Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Great multiplayer"

Far Cry 2 is a deviation from the typical FPS genre and for the most part, it's quite a unique experience on the Xbox 360 and is worth consideration by anyone who loves FPS and exploration games.

The Good: Extremely large landscapes and a long single player campaign, outstanding visuals, a variety of ways to complete missions, addictive and active online modes, excellent and easy to use map editor.

The Bad: Long tedious tracking from point A to B, weak storyline, sometimes stupid AI, unpredictable glitches that severely affect single player gameplay.

When people hear FPS, they think Halo or Call of Duty and expect game to be somewhat similar to their gameplay. The developers of Far Cry 2 decided to approach the genre with an open world giving players the freedom to do whatever they want and complete missions in a variety of ways. Far Cry 2 is an evolution for the series and does do a lot of things good while some are disappointing.

The visuals in Far Cry 2 are outstanding and the game looks extremely good with great details being placed on the various environments making players feel as if they are actually in the game. The visuals are also assisted by a time of day factor. The game looks different depending on whatever time you play the game (based on the game's own clock). The visual beauty and details really show when the sun is high and the game is very bright, illuminating everything in spectacular beauty.

The game's audio and sound effects are good. The voice acting is okay but very often during real time cut scenes you can hardly hear what characters are saying, even if you're at the closest point to them in the game. It gets kind of annoying. Luckily there are subtitles to help you out. The storyline revolves around politics and sometimes it's absent. The story was poor. Even though there are some plot twists towards the end, it's nothing really surprising.

Far Cry 2 contains a very lengthy single player campaign. Depending on how you play the game, you can spend well over 40 hours on it especially if you're after all the diamonds and complete all side missions. Far Cry 2's single player is a huge game. It is made up of 2 large maps, each map has 9 smaller maps (and one small map joins the 2 areas). Don't be deceived by my choice of words, the 'small maps' are actually very large and within each 'small map' are even smaller more detailed maps for some areas. These smaller detailed maps are usually in areas where missions need to be done. In a world this large getting from point A to B can be a very tedious chore especially when there are enemy camps to pass through, uneven topography to cross or no vehicles to drive. There are some bus stations scattered throughout the game, but they are not enough and are far apart. Sometimes when you complete a mission you're left in the open and to get to the next area gets frustrating, other times you complete one part of a mission in one area and the other part is three quarter the entire main map away. It sometimes seems like this game is a chore. Saving progress is always an issue for gamers. This game doesn't contain any auto save or 'save anywhere' feature. Instead you save in Safe houses, special areas and after completing a mission. Luckily safe houses are very numerous in the game (however you need to unlock them first by killing the enemies guarding them)

The controls in Far Cry 2 are just like your standard FPS however there are some marked differences. There is a sprint feature so most of the times you will be walking and you can only sprint for short distances until your character gets tired and starts to see blurred. There is no close melee combat which is a shame because sometimes you'll be up close to enemies and all can do is shoot them. There are a wide variety of weapons in the game separated into 3 classes and you can only carry one of each class and a melee weapon. You will first need to purchase the weapons using diamonds you find through explorations or completing missions. These weapons can be upgraded. Once you purchase the weapons, you'll have an unlimited supply at the armory however weapons are unreliable, they jam and eventually break, so you must change or swap weapons at your armory ever so often.

You're not alone in the game, as you progress, you'll get buddies. These buddies give you optional missions, help you out on storyline missions and can even rescue you if you die in the game. You can choose to complete missions anyway you like and use any type of strategy. Running in guns blazing isn't always the best thing because you can be easily outnumbered and killed. You'll eventually learn various ways to complete missions depending on your style of gaming

Far Cry 2 was set in Africa however there is little to no wildlife in the game. Zebras, Buffalos and domesticated goats and chickens are not the only wildlife in Africa. There was also no marine wildlife in the swamps, rivers or watering holes, none whatsoever.

There were some glitches I encountered in the game; hopefully patches will be released to fix them. I've read and heard of worse glitches, but I encountered only one major one. In the Northern area, coming towards the end, when I was close to leaving the area, Mike's Bar was glitched and I could not enter it to get my buddy missions. Eventually I decided to continue with the storyline and left out the buddy missions and as a result I missed out on an achievement. The bar was even glitched in the Southern area, but as I progressed with the storyline, it became accessible again. There were some glitches I encountered online multiple times, however re-spawning usually fixed them. First there was one where I re-spawned without any ammo in any of weapons and I could not even pick up any ammo. There was one where I had no weapons. There was one where the weapon I selected (AK-47) was constantly being swapped out for another (Grenade Launcher). I know people have encountered more, but these are just what I experienced.

Far Cry 2's editor is detailed, very easy to use, provided almost infinite possibilities to create and almost infinite multiplayer replayability. Far Cry 2's multiplayer was awesome! The online multiplayer however is totally separate from the single player game. Nothing from the single player campaign is carried over to multiplayer. As you progress in the online multiplayer, you get experience based on various things and level up. As you level up, you gain diamonds. These diamonds are used to unlock various weapons depending on your preferred style of gameplay.

Far Cry's online multiplayer has 4 modes, around 15 default maps and infinite user created maps. The four modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond and Uprising. Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond and Uprising are all team based. The only solo mode is Deathmatch. Deathmatch is your standard, kill or be killed. Team Deathmatch is one team must kill as much as the opposing team as possible. Capture the diamond is a team must gain control of the opposing team's diamond and drop it at their own base as much as possible. Uprising is you must protect your team captain at any cost as he activates points on the map.

Lastly I'd just like to mention the achievements for those interested in it. Far Cry 2 a mixture of single player and online multiplayer achievements. They are not difficult to get, they are just time consuming. A good bit of the single player achievements can be missed if you rush through the game, however if you complete all missions and side missions in the North before moving onto South and you complete missions with your buddy, you should be just fine. The online achievements are also very time consuming, but none can missed, as long as you dedicate the time, you should be able to get them.

Far Cry 2 is not your typical FPS, however with a solid single player experience and an active, and fun online multiplayer this game is an experience you will not forget.