Far Cry 2 Review

Combat is extremely realistic. Weapons deteriorate in time, so you must stop by your local arms dealer to resupply. Worn-out firearms affect combat and may cause jamming or misfiring. Your actions affect everything and everyone in the environment. When approaching enemy guard posts, fire, for instance, plays a major role. Set the grass ablaze and watch as the flames spread onto a nearby cottage, eventually reaching a bunch of fuel barrels and ammo crates. The ensuing fireworks catches the enemy completely off-guard and most of them will perish in the flames. All you have to do is sweep for any survivors. This is but a mere segment of the game. Positioning is also important, since the terrain is quite diverse.

Where's everyone? Is it Friday already?

Oh man, I sooo did that!!

Even though this game isn't quite up to the visual standards set by games like Crytek's Crysis, it still offers a convincing depiction of African environments. The Dunia Engine works very well, with destructible objects, dynamic fire propagation, realistic weather effects, dynamic shadows and a night-and-day cycle. The sounds effects are excellent, although the experience is downgraded somewhat due to slightly lackluster character voicing. For a game of this caliber, we sure expected more.

FC 2 features 16-person online multiplayer, complete with a number of different modes, which are essentially different versions of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, etc. The cool thing is players get to have fun with the well-designed and easy-to-use map editor. Admittedly, we didn't feel compelled to spend much time with the online multiplayer, albeit it seems fair to assume there's going to be more interesting player-designed content in the coming months, largely thanks to the great map editor.

The highly anticipated shooter sequel inherited a number of recognizable traits from its incredibly popular predecessor (which was developed by Crytek). It builds upon the free-roaming spirit of the original and attempts to offer a variety of cool new elements such as the use of fire, customizable weapons, GTA-like gameplay and so on. The creators of this game -- i.e. Ubisoft Montreal -- clearly made an effort to push the sense of combat realism to it limits. Playing Far Cry 2 may feel like a chore to some. From where I'm standing, it's a solid first-person shooter, though perhaps one that needs some extra polishing.

Despite some of its technical issues and repetitiveness, I feel compelled to play this game until I finish the entire single-player campaign. Each mission means you work your ass off and that makes a nice change over the traditional FPS formula.