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Far Cry 2
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Release Date: October 21, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Reviewer: Eric
 The original Far Cry took first-person shooter fans by storm. Far Cry had an
awesome story and the gameplay offered a lot of new aspects that numerous games
are still copying. When it was time for Ubisoft to make a sequel to the original
Far Cry, fans had a reason to pay attention this time around. Can all of the
games new gameplay aspects hurt the game or is Ubisoft reinventing the
first-person shooter genre?
Far Cry 2 revolves around a quest to find the Jackal, a war supporting weapons
dealer who is destroying Africa. Instead of going from Point A to Point B there
is a whole new way to play Far Cry 2. The game is now joining the ranks of the
sandbox genre, letting gamers pick where they want to go and when. Instead of
following the main story you can pick up an endless amount of extra missions
that advance the games story.
No matter what you do in Far Cry 2 the story is advancing, something that is
really uncommon in most first-person shooters. Picking up any mission in this
game will give you more background information on all the different
organizations in Africa. There are some points where these other organizations
are just as bad as the main enemy in the game, the Jackal.
The games story is beyond anything I would have ever expected. Far Cry 2 feels
and plays like a real good action movie that doesn’t have any corny moments in
it. This game puts you against everyone in sight and it is great! I didn’t put
much time into learning about Far Cry 2 while it was in development and I have
to say that I made a real bad decision.
During gameplay there are opportunities to earn new Safe Houses. This gives you
new areas to save your game and believe you will need these points because Far
Cry 2 is huge. Sometimes Far Cry 2 is too big. You will sometimes have to drive
for 10 minutes just to find your mission spot. Once there all you have to do is
gun down a few guys and then you have to go back. There are Bus Stations to help
you shed off some of those minutes, but it doesn’t take off as much time as
you’d hope.
Other than Safe Houses you get to destroy different Forts the enemies have. This
is a must in Far Cry 2 because these points are usually on the main roads and
the enemies will constantly shoot you when you drive by. And the enemies in Far
Cry 2 seem to have the best accuracy I have ever seen in a FPS. There are times
when I would be walking and I was loosing health. After a few more shots I found
my guy and he was literally a mile away, poking behind a rock.
 Far Cry 2 adds too much realism into the game that it started to bore me. If an
engine in your car is smoking you will have to get out and fix it. That means if
your car gets shot twice, if you hit a rock or tree, you will have to get out
and fix it. Of course all you have to do is hit the Y button, but it’s the fact
that you have to see the same wrench fixing scene over and over again.
The game seems to be bugged with a few aspects. When you are destroying an enemy
base you will never get the credit for it. You have to kill every enemy around
you, which is a given. But if you killed all the enemies nothing will happen.
I’ve had to come back to the area later on and kill the enemies again, and then
I got the credit. Sometimes you will get credit for things when the enemies are
still shooting you. It’s a little annoying especially if you tell yourself that
you want to destroy all the bases and such in one run.
One real neat aspect in Far Cry 2 has you upgrading your weapons with diamonds.
Scattered throughout Africa are these briefcases with diamonds. Once you have
enough diamonds, in your mind, go to one of the gun shops and sit down on a
computer and upgrade your little heart out. There are almost an endless amount
of upgrades, not only that you can get more upgrades by doing missions for the
gun dealers. It may sound easy, all of this, but finding these diamonds can be
quite the challenge.
With all of the gun shots your character takes the health system in Far Cry 2 is
on the annoying side. There are so many sections to your health meter. If you
start loosing too much health all you have to do is take a shot of your
medicine. Too much gun fire at once will cause you not to shoot up, which then
leads you to die. Thankfully if you die, and you will, one of your friends will
save the day, taking you to a safe place in the same area you died at. All FPS
games tend to have regenerating health now-a-days so going back to a health
meter like this is strange.
Far Cry 2 has one of the best create a map features I have ever seen. Just like
the gameplay the choices are endless. Anything from the game is at your
fingertips, that aspect alone got me spending hours upon hours on creating one
single map. I haven’t been this excited with a map creator since the original
Star Craft came out on the PC. What Ubisoft did was create two games in one; the
map creator could have easily been sold separately.
 Casual gamers won’t find too much fun with the map creator since it is so
complex. Most people will be overwhelmed with everything in the map creator. It
will take a few minutes to get use to everyone, this goes for all types of
gamers. Just take the time to make some real cool maps and share them with
everyone on Xbox Live.
How is online play? From what I played the game is great, taking the best
aspects from both Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. Matches are intense if you can get
a group of people to play. I however did not like the respawning. There were
times I had to wait up to 20 seconds to get back into the match and I didn’t
commit suicide. The respawning time really needs to be fixed I think, it changes
from short to long without any notice. All I wanted to do was play more online
matches to gain experience, but when the match was done I had to sign back into
a match. Far Cry 2’s online mode does not give you the option to stay in the
same game with all the same players. I hope I was just missing something because
that is a problem.
Final Verdict
Far Cry 2 is a massive game. I know I didn’t get to touch on everything this
game has to offer because Far Cry 2 is that big. The story, with all of its
characters, will take you between 40 to 70 hours to beat. When was the last time
a FPS took this long to beat? As of now Far Cry 2 might very well be the picture
perfect first-person shooter. All of the games pluses out weight the minuses.
Defiantly pick this game up, with the map editor it feels like you are getting
two games for the price of one.
Rating
9.50 out of 10
Far Cry 2 Trailer
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