Far Cry 2 (PC)

FAR CRY 2 is an open-world first person shooter. It is created by Ubisoft and has an '18' rating from the BBFC with the content descriptors as 'Very strong language and violence'.

FAR CRY 2 is set in Africa, a civil war has broken out and you're stuck right in the middle of it. You're a mercenary, you were working for 'The Jackal', the man that armed both sides in the inter-country war, but after catching Malaria and having him abandon you with minimal medicine, well, now you've been hired to kill him.

Gameplay and Playability

Time for something a little out of the ordinary here, I'd like to explain how well the gameplay adapts in the style of the story, here goes:

I stand alone outside of a cease fire zone, armed guards stand watching my every move as I walk cautiously towards the village. I knock into one, he makes a remark, telling me to get out of his way. The leaves sway and the shadows dance as I enter the cease-fire zone. I lower my weapon and walk past the guards. They don't talk, they just watch me as I walk, weapon still lowered in hand. I pull out my map, along with the GPS I use to search for diamonds, an increasingly valuable currency which can be used to buy anything. I am told that the diamonds are straight ahead. There's a problem, it's in a restricted zone, I cannot enter unless I'm sneaky. If anyone see's me, I'm toast. I creep in through a crack in the back entrance, and I approach slowly toward the briefcase containing the precious diamonds. I open the box and take both diamonds. I shine them against the light, their edges glistening against the sun. The guard turns, it takes him about half a second to register that I am there. He brings his gun's sights up to his eye, he begins to fire. I stand, pocketing the diamonds, and sprinting back to the deformed hole in the building from which I had entered. I skid through it, narrowly avoiding shots. Another man sees me, I lift my rifle and take shots at him. With his dying gasps he takes a shot at me. It hits my arm, I'm bleeding heavily. I yank the shrapnel out of my arm with a splurt of blood and begin to sprint to a jeep, just outside the cease-fire zone. I'm sprinting, faster than I've ever done before, I can see the car getting closer. I'm going to make it, then, devastation strikes. My vision blurs up, my speed begins to drag. I'm exhausted, gasping and wheezing through my blurry eyesight, I travel, slowly yet surely, through the last few meters towards the jeep. My vision pulses red and blood sprays throughout it. A man has shot me, I turn to shoot him, he crumbles, lifeless to the floor. I jump in the jeep. One of the guards quickly aims his rifle, he hits my jeep, the first few shots do nothing, but the jeep is slowly loosing it's durability. It's going to explode. I dive out, shots narrowly slicing by the strands of my hair. Blackness. I fall to the ground. It's all over. Or is it? I am awakened by the blurry sighted view of one of my buddies, he had come to save me. He pulled my dying, bloodied body away, wielding a desert eagle and injecting me with malaria beating medicine and morphine. The pain slowly stops as I slowly get to my feet.

The gameplay is just as it sounds, although the missions given by employers can get extremely repetitive after a while, specifically after you've finished the major plot points, but playing it is just so initiative and involving. It's brilliant. You can buy new weapons with the aforementioned diamond currency. Weapons jam, vehicles require fixing and targets require assassinating. Oh, and your malaria needs curing, but that's a bad bit, as you always have to have malaria medicine, and if you don't, you could find yourself stranded on a hang-glider, dying of malaria hundreds of feet off the ground.

The gameplay is great, initiative and fun, if a little repetitive. It's great.

Graphics

The graphics in Far Cry 2 are astounding. It is still the best game I have seen for trees and fire and the vegetation looks simply stunning. The world appears to breathe in front of you. The character animation is very vivid and it's hard to overlook just how real everything looks, with the exception of certain aspects such as the blood, which looks positively flat and ugly. This is a living, breathing world of vegetation, beautiful sunsets and 'wow' moments. The DUNIA engine that this game runs on is truly among the most powerful engines around. This is easily one of my favourite games for graphical beauty.

Sound

The characters are incredibly believable, they all have distinct personalities given to them from their voices. They sound astonishing to listen to, and you even begin to care for some of your buddies. The generic characters that scatter the streets and the endless bandits have fairly believable voice acting, and it's rare to have several bandits in the same camp with the same voice, due to lack of voice acting talent.

The music in this game is extremely relevant. All of it sounds distinctly like it would come from an African origin, and it all helps set the mood of the game. The music picks up in tense and violent situations and slows down in times of exploration and diamond hunting. The sound is most definitely fantastic.

Value for Money/Longevity

This game has miles of open land to travel around. To say that it has bad value for money would be an awful thing to say. There is so much to do and so much of a vibrant, living world to explore. So many secrets to uncover, so many missions to take, so many weapons to toy around with. This game lasts as long as you want it to, and you'll want it to last a long time. The value for money on this title was tremendous at launch, and now it's beyond astounding. The value for money is brilliant, so much so that you should go and buy it. Now.

Difficulty & Complexity

This game isn't too hard. You can put it on an easy setting, where most of the fun lies, and feel easily in your depth but can be outwitted by enemies in numbers, which is when the interactive buddy savings take place. It's great, and it makes you feel like there's always something to loose, but at the same time, it doesn't frustrate you as you try to stay alive.

Multiplayer

I found the multiplayer to come second best to the story mode in this game, a very curious thing for me. The multiplayer felt quite bland, and uninspired, even though there was so much to do on the mulitplayer and a variety of people willing to play for hours, it just wasn't as much fun as searching the savannah for the diamonds you need to survive. The fire was fun to toy with online though, as the fire can be used against your enemies, as it whips wildly across the grass towards your enemies. It still isn't as good as the single-player which I have talked about for the rest of the game.

A mediocre component of an otherwise excellent game.

Content Watch

This is one to watch for parents, more for the language content than that of the violence. Here's a run down.

Violence

This game features a lot of violent content, especially since your a mercenary. In a war torn country. When you shoot people, splurts of blood appear and the fall with a scream to the floor. It's a ragdoll effect and no post-mortem damage can be applied to the dead body.

The knife kills can be slightly graphic. You take them down with the knife and finish them off with a stab to the stomach. The stab to the stomach is perhaps the most graphic attack of the game.

When attacked, you may have to pull shrapnel out of your skin to stop the bleeding. This is shown, often with a splurt of blood. Some may find it a little too graphic for their liking.

Language

There is irregular strong language in FAR CRY 2, these words include 'f***', 's***', and the occasional, stronger usage of very strong language such as 'c**t'. However, this is very rare.

Drug use

When injured, you must use a medical syringe to heal yourself on some occasions.

There are talks of drug smuggling

Content Conclusion

All the violence and language adds this up to be an all right game for a mature teen to handle, but I wouldn't put it in the hands of anyone under twelve, no matter what maturity level they may burden.

Full Review

This is one of the best (and only) open world shooters I have ever played. Everything you do feels fluent, un-frustrating and tense. It's a game of a tight action movie set in Africa with a protagonist with a mad requirement for diamonds. Easily an A+ game which I'd recommend to any shooter fan I know, as long as they prefer singleplayer to multiplayer.