Despite the slick looks and fantastic level editor Far Cry 2 fails to deliver.
The game opens up with a jeep ride into the town of Pala, where your character is meant to assassinate an arms dealer known simply as "The Jackal". This is basically the plot. Inexplicably the Jackal finds you in Pala while your half dead from Malaria, a disease which plagues you the entire game, and explains that without even given the chance to kill him; you failed.
After a mild shootout the game continues with seemingly random, disjointed missions that have little to no relevance to the mission you did before. Instead of easing you into the different kinds of missions the game throws you in at the deep end. A great deal of freedom of choice yes, BUT it doesn't really feel like your progressing at all.
A main story mission will play out along the lines of; You get your mission from one of the two factions in Pala to drive to some stupidly far away location to the objective handed to you. You'll then get a phone call from a "buddy" asking to see him first before you continue. Sometimes your lucky and he/she is near to the location you needed to go anyway but usually they are a good distant apart; sometimes at opposite sides of the map. Your buddy will then give you a different objective vaguely related to the one the faction asked you to do. You'll drive to the mission and be shot to pieces by liberally placed checkpoints, guard posts and (if your really lucky) patrolling jeeps. By the end of it all you'll expend all your ammo, grenades and health syringes before you even reach the mission objective. No missions appear to be local to where you get them so driving for 10-20 minutes to the objective becomes a chore after the 2nd or 3rd mission and this pattern doesn't change much through the course of the game.
The AI itself sounds quite competent, you'll hear guards communicate between each other about whether you're in cover or not, whether they can draw a bead on you and so on. However when it comes to facing the AI you'll find noticeable flaws. Enemies will be so dead set on shooting at you they'll ignore being burnt alive or even a live grenade at their feet. Some enemies will ignore you while you shoot their comrade in the head. The AI also becomes frustrating when snipers can see you clearly even in thick shrubbery or behind a tree and equally have no trouble whittling down your health while you ask yourself "Where the @%!$ is that gunfire coming from?" or "How the hell can he see me?".
The weapons in this game are quite shoddy for an FPS, some weapons shoot so far away from the cross hair it isn't worth using them or don't seem to be lined up properly. On several occasions I had lined up a head shot (with the iron sights) with a pistol from about 15 yards without the guard seeing me; to my dismay the shot would fly over his head every time.
However my biggest gripe with the game is the fact your character has Malaria. You have only a few pills to quell the effects of the disease which will periodically hit you every 40 minutes of play; give or take. Not only does obtaining more pills involve a lengthy drive from one locale to another to simply give in some books (a chore in itself) but it completely ruins the premise of exploring an open world environment. Imagine GTA IV where Niko would have to stop every 40 minutes from driving to fill up the tank at a gas station? It would completely ruin the flow of the game and the same thing happens here. It's a mystery to me why it is in the game at all.
In closing all I can say is that Far Cry 2, despite an amazing level editor, has several huge flaws that ruin the experience. The whole package feels rushed, or half arsed. In the same sense Assassin's Creed's missions were nearly identical in delivery the same thing happens here. Coincidence or not both Assassin's Creed and Far Cry 2 are made by Ubisoft Montreal and both have repetitive missions structures.