Review: Far Cry 2 **Spoilers**

I make a lot of references to 'Far Cry 3' in this review.  To keep this easily readable, FC3 will be in bold (as in bolder and better). 

Though I would consider FC3 to be one of my favorite games.  FC 1 and 2 occupy a different category. 

FC 2 manages to extract every joy from all aspects to the game.  You literally do something because 'someone tells you to'...there is no reason for you to do anything except for money and medication.  You get what is called 'History' with your 'Buddies' (who are, in actual fact, just a bunch of greedy jerks who end up stabbing you in the back) if you want to take 3 times longer doing your regular missions...and do the numerous 'Buddy' missions as well.  There are 5 bus depots in each act of the map (one in each corner and one in the center).  The buses can fast travel between each depot.  The map is GIGANTIC...and everyone that you see outside the 'no fire' zone IS an enemy (you might be working for their boss but you are 'under cover').  The hardest setting makes driving feel like you are traveling around in a big neon lit up bullseye with gas filled jerry cans for armour.  All your buddies want you to do something for them.  In exchange, the designated rescue buddy will save you if you go down.  You walk around the whole game feeling like some ground pounding chump that everyone else uses to do their shit.  There's a bigger story in that there are 2 factions that want to run the country...and the antics that each goes through to sabotage the other.  The guy who armed both sides was the original target you were sent into the country to assassinate. 

At the end of the game...when you are feeling like everything you did was a pointless waste of time ...you end up killing even people you liked because they were going to turn on you ... or had already done so.  You are ambushed by all those 'Buddies' that you did so much for.  The 'original target' guy comes up to you and says that both you and him suck ... and that you both should kill each other after you do one final good thing.  The odd part is that the writing in the dialogue is actually quite good.  Delivered quick and devoid of emotion...like an auctioneer accountant at 3 am, however. 

There was supposed to be a mechanic for notoriety.  This wasn't actually activated that the time of FC2's release...and they never bothered to patch it in.  So doing the buddy missions unlocks upgrades to safe houses.  Between acts, this resets anyways...so there is actually no reason to do anything for a buddy in Act 1.  But this is the game...so you want to play the game?  Then do the buddy missions.  The Story for FC3 compels you onward.  You are inherent to the plot...and have a reason for doing what you do.  In FC2...the plot is external to you.  You are simply a hammer in the communal toolbox.  You are a good hammer...but still just a tool.  The story reminds you of that every chance it gets.  It's like having your grandmother watch you play an FPS just to guilt trip you every time you kill something.  So 'History' and 'Reputation' are useless.  The story makes you want to stop playing.  Weapon upgrades are about the only reason to keep going.  Well how about driving in some rolling hills?  You see a dune buggy...you see rolling hills.  You get into the dune buggy...and hit a rock 20 yards in front of you that the long grass happened to have hid...time and again.  Hell...you even go through the whole game in various stages of sickness from Malaria!  The only thing good about FC2 was it's sequel.  If you pay attention to the NPCs...one of the voices that seem to be more emotionally involved in what they are saying stands out from the rest.  That would be the voice of Julian Casey (He plays 'Buck' in FC3). 

There isn't anything physically wrong with the game mechanics in FC2.  I do enjoy a good story ... and your role in this story is to be another cockroach in an infestation.  You just happen to be a tougher cockroach than all the others.  It's nice to think that your actions will have an instrumental effect on the outcome.  In this game?  You're just the story's bitch.  It doesn't matter WHAT you do.  The effect of all things you do is NOTHING good.  This might be a good revelation if say the story had led you along for most of the game...but you figure this out VERY early in the game.  You're essentially what Jason Brody kills en-masse in the second half of FC3...just another chump doing someone's dirty work for money.  It makes me feel like playing...something else.  You do one extremely unselfish thing to save a lot of people at the very end...and then you are expected to kill yourself for being 'Diseased' (sociopathically selfish).   Yes ... I believe the irony HAD escaped the writer in question.  

   

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