y inflammable objects, and fire that propagates convincingly. What at first seemed like unfortunate sparseness now feels to me like a canvas for emergent gameplay (those well-worn buzzwords). But practically speaking, to me, relatively few games truly exploit that potential.įar Cry 2 has been an exception. Indeed, that potential is powerful, and clearly more relevant to games than any other entertainment medium. Game designers often speak about the dominance of the personal player story over the designer's authored narrative. I have seen more and more posts by people announcing that Far Cry 2 finally "clicks" with them, that they have internalized the game's structure and systems, and have been rewarded with unique, memorable moments.įor me, those have been Far Cry 2's stock in trade. Many gamers have gone online to post initial frustrations with the game - an understandable reaction from the perspective of somebody unaccustomed to its structure and design ethic, particularly in the context of an FPS.īut in the week since its release, there has been an interesting phenomenon unfolding. On top of that, combat encounters (often approached with those rusted, jamming-prone guns) are fairly straightforward FPS affairs, and with the amount of mission-to-mission driving required in the game's enormous open world, their frequency can grate. Right from the start, your vulnerabilities are made clear: weapons you find on the ground rust and jam you periodically suffer the effects of malaria damaged vehicles require basic engine maintenance and serious injuries demand improvised surgery, often with pliers.
Like the war-torn (and presumably fictional) African state it depicts, Far Cry 2 is brutal, sparse, and often gives you little guidance. Ubisoft Montreal's just-debuted Far Cry 2 is not an inviting game.
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