AgtFox
11-05-2008, 06:03 AM
Far Cry 2 Review
Title: Far Cry 2http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=2134
Platform: 360/PS3/PC
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal (http://www.ubisoft.com)
Publisher: Ubisoft (http://www.ubisoft.com)
ESRB: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 (360 (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Xbox-360/dp/B001ASJIRM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1225733648&sr=8-1)/PS3 (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Playstation-3/dp/B001ASJIRC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1225733648&sr=8-4)), $49.99 (PC (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Pc/dp/B000X9FV5M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1225733648&sr=8-2))
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek
What's Hot: Size of play area is huge; variety of guns including ones that jam or break; brilliant time delay mechanic; fire propagation; a feel of being able to do whatever you want whenever you want
What's Not: Distance between missions is often far; Malaria affects gets old after a while; story doesn’t have much depth; voiceovers aren’t the best; respawning guard posts are an annoyance; enemies are much the same throughout game with better weapons
Far Cry 2 is a game that will ultimately be measured on whether you find the sparse African locale and variety of missions that often find you trekking across the whole map boring or not after about a few hours of gameplay. If you can get past that bar you most likely will be with this game for the long haul. The first thing you will notice about Far Cry 2 is that it really has nothing to do with the blockbuster precursor it shares a title with. Jack Carver is no longer part of the story and the whole mutants and side stories from games like Far Cry Instincts is left behind. Right from the beginning you choose to be one of nine characters and I personally didn’t notice any difference between them for the three different people I at least started off playing as. The ones you don’t pick as your character will later be used as your stable of buddies throughout the game.
The only real connection you can make with the first game is that Far Cry 2 is somewhat like the last game in that you are dropped into a large area and left to your own devices. In the first game you were dropped onto a tropical island, this time around you find yourself in a 50 kilometer square area in Africa. Your lone mission is to take out the Jackal, a man who is supplying both sides of an ongoing war with weapons. He has profited from a ton of misery and you’re the man sent to kill him. Right off the bat you find yourself afflicted with Malaria, a disease one of your buddies says is something that everyone gets eventually. Unfortunately it puts you in bed and you wake up with the Jackal reading through your dossier on him and you being unable to do anything with him right in front of you because you are bedridden. The Jackal says you will fail where others have and leaves you in a firefight once you are able to rise from the bed. The battle here is a losing one, but someone comes along to pick you up and help heal you at least temporarily.
From here you learn the intricacies of the game like the readily available map via the back button and the ability to change the range of the map with the X button. You also learn how to heal yourself when your health bar gets low. When you are down to one section or less you will treat yourself by pulling out bullets in your body or snapping a broken bone back into place. Everything is seen through a first-person view, so the immersion is very deep. Outside of that, as long as you have syringes available you can heal yourself to full health via the right button. The med boxes are readily available all around the map, so keeping yourself stocked up shouldn’t be a problem. Your first order of business is to fix up the dilapidated car outside and go take out people surrounding a safehouse you can then use to save the game and get some rest. Thus begins your pursuit of the Jackal that will see you connecting up with both sides of the conflict as well as the underground group that you have to rely on for Malaria medicine in order to control the disease.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/farcry2/shot1.jpg
Along with the wide open choices you have when deciding between missions, this game also introduces a buddy system. The other characters you didn’t choose to be at the beginning are available as buddies and there are additional characters you can pick up as well. Buddies serve several purposes. First one is that they will come to your rescue if you are downed in a firefight, heal you up and fight alongside you. You have to be careful though because if your buddy dies in a firefight they are actually dead and all the side missions they held are no longer available t you. It is very hard for a buddy to die, but it is possible. Buddies will also put extra rewards on your missions, ones that usually are a detriment to the faction you got the job from, and ask to come along with you. They will also upgrade your safehouses to be better stocked and be more of a rest area than they are when you first liberate them.
The basic idea is that you accept jobs from the two factions in order to trace the supply chain from both of them to the Jackal and ultimately kill him. You can only hold four weapons: a machete, a sidearm (handgun), a specialty gun (like a machinegun) and a special weapon (like a missile launcher). You can pick up weapons as you kill enemies, but those have a habit of jamming or altogether breaking, so you have to go searching for diamonds throughout the map in order to buy weapons at the gun shop that will be in pristine condition when you buy them or when you rearm yourself at an armory. These weapons take longer to degrade than the ones you find in the field. The diamond searching is effortlessly put into the game with a green light that blinks on your GPS. When it gets solid you are pointed toward the diamond stash that you then pick up. Everything, including mission completion, is paid via diamonds which seems to be the currency in the area.
There are many other important things in this game that will help you. First up is the use of fire. With the wind and the abundance of plants you can throw a Molitov cocktail and start a fire that if you strategize correctly will block you off from your enemies. Just be sure not to get yourself stuck in a fire you can’t get out of. The permeating fire is a wonder to behold and you will find many instances where it is a useful tool to you finishing a mission. The day/night cycle is another handy gameplay mechanic. At any safehouse you control you can take a nap on the bed and set your clock to an hour of your choosing. You then see a time lapse where the sun comes up and goes down as you’re sleeping. You will find missions that are better done at night or find that you have to sleep a bit before a contact calls you on your cell phone.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/farcry2/shot2.jpg
The graphics and sound effects need to be talked about as well. I played both the 360 and PC version of the game and I found the PC version to be the better looker as long as you have a system capable of running it well. This isn’t to say the 360 version is bad looking, but there are obvious differences in the quality. The graphics are quite good for a sandbox game, but they won't stand up to a game like Crysis if you're going to make a comparison. The other big note is that in the PC version you can save anywhere, but in the 360 version you save at specified locations either after missions or at lit-up blue boxes scattered around the map. Neither idea is bad, but I know many people love save anywhere abilities and for that the PC version is the one to pick up if you have the system for it.
The single-player campaign is pretty long and can easily take you over 20 hours given the amount of space you have to cover and the huge amount of missions available in the game. It’s honestly amazing how much the developer has given you to do in this game and really goes to show that Ubisoft didn’t drop a note even after Crytek left. The multiplayer component of the game is also quite interesting, although probably will not excite you as much as the single-player part of it. The general play options are here and it is about as fun as I remember the first game being in multiplayer modes. There is also a building level mechanic built into each version of the game. I’ve barely touched it, but the nice thing is that the levels are easily downloadable and uploadable even on the 360.
If there are some things to fault this game on it is probably that you face off against the same types of enemies throughout the game. This of course is more realistic and they are armed better as you go along, but for those people looking for progressively harder enemies you’re going to be disappointed here honestly. Another huge problem is that guard posts repawn themselves quickly and you often have to pass at least one every major mission, so be ready for a firefight. Spread out over 20+ hours this can get quite annoying. The overall AI is pretty good, but there are times where the enemy can get stuck in place or where they don’t notice that you’ve killed their buddy right next to them and don’t go on active pursuit. The alertness of the AI is far different than in the original game, but you still get indications of where you are being shot at from. The last problem to touch on is that the story itself is rather standard and really doesn’t stand out. The voiceovers with the characters don’t help in this situation either.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/farcry2/shot3.jpg
Ubisoft Montreal has a winner here in Far Cry 2. It will probably be overshadowed by games like Fallout 3, Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2 (along with others), but once the dust has settled and you’ve made it through all these major games do yourself a favor and at least rent this game. I personally think that everyone that plays this game is going to find a totally different experience inside because of the multiple ways you can go about doing missions. Not having luck during the day, sleep until night and try it again. You want to scope out the situation before running in guns blazing, you have that ability. The game stretches and moves around what you decide to do, but you aren’t locked into a linear way to reach your objective. This game is truly a well done and immersive experience that deserves to be on people’s shelves that may not give it a look because of the glut of other top tiered games that have come out and continue to come out. Please don’t let Far Cry 2 fall below your radar.
Score: 4.5 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG4_5.png
Loren says, "Buy this game even if it is after you’ve finished all the other major games out there. It is well worth it for the overall length and the immersive experience"
- Review this title yourself (http://www.playitreviewit.com/reviews/write) over at Play It Review It (http://www.playitreviewit.com), part of the CoG Network
*Note - Review based upon both the 360 and PC versions of game
Title: Far Cry 2http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=2134
Platform: 360/PS3/PC
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal (http://www.ubisoft.com)
Publisher: Ubisoft (http://www.ubisoft.com)
ESRB: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 (360 (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Xbox-360/dp/B001ASJIRM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1225733648&sr=8-1)/PS3 (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Playstation-3/dp/B001ASJIRC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1225733648&sr=8-4)), $49.99 (PC (http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Pc/dp/B000X9FV5M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1225733648&sr=8-2))
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek
What's Hot: Size of play area is huge; variety of guns including ones that jam or break; brilliant time delay mechanic; fire propagation; a feel of being able to do whatever you want whenever you want
What's Not: Distance between missions is often far; Malaria affects gets old after a while; story doesn’t have much depth; voiceovers aren’t the best; respawning guard posts are an annoyance; enemies are much the same throughout game with better weapons
Far Cry 2 is a game that will ultimately be measured on whether you find the sparse African locale and variety of missions that often find you trekking across the whole map boring or not after about a few hours of gameplay. If you can get past that bar you most likely will be with this game for the long haul. The first thing you will notice about Far Cry 2 is that it really has nothing to do with the blockbuster precursor it shares a title with. Jack Carver is no longer part of the story and the whole mutants and side stories from games like Far Cry Instincts is left behind. Right from the beginning you choose to be one of nine characters and I personally didn’t notice any difference between them for the three different people I at least started off playing as. The ones you don’t pick as your character will later be used as your stable of buddies throughout the game.
The only real connection you can make with the first game is that Far Cry 2 is somewhat like the last game in that you are dropped into a large area and left to your own devices. In the first game you were dropped onto a tropical island, this time around you find yourself in a 50 kilometer square area in Africa. Your lone mission is to take out the Jackal, a man who is supplying both sides of an ongoing war with weapons. He has profited from a ton of misery and you’re the man sent to kill him. Right off the bat you find yourself afflicted with Malaria, a disease one of your buddies says is something that everyone gets eventually. Unfortunately it puts you in bed and you wake up with the Jackal reading through your dossier on him and you being unable to do anything with him right in front of you because you are bedridden. The Jackal says you will fail where others have and leaves you in a firefight once you are able to rise from the bed. The battle here is a losing one, but someone comes along to pick you up and help heal you at least temporarily.
From here you learn the intricacies of the game like the readily available map via the back button and the ability to change the range of the map with the X button. You also learn how to heal yourself when your health bar gets low. When you are down to one section or less you will treat yourself by pulling out bullets in your body or snapping a broken bone back into place. Everything is seen through a first-person view, so the immersion is very deep. Outside of that, as long as you have syringes available you can heal yourself to full health via the right button. The med boxes are readily available all around the map, so keeping yourself stocked up shouldn’t be a problem. Your first order of business is to fix up the dilapidated car outside and go take out people surrounding a safehouse you can then use to save the game and get some rest. Thus begins your pursuit of the Jackal that will see you connecting up with both sides of the conflict as well as the underground group that you have to rely on for Malaria medicine in order to control the disease.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/farcry2/shot1.jpg
Along with the wide open choices you have when deciding between missions, this game also introduces a buddy system. The other characters you didn’t choose to be at the beginning are available as buddies and there are additional characters you can pick up as well. Buddies serve several purposes. First one is that they will come to your rescue if you are downed in a firefight, heal you up and fight alongside you. You have to be careful though because if your buddy dies in a firefight they are actually dead and all the side missions they held are no longer available t you. It is very hard for a buddy to die, but it is possible. Buddies will also put extra rewards on your missions, ones that usually are a detriment to the faction you got the job from, and ask to come along with you. They will also upgrade your safehouses to be better stocked and be more of a rest area than they are when you first liberate them.
The basic idea is that you accept jobs from the two factions in order to trace the supply chain from both of them to the Jackal and ultimately kill him. You can only hold four weapons: a machete, a sidearm (handgun), a specialty gun (like a machinegun) and a special weapon (like a missile launcher). You can pick up weapons as you kill enemies, but those have a habit of jamming or altogether breaking, so you have to go searching for diamonds throughout the map in order to buy weapons at the gun shop that will be in pristine condition when you buy them or when you rearm yourself at an armory. These weapons take longer to degrade than the ones you find in the field. The diamond searching is effortlessly put into the game with a green light that blinks on your GPS. When it gets solid you are pointed toward the diamond stash that you then pick up. Everything, including mission completion, is paid via diamonds which seems to be the currency in the area.
There are many other important things in this game that will help you. First up is the use of fire. With the wind and the abundance of plants you can throw a Molitov cocktail and start a fire that if you strategize correctly will block you off from your enemies. Just be sure not to get yourself stuck in a fire you can’t get out of. The permeating fire is a wonder to behold and you will find many instances where it is a useful tool to you finishing a mission. The day/night cycle is another handy gameplay mechanic. At any safehouse you control you can take a nap on the bed and set your clock to an hour of your choosing. You then see a time lapse where the sun comes up and goes down as you’re sleeping. You will find missions that are better done at night or find that you have to sleep a bit before a contact calls you on your cell phone.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/farcry2/shot2.jpg
The graphics and sound effects need to be talked about as well. I played both the 360 and PC version of the game and I found the PC version to be the better looker as long as you have a system capable of running it well. This isn’t to say the 360 version is bad looking, but there are obvious differences in the quality. The graphics are quite good for a sandbox game, but they won't stand up to a game like Crysis if you're going to make a comparison. The other big note is that in the PC version you can save anywhere, but in the 360 version you save at specified locations either after missions or at lit-up blue boxes scattered around the map. Neither idea is bad, but I know many people love save anywhere abilities and for that the PC version is the one to pick up if you have the system for it.
The single-player campaign is pretty long and can easily take you over 20 hours given the amount of space you have to cover and the huge amount of missions available in the game. It’s honestly amazing how much the developer has given you to do in this game and really goes to show that Ubisoft didn’t drop a note even after Crytek left. The multiplayer component of the game is also quite interesting, although probably will not excite you as much as the single-player part of it. The general play options are here and it is about as fun as I remember the first game being in multiplayer modes. There is also a building level mechanic built into each version of the game. I’ve barely touched it, but the nice thing is that the levels are easily downloadable and uploadable even on the 360.
If there are some things to fault this game on it is probably that you face off against the same types of enemies throughout the game. This of course is more realistic and they are armed better as you go along, but for those people looking for progressively harder enemies you’re going to be disappointed here honestly. Another huge problem is that guard posts repawn themselves quickly and you often have to pass at least one every major mission, so be ready for a firefight. Spread out over 20+ hours this can get quite annoying. The overall AI is pretty good, but there are times where the enemy can get stuck in place or where they don’t notice that you’ve killed their buddy right next to them and don’t go on active pursuit. The alertness of the AI is far different than in the original game, but you still get indications of where you are being shot at from. The last problem to touch on is that the story itself is rather standard and really doesn’t stand out. The voiceovers with the characters don’t help in this situation either.
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/features/farcry2/shot3.jpg
Ubisoft Montreal has a winner here in Far Cry 2. It will probably be overshadowed by games like Fallout 3, Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2 (along with others), but once the dust has settled and you’ve made it through all these major games do yourself a favor and at least rent this game. I personally think that everyone that plays this game is going to find a totally different experience inside because of the multiple ways you can go about doing missions. Not having luck during the day, sleep until night and try it again. You want to scope out the situation before running in guns blazing, you have that ability. The game stretches and moves around what you decide to do, but you aren’t locked into a linear way to reach your objective. This game is truly a well done and immersive experience that deserves to be on people’s shelves that may not give it a look because of the glut of other top tiered games that have come out and continue to come out. Please don’t let Far Cry 2 fall below your radar.
Score: 4.5 out of 5 CoGs
http://www.colonyofgamers.com/images/CoG4_5.png
Loren says, "Buy this game even if it is after you’ve finished all the other major games out there. It is well worth it for the overall length and the immersive experience"
- Review this title yourself (http://www.playitreviewit.com/reviews/write) over at Play It Review It (http://www.playitreviewit.com), part of the CoG Network
*Note - Review based upon both the 360 and PC versions of game