Far Cry 2's visuals are superb, but the game design and tedious traveling hinder the experience quite a bit.
At the beginning of the campaign, you'll be able to choose between several different characters, but it doesn't make a difference because this is a first-person shooter. You're sent to an unnamed African country to find a wanted mercenary known only as "The Jackal." In order to do this, you'll have to work for various factions to trace the supply line back to your target. Complicating things is the fact that your character has Malaria. Why would the developers make your character have a disease? To add on with the African setting? It certainly doesn't help during combat, and it becomes annoying to do extra missions for Malaria pills. The story is delivered in such a rushed manner that you never get attached to the characters at all.
Far Cry 2 is very much a sandbox game. The game gives you a daunting 50 square kilometers of landscape to explore. One problem I have with it is that the landscape isn't very varied. You'll mainly stumble through jungles and open plains, with the exception of a guard post or two, but it's all very spread out. The most important problem I have with the landscape is that it's far too big. There aren't that many efficient ways to get around the environment with. Sure, there's cars, but they're far apart, not very fast, and vulnerable to an attack from guards. When this happens, you'll be forced to get out of your car, kill off the enemies, and get back in the car, provided it didn't get blown up in the process. The mission design--like GTA 4--requires you to kill people or blow some stuff up. However, most of the missions require you to travel far distances, and there's nothing worse than to arrive at the location, only to be run over by a car or to be sniped from an outpost.
The combat itself isn't all that great. Most of the guns you buy tend to jam, creating a major problem when you're fending off several enemies at a given time. Far Cry 2 is a very realistic game, except for the insane amount of damage your enemies take during combat. It'll take around ten or fifteen AK-47 bullets to kill one enemy sometimes--how fun is that? You're health system isn't like Call of Duty. There are several sections of a bar of health on the left side of the screen. The bar will go down when you take damage. If the bar blinks read, you'll have to perform some self-surgery, whether it be yanking a bullet out of your leg or pushing a broken arm back into place. Another complicating factor is that there are no mission checkpoints. While that was a problem in GTA 4, it's several times worse in this game, considering how far you have to travel to get to the objective. Repeat this tedious and frustrating process for thirty hours or so and you've got Far Cry 2's story mode.
The multiplayer is pretty standard. There's variations of Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, but that's about it. The same gameplay problems are in the multiplayer, hindering the experience. Enemies take way too long to kill. To explain how long it takes to kill your opponent, it's like fighting against someone in Call of Duty 4 with 5 juggernaut perks and 3 last stand perks on. Imagine how long that takes! There's a map editor, which is very neat. You'll be able to create your own maps and include any objects you desire in it, much like in Halo 3, except you can create maps from scratch. That's the only unique thing about the game.
The audiovisual presentation is superb. The environments are highly detailed, and the game has a steady frame rate throughout. The visuals may not be the best I've seen on the 360 to date, but they're--at the very least--always interesting to look at. The audio is great also, with high quality gun effects and intense voice acting.
Far Cry 2 does have a unique atmosphere. Unfortunately, there aren't any fun things to do in it. The missions are repetitive and the map is simply too big. Far Cry 2 is an adequate shooter that may be worth looking into as a rental, but certainly not at the full price.