Far Cry 2 flew under the radar last year, but does it deserve a try?
Last fall was a huge season for gamers. A bunch of huge titles hit the stores, including (but not limited to) Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, etc. With the huge glut of titles, most gamers didn’t get to play all the big titles, and a lot of smaller titles went completely unnoticed. One such title that I always wanted to try out was Far Cry 2 developed by Ubisoft Montreal. It is now almost March and I finally got to start it even though it was released last October! Hit the jump for my initial impressions of the game.
I honestly know very little about the original Far Cry (I’ll do some research before I post a review in a week or two), so I won’t even pretend to possess any knowledge about that. Far Cry 2 has a new lead character and a new setting anyway so it really doesn’t matter. It is set in a fictional country in Africa that is rife with armed conflict between various warring factions. Your character, who you get to choose at the beginning of the game, has been sent by powers unknown to kill The Jackal, the arms dealer who has armed both sides of the conflict (thus perpetuating the war).
Far Cry 2 has been labelled by some as a sort of revolution for first person shooters – being an “open world” first person shooter. I’m not sure if it’s a revolution, but the open world description is pretty accurate. After an opening scene that feels a bit like Call of Duty 4 and a brief tutorial mission, the game basically says to you, “go and do whatever you want to do, find the Jackal, and kill him.” It really is quite liberating! Of course, it’s not like you can just find the Jackal’s hideout and kill him and end the game in 30 minutes (it’s not THAT open).
The way the game handles missions is through your map. When you check it, exclamation marks appear over places where you can get missions. Missions can be side missions, which net you diamonds (cash) or access to new weapons, or they can be main missions, which advance the story. Eventually, the story gets to a point where you need to move into the southern section of the country, which is basically a new location with all new side missions and story missions. You can do anything in whatever order you want. It’s kind of like Grand Theft Auto IV, but from a first person perspective, and with much better controls. Also, Africa and Liberty City feel incredibly different, for obvious reasons.
So far, I think I’m only about 20% through the campaign, but that’s not for lack of time. I’ve been spending a lot of time doing the side missions and I’ve finished every single side mission in the northern region. I haven’t decided whether I am going to get all the diamond cases or not (collect-a-thon), but since I’ve been so distracted by Street Fighter I’ll probably pass. That looks like enough background, so on to what I like/don’t like.
What I Like So Far
It Feels Very Realistic
I’m at a bit of loss as to how to actually describe this, but I think it’s what I like most about the game. It’s authentic. People have complained about how your guns jam and stuff, but I actually like that. The guns have a great feel to them, the recoil feels legitimate and you can feel the difference between powerful guns and weaker ones. It kind of reminds me of how I felt with the gunplay in Call of Duty 4.
In addition to that, all the cars handle pretty realistically, especially on different terrains. It seems like they got the physics right: if you fly off an embankment into a semi ditch, you don’t automatically clear it – gravity points you downwards and a lot of times you just snowplow into the ditch and get stuck. It can be annoying but it reminds me to drive carefully. Also, since it’s all in first person, when I’m reversing I need to “look over my shoulder” and stuff, so it just feels right. This may sounds very abstract, but I don’t know how else to explain it. There is just a lot of attention to detail that makes the gameplay fun. For example, when you pull out your map, it’s an actual map so that changes your sight lines (you can’t read your map and really see where you’re walking very well).
Far Cry 2 is a beautiful looking game
The Setting and Graphics are Impressive
I have to hand it to Ubisoft Montreal: the Africa they have designed looks amazing. Sometimes I am just driving around and I kind of just look left and right to observe the wildlife. It’s cool to be driving alongside a bunch of galloping zebras (though running into them causes considerable…damage). There are three distinct environments that I’ve seen so far, dry grassland, rainforest, and desert. Each looks pretty unique and all three are stunning in their own way. The water in the game (of which there is a considerable amount) has the right amount of murkiness and the town looks dingy and broken down (in a good way).
A lot of people have been praising the fire effects as well, for good reason. When you light up dry brush, the fire takes on a life of its own and spreads according to the wind patterns. Fire burns almost everything, and gives enemies an extra threat to deal with. Even car explosions sometimes cause small brush fires that you can get caught up in if you’re not careful. It is a little unrealistic that the fires put themselves out, but I guess the game isn’t about burning down all of Africa so it’s forgivable.
Freedom Fighting
I do enjoy the freedom of doing whatever I want at whatever pace I want in the general mission structure. This extends to how you want to handle missions tactically. You can go in guns blazing, you can snipe from distance, you can sneak kill, or you can blow everything up. You have a limited amount of ammunition, so it is important to make smart choices and be accurate. Even at the normal difficulty level I find myself hunting for ammo in the middle of a firefight, and at the harder difficulty levels ammo is even more scarce. You can always pick up an enemy’s gun, but those are liable to jam.
In one mission I had to kill someone in a moving vehicle, which turned into a thrilling car chase on the African Savannah. The game doesn’t feature any checkpoints and I hadn’t been to a safehouse for a while so it was pretty stressful. Luckily, I managed to ram the guy enough to slow his car down and then I quickly switched to my jeep’s mounted gun and got enough shots into the other jeep to cause it to crash. It was as thrilling as it sounds!
What I’m Not So Sure About
Repetitive Mission Structure
Every mission boils down to “kill a bunch of guys” or “kill one guy who is protected by a bunch of guys.” While it can be fun to experiment, it can sometimes get boring. The fact that I don’t get incredibly bored is really a testament to the gameplay, but I can see how things could wear on people.
The Little Things Slow You Down
Adding to the annoyance of repetitive mission structure are all the little things the game throws at you to slow you down. People in the African jungle don’t drive by, they DRIVEBY. Which means everyone you pass on the road tries to ram you off of it or shoot you, which can get annoying. Since there is no fast travel system, you are always due one or two encounters as you try to get to your destination. There are buses that let you warp from area to area, but there are 9 areas in the northern section and only 5 bus stops so they don’t cover everything. The game is good about providing vehicles and unlimited firepower on those vehicles which make encounters with random bad guys easy to overcome, but it’s like swatting mosquitos away constantly (African rainforest metaphor!).
You also are infected with malaria at the start of the game, which makes you prone to bouts of dizziness. I don’t mind these so much, it’s just tough to take cover to take my medicine in the middle of a firefight.
The Diamond Case Collectathon
I started the game thinking I would get all 221 diamond cases, but I give up. Since I run into enemies all over the place, it’s too annoying. Achievement Locked.
Parting Thoughts
Overall, I’m really enjoying this game. Now that I’ve finished all the side missions in the northern zone, I’m looking forward to advancing the story again. I’ll admit I’ve been distracted lately, but hopefully I can finish this game in a few weeks. I’ll have an indepth review up then. Until then, if you’re stuck in the winter doldrums of gaming and aren’t gonna pick up Street Fighter IV or Halo Wars, you might want to consider picking this game up, especially since it seems to be on sale for 30 dollars every week. Africa needs you!
Play Far Cry (the original). It’s not only the game that put this company on the map and raised the bar for all shooters made since, but introduced me to a genre I did not think I liked. It is still one of my favorite games to go back and play.
Good review.
Shane