FarCry was originally developed on the first CryEngine and back when it was released it had a bit of a reputation as a PC Slayer, only the best and the latest could properly run it. Much like Crysis and CryEngine 2 is known as a PC breaker today, FarCry 2 has taken a much more friendly approach and in theory, it's worked. Farcry 2 does not follow in the footsteps of its father as a game breaker, it runs very well on even the most basic of PC's. Hmm, No that a bit too far, Farcry 2 runs fine on an 8600GT and Pentium Dual Core 2160. Whereas the original FarCry didn't run on one of my old PC's and was pretty forgettable (read:boring) to play. FarCry 2 takes a different approach being fun to play but also run=able. Of course no game is without it's faults.
You play the role of one of about 8 different characters, which is actually meaningless since you never see your character or ever hear them talk but all the other characters that you could have chosen don't just disappear, they come back in the game in the form of your buddies and indeed the only buddies you will ever have in the game, for the most part no one is happy to see you. Anyway, You are tasked with the job of finding ?The Jackel?, an arms dealer who is supplying the two main factions UPLL and APR with weaponry which will eventually result in an all out war. So how do you find ?The Jackel?, well it's pretty easy really, he presents himself to you right at the start of the game. Unfortunately in the brief few minutes you have been in the country you have caught malaria and are unable to kill him. This eventually results in you doing errands for different people until you get a lead on ?The Jackel?.
There are 5 main types of missions. Faction missions which involve you assassinating officials from the other faction or blowing up strategic instruments that belong to the enemy. Phone tower missions which involve assassinating a target for an unknown client. Both of these missions reward you in diamonds, the games currency which allows you to unlock you weapons and upgrades for your vehicles and guns as well as upgrades like camo suits that improve stealth. The other missions are Weapon vendor missions which involve you ambushing a truck that will never reach it's destination, because it always drives in circles. These missions allow you to unlock new weapons which then allow you to buy them with your ?stones?, seems slightly unfair but you won't complain cause there is nothing else to buy in the game with your diamonds, except if you enjoy collecting diamonds and looking at them during the brief period in which you get to see them. There are so called ?underground? missions which involve you running around trading passports for malaria medicine. The last missions are the ?Standalone? buddy missions. Because you guys are friends you'll work for free, no questions asked for ?respect?. I'm not sure how this affects the game play but it seems a pretty poor reward for all your hard work, doesn't it?
Your buddies also offer an alternative way of completing the mission, of course the only reason you would take them up on their offer is because you unlock things for your safe houses and considering the game uses a save/load system from the menu the safehouses are largely useless. Doing the buddy way usually takes twice as long anyway and in some cases you have to go and do the exact same thing you where tasked to do by the faction leader anyway.
The game plays fairly well, The weapons feel really good, Light machine guns recoil as you would expect them to, automatic weapons fire at blistering speeds, the whole gun play mechanic feels just right, although the enemies seem pretty resistant to anything but a solid shot to the head, which can become pretty annoying after awhile. Gun's will also degrade over time and any weapons you pick up off the ground will jam a lot and eventually break. Enemies will become wounded and will often stagger around a little bit while still returning fire. It's nice but you sometimes wish that you could just let the wounded one's go, but you can't because their stubborn enough to keep shooting at you until their death, which brings me to another point. Your a foreigner, what the hell have you done to deserve this treatment. Enemies are often smart for the most part but you really notice when they do something stupid which can often ruin it. FarCry 2 is pretty accessible with 4 difficulty levels. FarCry 2 overall falls flat on it's face when it comes to travel. You will have to travel...a lot. There are ?bus stations? which allow you transport to the 5 far reaches of the map (4 corners basically and the centre). All this travelling would be so bad if you didn't have to stop every five minutes to either clear a checkpoint or take out a patrol squad. As soon as you find boats, that will be the way you want to travel, overall it's a little less taxing and it feels as if you don't have to stop as much. Travelling by car there is nothing bad about it, the physics are pretty tight but it is never enjoyable and the 80mph show on the speedo never feels like 80 when you look to the left or the right. Car's also achieved this incredible top speed in a few short seconds which makes driving a car a bit less interesting and just another thing in which you have to do to progress.
While not run on CryEngine 2 (thank god) the game is still absolutely stunning and really shows what can be done without bringing a computer to its knees. The stand out feature would be the fires, while being very bright and very pretty they also move and spread meaning you can sneak up and toss a well placed Molotov to fan the enemy out, the fire moves in the direction of the wind, which can be worked out from looking at the trees. You can also just run around and carry out your pyrotechnic dreams, it truly is fantastic. Water looks pretty nice, not to glossy but fairly dirty. Waterfalls are also a stunning little detail cascading gently down into a stream or lake. The environments on the whole are pretty impressive and also littered with wildlife so it never quite feels empty. Grenade effects are also a visual affair creating a sort of blast shockwave that disrupts the trees causing them to swing around. Sunsets are stunning as well.
There isn't much to say about sound, its solid throughout the game, weapons and cars sound fine and often there is some funny (interesting) dialogue between enemies when they are out looking for you. The voice actors are pretty convincing and never come off as fake.
Going back to some previous points I made I have some things to say, Whenever your given a faction mission you're constantly reminded that you aren't ever going to get any help from their faction, in fact you won't get any help from anyone except you buddies and even if you did, how
would you tell the difference, you have a few different enemies, Caucasian males in white/blue/pink shirts and African males in similar shirts. Both UFLL and APR are supposedly gearing up for a war but unless they know their squad mates REALLY well, there is going to be a lot of friendly fire. I'm not sure what all those people at the start of the game are leaving for, no war will ever break out because no one will know who is who and while this isn't essential to the plot it ruins the whole reason why you are running around after some ?Jackel?. Also, why can't I leave, no one wants me here and they all look at me in disgust, except for maybe a few NPC's which make me want to leave.
Overall FarCry 2 is a far-cry (yeah, I said it) from the original game and while I'm not going to forgive it for it's flaws, I still can recommend it easily. The graphics are simply stunning, for the most part the game play is fairly solid and there are often different tactics and weapon sets to get the job done. I'm conflicted about what score I should give it so I'll break it down.
Graphics: 10/10 Hard not to give this title a 10 out of 10 for graphics, it's just so detailed and so amazing without breaking your pc.
Gameplay: 7/10: Solid but falls on its face a few times. Please remove the patrols, they're annoying.
Sound: 8/10: Inoffensive, not breathtaking.
7/10. Sometime you have to go against the norm, I'm not letting it get away when it slips up. For $100 dollars, it could have been more polished.
After I wrote the review I have since completed the game and I'm not happy. I'll skip the spoilers but I wasn't nearly at all satisfied with the ending, I feel quite ripped off from all that traveling. Reviewers are holding this up as the best thing to hit FPS gaming, don't believe it. I'm making a stand, to be honest by 7 maybe be a little generous.
You play the role of one of about 8 different characters, which is actually meaningless since you never see your character or ever hear them talk but all the other characters that you could have chosen don't just disappear, they come back in the game in the form of your buddies and indeed the only buddies you will ever have in the game, for the most part no one is happy to see you. Anyway, You are tasked with the job of finding ?The Jackel?, an arms dealer who is supplying the two main factions UPLL and APR with weaponry which will eventually result in an all out war. So how do you find ?The Jackel?, well it's pretty easy really, he presents himself to you right at the start of the game. Unfortunately in the brief few minutes you have been in the country you have caught malaria and are unable to kill him. This eventually results in you doing errands for different people until you get a lead on ?The Jackel?.
There are 5 main types of missions. Faction missions which involve you assassinating officials from the other faction or blowing up strategic instruments that belong to the enemy. Phone tower missions which involve assassinating a target for an unknown client. Both of these missions reward you in diamonds, the games currency which allows you to unlock you weapons and upgrades for your vehicles and guns as well as upgrades like camo suits that improve stealth. The other missions are Weapon vendor missions which involve you ambushing a truck that will never reach it's destination, because it always drives in circles. These missions allow you to unlock new weapons which then allow you to buy them with your ?stones?, seems slightly unfair but you won't complain cause there is nothing else to buy in the game with your diamonds, except if you enjoy collecting diamonds and looking at them during the brief period in which you get to see them. There are so called ?underground? missions which involve you running around trading passports for malaria medicine. The last missions are the ?Standalone? buddy missions. Because you guys are friends you'll work for free, no questions asked for ?respect?. I'm not sure how this affects the game play but it seems a pretty poor reward for all your hard work, doesn't it?
Your buddies also offer an alternative way of completing the mission, of course the only reason you would take them up on their offer is because you unlock things for your safe houses and considering the game uses a save/load system from the menu the safehouses are largely useless. Doing the buddy way usually takes twice as long anyway and in some cases you have to go and do the exact same thing you where tasked to do by the faction leader anyway.
The game plays fairly well, The weapons feel really good, Light machine guns recoil as you would expect them to, automatic weapons fire at blistering speeds, the whole gun play mechanic feels just right, although the enemies seem pretty resistant to anything but a solid shot to the head, which can become pretty annoying after awhile. Gun's will also degrade over time and any weapons you pick up off the ground will jam a lot and eventually break. Enemies will become wounded and will often stagger around a little bit while still returning fire. It's nice but you sometimes wish that you could just let the wounded one's go, but you can't because their stubborn enough to keep shooting at you until their death, which brings me to another point. Your a foreigner, what the hell have you done to deserve this treatment. Enemies are often smart for the most part but you really notice when they do something stupid which can often ruin it. FarCry 2 is pretty accessible with 4 difficulty levels. FarCry 2 overall falls flat on it's face when it comes to travel. You will have to travel...a lot. There are ?bus stations? which allow you transport to the 5 far reaches of the map (4 corners basically and the centre). All this travelling would be so bad if you didn't have to stop every five minutes to either clear a checkpoint or take out a patrol squad. As soon as you find boats, that will be the way you want to travel, overall it's a little less taxing and it feels as if you don't have to stop as much. Travelling by car there is nothing bad about it, the physics are pretty tight but it is never enjoyable and the 80mph show on the speedo never feels like 80 when you look to the left or the right. Car's also achieved this incredible top speed in a few short seconds which makes driving a car a bit less interesting and just another thing in which you have to do to progress.
While not run on CryEngine 2 (thank god) the game is still absolutely stunning and really shows what can be done without bringing a computer to its knees. The stand out feature would be the fires, while being very bright and very pretty they also move and spread meaning you can sneak up and toss a well placed Molotov to fan the enemy out, the fire moves in the direction of the wind, which can be worked out from looking at the trees. You can also just run around and carry out your pyrotechnic dreams, it truly is fantastic. Water looks pretty nice, not to glossy but fairly dirty. Waterfalls are also a stunning little detail cascading gently down into a stream or lake. The environments on the whole are pretty impressive and also littered with wildlife so it never quite feels empty. Grenade effects are also a visual affair creating a sort of blast shockwave that disrupts the trees causing them to swing around. Sunsets are stunning as well.
There isn't much to say about sound, its solid throughout the game, weapons and cars sound fine and often there is some funny (interesting) dialogue between enemies when they are out looking for you. The voice actors are pretty convincing and never come off as fake.
Going back to some previous points I made I have some things to say, Whenever your given a faction mission you're constantly reminded that you aren't ever going to get any help from their faction, in fact you won't get any help from anyone except you buddies and even if you did, how
would you tell the difference, you have a few different enemies, Caucasian males in white/blue/pink shirts and African males in similar shirts. Both UFLL and APR are supposedly gearing up for a war but unless they know their squad mates REALLY well, there is going to be a lot of friendly fire. I'm not sure what all those people at the start of the game are leaving for, no war will ever break out because no one will know who is who and while this isn't essential to the plot it ruins the whole reason why you are running around after some ?Jackel?. Also, why can't I leave, no one wants me here and they all look at me in disgust, except for maybe a few NPC's which make me want to leave.
Overall FarCry 2 is a far-cry (yeah, I said it) from the original game and while I'm not going to forgive it for it's flaws, I still can recommend it easily. The graphics are simply stunning, for the most part the game play is fairly solid and there are often different tactics and weapon sets to get the job done. I'm conflicted about what score I should give it so I'll break it down.
Graphics: 10/10 Hard not to give this title a 10 out of 10 for graphics, it's just so detailed and so amazing without breaking your pc.
Gameplay: 7/10: Solid but falls on its face a few times. Please remove the patrols, they're annoying.
Sound: 8/10: Inoffensive, not breathtaking.
7/10. Sometime you have to go against the norm, I'm not letting it get away when it slips up. For $100 dollars, it could have been more polished.
After I wrote the review I have since completed the game and I'm not happy. I'll skip the spoilers but I wasn't nearly at all satisfied with the ending, I feel quite ripped off from all that traveling. Reviewers are holding this up as the best thing to hit FPS gaming, don't believe it. I'm making a stand, to be honest by 7 maybe be a little generous.
