A Breakdown of My Time in Far Cry 2

Trying to navigate the map: 50%

This included time spent looking for diamonds, trying to climb buildings to find diamonds, trying to jump on buses to find diamonds, trying to find the exact spot necessary to trigger mission completion/outpost scouting, trying to bypass mountains, and getting stuck on rocks while driving.

Getting killed by dudes in cars: 10%

Sometimes the dudes would run me over. Sometimes they would shoot me from the mounted turret. Most of the time they would stop their cars and jump out and shoot me. Sometimes I would be in a car, and they would ram their car into my car, then jump out and shoot me.

Sniping dudes: 10%

The sniper works equally well at close and long range.

Trying to find a car: 30%

If I knew how to get to my destination, I usually didn’t have a car to get there fast. A bunch of times, I lost my own car and had to run around looking for it.

Three things that rocked:

1. The Environmental Effects

Watching the sunset, setting fire to the grasslands and watching the rain go from a drizzle to a downpour was a beautiful experience.

2. Getting Dragged Out of Battle

The buddies aren’t well-characterized in general, but I thought the moments where they pulled your ass out of the fire were well done.

3. (Some Of) The Weapons

Especially the IED, the silenced pistol, and the sniper rifle. You have to manually cycle the bolt on the bolt-action sniper. I thought that was a neat touch.

Three things that sucked:

1. Not Enough Savepoints

On the PC version, you can save any time you want; on consoles, you can only save in certain locations, which are few and far between. This was a stupid design decision, especially because of:

2. The Respawning Enemies

Along with random encounters, almost every intersection in the game has an enemy outpost, and the enemies respawn constantly. What’s worse, the enemy AI is stupid. The game compensates for this by giving them all perfect aim. I found myself driving through the middle of the desert just to avoid fighting on the roads.

3. The Voice Acting

The Jackal’s voice actor was the only one actually trying. Everyone else in this game talks too fast, and the sound mixing is awful.

(skip to 0:50)

Three things I was indifferent about:

1. The Storyline

Far Cry 2 is about a civil war in an African country. There are no civilians in the game. In practice, this means the “war” is you vs. everyone in Africa. I thought this was a major design flaw.

2. The Combat Mechanics

The sniper rifle and grenades are all you need to kill everything in the game. Weapon jamming wasn’t immersive – it was mildly annoying at best. Stealth was essentially useless, as the enemy AI immediately discovered my location every time.

3. The Malaria and Wound Effects

I think this was intended to make the player feel immersed in the character. In practice, it just pissed me off because I couldn’t run fast, it took forever to heal and my vision would randomly blur. I actually thought the sprint effect was a visual glitch until halfway through Act 1.

-

Grade after Act 1: ~ (Dropped)

I quit after the third time I had to replay a long escort mission in the beginning of Act 2 because there were no save points afterwards.

This game was hyped up as a Heart of Darkness/Blood Diamond adventure in the middle of darkest Africa. It’s actually a game about a slow dude trying to traverse a huge, poorly-constructed map filled with braindead enemies. Grand Theft Auto with no cars, or Assassin’s Creed with no climbing.

And that’s bullshit.

About these ads