Far Cry 2 came out recently and I’ve gotten a chance to play this game for some hours now.  Far Cry 2 puts you in the role of a soldier assigned to assassinate the Jackal, an arms dealer dealing to both sides of the conflict in Africa.  One problem though, your character has Malaria, and because of this, your assignment gets tougher.

Far Cry 2 is a completely different game compared to the first one last time I checked.  The developers tried to add new gameplay elements, but forgot to add “fun” into it.  Its Far Cry’s fps controls mixed with Alone in the Dark vehicle interactivity with mission based gameplay like Grand Theft Auto.  It sounds good on paper, but not so when playing the game.

Let’s start with the actual gunfights.  Your weapons feel very weak and inaccurate.  The enemy’s hit detection isn’t as good as it should be.  It takes longer than normal to kill your guy (yes, an over exaggeration, but still).  And when you do kill them, there’s no satisfaction of a job well done.  Even when I’m using a turret, at point blank range, my enemy took many bullets to the chest before falling.  And speaking of which, the AI isn’t that bright either.  Here I am with a big ass turret, and the enemy thinks he can take me on? Only in Far Cry.

Now the idea of being able to fix your vehicle is cool.  And when you enter your vehicle, everything is still in first person view.  The thing that’s off about the driving is that since your character sits on the left, things look distorted, because the field of vision isn’t wide enough.  The GPS is a chore to use so I had to rely on the map by pressing the back button.

The biggest change is the open world gameplay where you can choose different missions and have different ways to tackle your missions.  It’s a neat idea, but the mission requires you to travel from one generic deserted jungle/desert to another generic deserted jungle/desert.   And when you’re traveling throughout the map, you’ll be bombarded by enemies in boats and cars.  Again, this would be fun if the gameplay was tighter and more fun, but it’s not, so it gets tedious and feels really repetitive.

I’m thinking it’s going to be more of the same the more I play, so I’m going to call it quits for now.  The thing that makes an open world game fun is the environment.  In Grand Theft Auto, you have a living breathing city with cars, people, and buildings.  In Assassin’s Creed, you have an ancient city filled with thousands of unsuspecting people, waiting to be assassinated by you.  In Far Cry 2, almost everyone’s out to get you.  The world, though graphically nice, is really quite dull, and as for traveling, I might as well play Oregon’s Trail for more kicks.  That just got me thinking, just imagine a next gen Oregon’s Trail game.  That would be the most awesomest thing ever!

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