Good graphics alone just can't compensate the many flaws this game has...
Story:
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You play as one of 8 (if I recall correctly) eligable characters who are sent to an African nation that's torn by war between two factions. Your mission is to find and kill a weapons dealer who goes by the name of "the Jackal" that has been supplying weapons to the waring factions.
While the story may start off promising it quickly takes a backseat and after a couple of missions you'll forget that there's a story at all. There's no character developement. All characters have absolutely no personality and there are no plot twists. There are also audio logs scattered throughout the game which you can collect and turn in for money. These audio logs are so boring to listen to and add so little to the story that it makes you feel that you're collecting blank pieces of paper.
Gameplay:
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As I stated before you can play as one of 8 characters. The problem is that it doesn't really matter who you play as. Your character doesn't talk and there are no character-specific abilities. All the missions in the game are fetch quests that consist of "go get this" or "go kill that person" or "go blow something up". The game wants you to think that you're doing different things while in fact you're doing the same thing over and over again. There's absolutely no variation at all, play the first three missions and you've seen everything. The lack of variation will bore you quickly and this is a long game so it will quickly becoma a chore to play. To add insult to injury you'll be spending most of the time driving or walking around to get to your destination, these sequences can take up to 10 minutes and are made worse by several scouting post scattered throughout the map. Once you pass a scouting post you'll be attacked by enemies. You can try to avoid them but normally they'll just damage your car so much that you just have to step out and fight them. What makes this worse is that the enemies at these scout posts respawn. So let's say you pass scout post 1 during mission 1 and killed all the enemies and you'll have to pass the same scout post in mission 2 all the enemies will be back. This really takes away from the tempo of the game and adds frustration to an already bad experience.
The stealth mechanic in this game is absolutely broken. The game tries to add a stealthy approach by giving you upgrades to enchance your stealth capabilities etc. But if one enemy catches a glance of you all enemies immediately know where you are and will rush towards you while shoiooting at you, this takes us to the next problem this game has: the AI.
The AI is horrrible. The only things the enemies can do is walk at you while shooting at you, they don't take cover they don't flank etc.It gives the demons from DOOM a run for their money...
Returning to the long driving sequences, YES there is a quick travel system (busses) but there are like 4 bus stops in each of the two acts. And even if you use this feature you'll normally still ahev to walk or drive a long distance to reach your goal.
There are quite a few weapons in the game you can unlock by doing (repetitive) quests for weapons dealers. But the weapon system in this game is also horrible. You can hold 3 weapons. Heavy weapons, light weapons and special weapons. Light weapons are pistols, machine pistols etc. Special weapons are flamethrowers, heavy machine guns and rocket launchers and heavy weapons are assault rifles, sniper rifles and shotguns.
The problem with this system is that you dont have much freedom as in which weapons you can carry. If you want a sniper rifle or a shotgun you HAVE to drop your assault rifle and vice versa, if you want a rocket launcher then you HAVE to drop your machine gun.
I might add that the actual gunplay is okay and every weapons has recoil so you'll have to constantly take that into matter when spraying bullets. You can also upgrade your guns to have larger clips and be more reliable (less prone to jamming) with diamonds which you get from completing missions. These upgrades are limitend and are the same for all weapons though. They also don't change the overall appearance of the gun unlike in Bioshock, Wolfenstein etc.
Graphics:
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The absolutely beautiful environments are the only thing that made me return to this game. The lighting effects are beautiful and the fire effects are realistic; fires spread in grasslands, ammo depots explode when they catch fire etc. This feature was on of Far Cry 2's main selling points. I also haven't experienced any framerate drops or other graphical glitches in the game during my playthrough, having played this game both on PC and Ps3.
Sound:
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The voice acting in this game is downright bad. All characters talk extremely fast and sound emotionless, detracting from the overall experience. The music on the other hand is okay and changes depending on the situation you're in. Once you get in a firefight for example you'll start hearing drums which really fit the african setting of the game
The pros:
-Beautiful graphics
-Realistic fire effects
-Lots of guns
The cons:
-Repetitive, boring missions
-Bad AI
-Long driving and/or walking sequences (which add to realism but detract from the overall game experiene)
-Uninspired voice acting
-Annoying scout posts
The cons way outweight the pros in this game. The good graphics just carry the boring gameplay for so long. This game is a true chore to play and no game should be like this.
Final verdict: 4.5/10