Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 by Ubisoft is the anticipated sequel to the award-winning original that brings players into the beautiful and hostile world of Africa. Far Cry 2 for Xbox 360 features open-ended gameplay that allows you to play the game whichever way you choose, with the choices you make affecting where the game leads you.
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Far Cry 2
Players:
Offline: 1
Online: 16
Multiplayer Modes:
Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond, Uprising
Format:
Native 720p high-definition output. |
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Far Cry 2 brings you to Africa where you’ll explore the savannah and the jungle. View larger. |
Far Cry 2 features real-time night-and-day cycles. View larger. |
Outstanding Graphics
Ubisoft developed the Dunia Engine specifically for Far Cry 2. Among other things, the Dunia Engine delivers realistic, interactive environments, special effects, real-time night-and-day cycles, and smart enemy AI.
Expansive, Realistic Environment
Far Cry 2 is set in a fictional region of Africa where you are caught between two rival factions at war. The Ubisoft team spent a lot of time filming and photographing in Africa to get all the details of the landscape and native wildlife. The result is a huge gameplay area that is 50 square kilometers, taking players into and out of the jungle and savannah. Wild animals such as zebras, buffalo, gazelle are encountered during the game, with both players and enemies allowed to interact with them.
Far Cry 2 features an incredible level of detail and realism, with a minimal in-game interface to detract from immersion. For example, players will need to navigate the world using an in-game map and navigation system, weapons will disintegrate over time, and fires will spread and propagate.
Each of the actions a player takes is reflected in the environment and changes the content of the game. To fulfill your mission, you need to play the enemies against each other, using both strategy and skill.
Huge Range of Weapons and Vehicles
Far Cry 2 offers gamers a wide range of weapons, from a machete for hand-to-hand combat, to a sniper rifle that can stealthily pluck off enemies from afar. As weapons disintegrate over time, they might jam or even explode in your hand.
There are also a large range of vehicles such as gliders, trucks, cars, and boats that will let you fly, drive, slide, and hover over the open landscapes.
Multiplayer Options for up to 16 Players
Far Cry 2 supports up to 16 players and has four gameplay modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond, and Uprising. Players can choose from six different classes in multiplayer, each with its own set of pros and cons. Just as in the single-player mode, multiplayer games will feature dynamic elements, making each session unique.
You can explore the world of Far Cry 2 from inside a car or flying on a glider.
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Great Concept, Flawed in Execution
The FPS genre tries so hard. Ever since Halo landed on the Xbox with a thunderous reception (this arguably could date back as far as Goldeneye on the N64), the first-person shooter has exploded in popularity and quantity among consoles. To be toted as a truly great FPS in an increasingly crowded genre, a developer must create something very unique. Ubisoft seems to have this figured out in Far Cry 2. In a climate where shooters have become more and more reliant on scripting and linearity for the sake of excitement, FC2 sets off to allow the user to provide their own excitement. There’s no hand-holding here – FC2 throws you into a warring country and let’s you be the catalyst. It’s a concept that is brimming with potential, and one that does, on occasion, work very well. Unfortunately, FC2 is too bogged down by frustrating mechanics that other FPS games nailed down long ago to landmark it as a truly great game.
The premise is simple; you’re a mercenary who’s been dropped into Africa to kill an arms dealer known as the Jackal, who’s located somewhere in the 18 kilometers you’re left to roam. The narrative is driven by doing missions for one of two warring factions in the area. Along the way you will meet buddies, for whom you can also do missions. To repay you, they provide alternative ways to do main missions and will also save your hide if things go sour. Weapons can be permanently earned by destroying competitor convoys of a weapons dealer in the area, and cell-phone towers provide hitman missions where the goal is to simply assassinate a target, any way you see fit. How you go about any these missions is usually entirely up to you – and managing to hatch your own plan and successfully implementing can be very satisfying.
Despite FC2’s varying success of missions, getting to and from these missions can be an absolute nightmare. Guard stations, usually filled with 2-4 baddies a piece, litter the entire map, and patrolling guards in vehicles frequently attempt to hinder your progress. Take out a guard station, and the guards will respawn once it’s out of sight. This ends up making traveling an exhausting chore – getting from point A to point B typically involves clearing out (or avoiding) several guard stations and stopping every couple minutes to kill a patrolling enemy. It won’t take more than a few missions before this gets old real quick, and the enjoyment of formulating plans and executing them is often discarded for killing guards as quick as possible just so you can finally get on with a mission. It must have been a paradox for Ubisoft, who likely felt that the open-world concept would grow boring if the player didn’t have SOMETHING to do in between destinations. As it is, however, they took the wrong approach to this problem, and the game grows extremely tedious because of it.
This, of course, lends to a huge amount of gameplay. Those looking for a great time-to-price ratio in an FPS need not look any further than FC2 – performing every main mission and side mission (of which there are plenty) can easily take 30-40 hours. Finding the 200+ diamond briefcases hidden away in the landscape, unlocking every safe house and scouting every guard station is a lengthy task; perfectionists will have their hands full.
Forty hours is a huge amount of time for an FPS (and it feel likes it), but it does a decent job of keeping the locales varied. You likely won’t return to the same place more than three or four times (outside of major towns, of course) – not that you would likely mind anyway. All of the landscapes are absolutely gorgeous – don’t be surprised if you find yourself stopping to gawk at a beautiful cliffside or riverbank. Weapons are designed intricately, and the effects they create are wonderfully done. The explosions seem eerily realistic, but the real winner here is the use of fire. Explosions, molotovs, and the flamethrow are great tools to set the landscape ablaze, which both looks gorgeous and can be a great way for you to formulate a plan as the fire spreads across tall grass, trees, and buildings.
The befuddling thing about this game is that these effects are done so well, yet other areas, such as character animation and AI, can be so atrociously bad. It’s actually quite feasible that this AI would hold up okay in close quarter settings – but in environments which are very open (95% of this game), it buckles quickly. Detecting your presence, for starters, is extremely inconsistent. Enemies can often spot you (and pelt you with an assault rifle) from extremely far away. Yet there were several cases where an enemy would be looking directly at me, 10 feet away, completely oblivious to my presence. The AI doesn’t “magically” know where you are, but if you are anywhere in their line of site (regardless of obstructions like tall grass and trees), you can expect to be hunted. The AI’s dead-on accuracy from very far way makes this a severe problem.
It, of course, kills the stealth option of FC2 – silenced weapons and even a camo suit are provided from the weapons dealer, but they seemingly do nothing. Enemies often hear silenced weapons anyway, even when using a dart rifle from reasonably far way. Taking things head-on works incredibly better, and most players are likely to resign to this method. It’s a real shame for players who prefer to go undetected, and it severely hurts the “do it your way” approach that Ubisoft wanted to take with FC2.
If nothing else, Ubisoft should take FC2 as a learning experience. After all, building an open-world first person shooter can’t be easy. The potential for greatness is certainly here, and Ubisoft most certainly should not abandon the concept for (the inevitable) Far Cry 3. With better AI and a less frustrating open-world mechanic, it could be the game this should have been. FC2 certainly has its moments, and the fact that some parts are expertly done and other facets fall very short makes you wonder if it got rushed out to meet a deadline. It doesn’t set a first person shooter precedent, and it doesn’t warrant the title of great, but Far Cry has found its niche and it’s a good one. And in this genre, that’s half the battle.
6.5/10
1 Star Not the same as original
Ok first off let me say this game is not like the ones for the original xbox. They took out the fun of this game meaning no mutants, no jumping 15ft, no running 50mph none of that. Your just a normal man with some guns. This game is one of the longest games i’ve ever played but also the most REPETATIVE game i’ve ever played. In FarCry 2 theres 2 maps North and South I beat the North map and went on to the South when i just quit. All the missions are the same go kill this man or drive here its just stupid. In some missions you might not even no were to go you might get stuck and the map wont help you at all. You have to find your money which sucks i mean ya you get money from missions but if you want to fully upgrade your guns you must find diamonds which is sorta easy but stupid.
There is also this annoying thing that will happen when your walking. You will suddenly hear a loud VROOM-VROOM which means they somehow saw you and are coming to kill you. Also if you fix your vehicle and it gets shot about 4 times well time to fix it up again. If your almost done fixing it and get shot well you start all over. Oh and if you were a fan of the original FarCry games and loved to make maps like me well they still got that but you cant play offline multiplayer unlike FarCry Insticts.
My brother, Me, and my friend all hated this game. My bro sold it after 1 week, my friend traded it for Bioshock. I truly do not recommend this game to people that loved FarCry Insticts and FarCry Insticts Evolution.
5 Stars Freakin Amazing
Ok so I first played farcry 2 when it was released on PC last year. I got to maybe around 30% when my save game got corrupt. Sold my game after that. About a month ago I got a 360 to replace my gaming PC since upgrading it wouldn’t be cost effective nowadays.
I was so excited that Ubisoft patched the problems with the corrupt saves earlier in this month. So with that said, this game is almost perfect now.
Im at 54% and I cannot put this down. The graphics are amazing. Gameplay is solid, story is good…
Heres some things I do not like-
The re spawning of enemies at guard posts. I wish they were permanently gone after you scout at the post for the first time…but oh well
Seems the only quick way to kill someone is a headshot. Four rounds to the chest from a .45 wont do it??? Come on…. Takes a bit of ammo to kill someone if you dont get a headshot, didnt like that.
Malaria. I actually dont mind this so much as other reviewers have pointed out. Doesnt really help the game either though.
Traveling can get old after awhile. But it makes sense if you wanna find the briefcases.
Bought this for 30 new at best buy. I see its only 20bux used on here…PICK IT UP!
5 Stars excellent value
Reviewer does not need to repeat valid comments made by others on this game. Both negative and positive apply, except this: it is a GAME! it contains a very unusual degree of realism, not reality! Story line is rather simplistic, but has internal consistency and towards the end one or two genuine surprises if not shocks (to do with your buddies and the Jackal). For repeat players it would be nice to bypass the various speeches such as those by the annoying journalist, but you can’t. Excellent soundtrack, especially the haunting title piece (could not find the proper credits of the strange androgynous voice). We played this game almost to saturation for months and still find new paths, new gliders hidden away, and new ways to do the same missions. Levels of difficulty increase from “Easy” to “Normal” to “Hardcore” to “Infamous”. You get less stuff as you move up in difficulty, and you become much more vulnerable to injury. In “Easy” and “Normal” you can take a lot of abuse and still keep coming, but “Infamous” only takes 2-3 shots and you’re finished, which means you have to slow down your game a great deal, or repeat missions until you win them, both options being very time-costly and ultimately a turnoff. It is possible to complete the game in “Easy” and “Normal” using only a pistol or pickup guns from fallen enemies, ie without buying anything at the dealers. In “Hardcore” it may be possible but becomes so difficult as not to be fun, so you have to buy and use good and especially long distance guns (sniper rifle, rockets). It is possible to diverge completely from scenarios and subvert a mission your way, of which the most obvious is the “oedward rex” mission – shoot the king, but keep the ring for yourself not give it to his son! It is possible to conquer entire towns just for the fun of it – Sefapane is relatively easy, and you can shoot up everyone in the place within the regeneration time when the game resets and everyone suddenly acts “normal” under cease fire. Much more difficult, but possible, to do the same in Pala, with far more enemies present. I have not tried the main town. A guide book (we used “Prima’s”) is a good idea if you want to find all or most of the diamonds. The gliders are a lot of fun, once you figure that certain diamonds are reachable ONLY from the air. Some remain unreachable (to us): one at the PetroSahel railcar roof, another on the rocks next to the legion fort. Attempting a help line at Ubisoft got us nowhere. They simply want us to register so we buy their stuff – understandable, but not out interest since we already bought the game. Best value for money weapon at any level is the jeep mounted gun, cost: nothing! Use it to clear out the annoying outposts while going from one place to another. Likewise, there are excellent AK47s hidden away in various places, available for free – guidebook maps will show where, since you are most unlikely to just find them. For dealer weapons, the PKM is by far the best overall value and available right from the start. Also possible to travel great distances with minimum fighting by skirting outposts or simply zooming thru them.
In computer version you can quick save anytime, not in playstation where you have fixed save places. Interactive is a disapointment, because you have to connect via internet even for two people sitting next to each other on the sofa, and it is very complicated to set up, which is another turnoff. Overall, well worth the money, fully recommended for the gamimng value.
2 Stars Snooze Alert
Urgh. I shouldn’t have bought this game. First off the gunplay, the most important part of any FPS, is boring. It’s just not very visceral, the guns look real but sound and behave kind of stiffly, shooting people isn’t satisfying (especially since they come back after being hit 50 times), and when you aim your arm sticks straight out like a broom handle with no motion and no feel like you actually have a weapon in your hands. For me this kind of ruined it right from the start, but add to this the fact that you spend 90% of your time driving around the countryside (which is beautiful I’ll admit) looking for your next mission or objective and it all ends up feeling kind of meaningless. I have never spent so much time in a video game just trying to make something happen. And forget it if your car is blown up or you forget where you parked it (yes, this is possible in this game). You end up being stranded out in the middle of nowhere, just praying you stumble upon a truck or a boat so that you can enjoy the pleasure of driving yet more miles to complete another seemingly pointless mission.
Far Cry 2 does have its strengths, including a few nice attempts at realism such as digging bullets out of your own leg or shooting up a box of ammo to watch bullets spew all over the place, or lighting a brush fire to confound your enemies. And as I said the environment is beautiful, but these strengths are far overshadowed by the fact that you just don’t care much about where the game is going. What’s the point of making it from point A to B (which is usually a long process) when you’ll just end up being sent out on another errand to complete after that?
This is probably one of the first games ever where I will not play thru to the end. I just don’t have the time or the patience, and the payoff I suspect will not be worth it.
Buy/More Info
