Far Cry 2 - Part 1

This part of my blog is the parts of the game I don't like. The second will be the parts that I do like.

NOTE: I'm writing these blogs as I'm playing and right now I'm 20% into it. So don't yell at me because I don't know the whole story yet, this is a gradual game review that will be done in stages.


Been playing this game for like two weeks now and I can't decide if I like it or not. It's good, don't get me wrong, I love that it's an open-world and there's a huge array of weapons available (if you can afford them), not to mention different vehicles to travel in. There's a hang-glider you know, haven't had the chance to use it yet because as soon as I got on it, I fell into a rock :/

The problem with it is that you never really understand much of the story OR feel involved in it. It's a civil war story and you are trying to murder the arms dealer known as the Jackal, who armed both sides and to find him, you have to do missions for either side to track him down. There are many other types of mission to do, buddy missions etc. but I'm not 100% sure if they help towards finding the Jackal.

That's the problem with the game, you're never 100% certain of anything. You don't get a great deal of information about the world you are in on Far Cry 2. It took me a week to get the story or lack thereof. You just seem to be thrown in, with crap weapons and malaria.

Although, as you go along, you do get more accustomed to the game and learn a bit about it from the few hints that pop up during certain points. But you'll probably still be confused a little.

One of my peeves so far (20% into the story apparently) is the bloody driving. You have to drive half the way around the map most missions and then drive back and it's a long way. It wouldn't be so bad if you could bomb it straight there but it seems like there's a enemy guard post at every junction you come to and everyone hates you. So you're getting out of your car to shoot them all and then driving off, only to do it again a few yard ahead. And what's also annoying is that even if you've JUST cleared one of the guard posts and you pass it again a few minutes later, the enemies magically appear back there again! It's kind of repetitive and a shame that you have loads of cool vehicles but never really a chance to have a bit of fun with them. Especially the dune buggy. It's a nippy little thing but it has no turret and gets damaged really easily so every time to start to have fun with it, someone shoots it and you have to get out, kill them then repair it. Then the cycle continues.

There are some bus depots in the game, one in each corner of the map though, that let you basically fast travel to the other depots. Handy yeah, but in very short supply when you really can't be bothered to drive up the same road you've passed a thousand times just to get to a mission that takes you 2 minutes to complete.

I'm an avid Skyrim/Elder Scrolls fan and even though I know this isn't an RPG, it seems to lack the open-world freedom that Skyrim has. Yes, I know there are no dragons in FarCry so I shouldn't compare the two but exploring in Skyrim is very rewarding. Exploring on FarCry (so far), isn't that rewarding. Mostly because all you find (besides the odd diamond case) is another bloody guard post.

I thought that if I decimated the posts I come across with my cheap and cheerful rocket launcher, then it'd be gone when I came back to it, but nope, magically repaired and full of guards. AAHHHHH!

Now don't get me wrong, I like playing the game, in fact it's all I've been playing for the past two weeks, but I can't help think that I'd be a lot further in the game if the repetitive travel wasn't so....repetitive and boring. I do two or three missions then I get bored of driving and quit. Which is a shame because both the plot and gameplay have real potential.

I won't even get into the fact that FarCry 2 is absolutely nothing to do (plot-wise) to FarCry. They've taken all of the monsters (which I LOVED) out of the game and so now you're just fighting soldiers. Which is a bit boring if you've ever played the first game and loved stalking the monsters in the wilderness. If you're going to basically change the whole game, there's not much point in calling it FarCry TWO, is there?

NEXT: The fun parts of FarCry 2. As played by me.

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