Far Cry 2 Review
Ubisoft Montreal delivers a shooter like no other.
After spending somewhere around 25 hours getting through Far Cry 2's single-player campaign, there was one question I couldn't quite answer: why is this game called Far Cry? The sequel, developed by Ubisoft Montreal, retains nearly nothing from Crytek's 2004 original or from the Xbox and Xbox 360's Instincts and Predator derivations. The story doesn't carry over, the characters aren't the same, there's no mention at all of Jack Carver, there are no mutagens, no feral powers, and no Trigens. Instead, it's a struggle between warring factions, called the APR and UFLL, in an unnamed African nation.
The game also doesn't give players a pre-determined protagonist. Instead, you select a character to play as, and the rest of the cast appear in the game world around you as friendly NPCs, called buddies, who you can choose to work with. Things begin with a simple tutorial section, introducing you to basic first-person shooter controls and the game's premise. Your main goal is to find The Jackal, a menacing character that supplies weapons to the APR and UFLL to keep lit the fires of conflict.
The point is, with this kind of setup, it's odd that the Far Cry name was even used at all, other than for its obvious name recognition value. Pushing that issue aside and accepting that this is basically a totally different game, you'll find there's quite a bit to like.
There are few direct analogues for Far Cry 2, as it truly is an open-world shooter. It's a stark contrast to Infinity Ward's unrelentingly linear Call of Duty games, and offers more freedom than what Crytek wound up delivering post-Far Cry with its pseudo-linear Crysis franchise. Perhaps GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is the best comparison, though even that game differs, because where it leaned more toward role-playing elements, Far Cry 2 is almost all about shooting. There are still ways to upgrade your character, but the focus here is most definitely on action.
For instance, there's no inventory in the game, just four weapon slots. There's one for your machete, one for a sidearm or accessory, one for a primary weapon (assault rifle, SMG, sniper rifle, shotgun), and one for a special weapon (rocket launcher, mortar, flamethrower). All these weapon types aren't available at the game's beginning; you must unlock them by performing side-quests for weapons vendors located around the world. Much of the game works like this, letting you unlock little bits and pieces here and there to make your journeys across the grassy plains, mountains, and jungles of the world more convenient, and make the process of killing a little easier.
Also, unlike S.T.A.L.K.E.R., there's no real quest log. Instead, you basically have one 'active quest' at a time, though the single quest can veer in several different directions. Main quests are most often delivered through the APR and UFLL headquarters, and most of the time, the mission you pick up is predetermined. In other words, you can't pick between APR and UFLL missions every time you go to get a new mission connected to the main quest. There are choices to be made, some fairly major ones too, but those are intermittent and mostly don't crop up until the end of the game. Because of this, it's difficult to care at all about the story, setting, or characters in the game for the first few hours. In all likelihood you'll be distracted by exploration and testing out the boundaries of the game world, but it's quite some time before the story starts to gain any real momentum.
Outside of main quests there are several types of distractions for you. You can do the weapon vendor quests, which always involve hunting down a convoy and disabling it. The rewards are good, as you get access to more weapons, but the quests themselves can get repetitive. There are also quests you can get from buddies you find around the game world and assignments from ominously garbled voices transmitted over electrical towers. Ultimately, they all boil down to pretty much the same thing: go to a location and kill a guy, blow something up, steal something, or force someone to do something they don't want to and then kill them. And if you're particularly obsessive compulsive, you can spend plenty of hours tracking down the multitude of hidden briefcases which contain varying quantities of diamonds. You'll also occasionally have to quest for medicine since, surprise, your character has malaria. While the premise of a sick protagonist seems like it could have had some interesting implications, the way it's implemented here makes it seem like more of a nuisance than anything else.
Some of the main quests can be fairly interesting, but usually only if you choose to work with an NPC buddy. Whichever buddy you've unlocked that likes you best will give you a call after main missions are acquired, offering an alternate method of completion. Sometimes it screws over the faction you're working for but ultimately involves the same infiltrate / kill mechanic used in most of the other quests. More rarely you'll get to do something totally different, like using a warhead to drop a bridge on a barge instead of having to infiltrate the barge and killing a target on it. Using buddies like this to complete missions in different ways is also to your benefit, as it gradually upgrades all the safe houses in the game world with ammo stashes, health supplies, and eventually vehicles.