Far Cry 2

If your ultimate dream is to run riot throughout Africa, wreaking havok this way and that, then Far Cry 2 is the game for you.

The game starts with you being driven through the country to the nearest hotel, when you are suddenly attacked by a man known only as the Jackal. After he captures you, you come down with a serious case of malaria and he leaves you alone to die.

Fortunately, you survive and are forced to venture out into the open. After you complete a few basic missions, you are free to go about the game as you wish, but your main goal still is to kill the Jackal.

Missions can grant you many types of rewards such as new safehouses, new weapons, new buddies and of course, diamonds, the currency used to buy anything in the game.

If you are killed during a mission, you nay be revived by one of your buddies, who will fight by your side to help you get out of some sticky situatons. You will want to protect them though, because once they are dead, they are gone forever.

One of the singleplayer mode's major downfalls is the amount of time you will spend travelling between missions and areas. It's bad enough if you have a vehicle, but if you are on foot, you better be VERY patient.

The multiplayer in the game varies from good to poor. Some of the maps in the game are too suited to camping, so the match just becomes a game of cat and mouse. Although some maps are a blast to play. Most people will enjoy Player Matches much more because you can play custom maps.

Overall, Far Cry 2 is a very enjoyable game and is a great game for all shooting fans.

Far Cry 2 is simply amazing, there is no other way to describe it, and I'll tell you why.

What truly makes this game great is the Dunia engine, which was built specifically for Far Cry 2. The engine allows the game to go through day-night cycles (which is pretty rare in games these days), non-scripted AI, the way the light shines through the trees from sunsets, how the environments react with everything, the animals wandering around their habitat and other amazing features.

In Single Player you are sent to war-torn Africa to hunt down and kill "The Jackal", a mysterious arms dealer selling weapons and equipment to both sides of an ongoing civil war.
The two main factions in this war is the United Front for Liberation and Labour (UFLL) and the Alliance for Popular Resistance (APR) which have plenty of mercenaries and local people at their disposal. Neither side are good guys nor bad guys, so don't think you'll be safe near any faction.

Before you do start playing the game you are given the choice of what mercenary you'll be and there is quite a list to choose from, and each have their own individual history and background.

When you start playing the game you first have to do a few missions for the UFLL as a tutorial which include you rescuing an important ally and taking out an enemy outpost.
It also shows you how to repair a vehicle and use your map, which you don't have to pause the game to use.

After you have done these simple tutorials, you get to finally start to do all the main and side missions; which is what makes Far Cry 2 even the better.
These missions include the Main Objectives, Buddy Objectives and the Underground Objectives. The Main Objectives are the ones that are offered by the leaders of the UFLL and the APR, the Buddy Objectives are the ones that are offered by your buddies (which you can find them throughout the game) and the Underground Objectives are ones that are offered by civilians. Doing the Underground Objectives are vital because they allow you to get malaria pills for a reward, as your character suffers from malaria ever since the start of the game.

Throughout the game you get to choose which missions you want to do anytime during the day and you can get them anywhere.
Once you have done a mission you'll be rewarded diamonds which can also be found throughout the entire game for use with buying new guns to buying accuracy manuals for your guns.

Aside from all the missions, lets get into the gameplay.
You get to carry three weapons at any given time and are also allowed to use your trusty machete. The categories for your guns are the Primary, Secondary and Special categories; The Primary category includes guns such as rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, and two handed assault weapons. The secondary category includes side-arms, machine-pistols and various bombs and the Special category houses heavy weapons, RPGs and flamethrowers.

When you're using your handy guns be careful of the fact that they will wear out and bust over time (happened to me a lot). But don't worry though, it's pretty easily to figure out you've got scratches and worn out marks all over your gun before it does bust so there's plenty of time for you to get a new one from either a dead corpse or the Weapons Shops found throughout the entire map.

The vehicles in the game are also really fun to use, they range from Jeeps, Jeeps with turret emplacements, trucks, hang gliders, boats, your everyday car and more. All these vehicles are really fun to use because all of them have GPS units inside them for easy navigation which is important to travel around the huge 50km2 map.

Into the multiplayer now and it is pretty standard; there's a ranking system, you can purchase new guns, there are different types of classes and you'll be able to use the Map Editor; which allows you to create your very own maps.
You can put basically anything onto your map to everything from tinny little objects to massive mountains with a nice waterfall coming down it. It can take you a good few hours just making your map into a large lushful paradise which can also hold famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids of Giza. Another good thing about the Map Editor is that you can share them with your friends and you'll be able to post your maps to Ubisoft for popularity contests between user-created maps.

The only bad thing about Far Cry I found was that the loading times can get a little bit long.
In multiplayer, the respawning times can take almost twenty seconds which gets really annoying and you feel like your brought back away from the combat.
The single player loading times aren't bad but they can get up to thirty seconds at the most.

Far Cry 2 is the best game to come out in a long while and it will leave replayability for a very long time with the many hours of campaign time and exploration to do.

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