Far Cry® 2: Fortune's Edition

As mentioned in other reviews, by the time you get an hour or two in, the sheer boring repetitiveness makes the next 38 hours nearly pure torture. I even went ahead and just enabled god mode to try and zip through the plot, and mark the game as "complete", but the tedious driving across shitty roads with blind spots the size of montana made it take forever even though I could just ignore damage or ammunition limits. It's beautiful, no doubt, but the game could've ended after the first gunfight, and been more satisfying.

Pros: - Large and varied open world. - Satisfying guns. - Unusual setting with good atmosphere. - Unlock equipment of your choice (mostly) with diamonds you get from the world and from missions. Scavenge more advanced weapons you haven't unlocked yet, but at increasing risk of jamming. - Fire can be used as a tool to box in enemies or make a getaway. Cons: - Very little enemy variety. For what it's worth, they do try to flank and can catch you off guard at times. - The malaria system is kind of annoying, at least the mandatory missions that give you pills and nothing else certainly feel like something that could have been done via cutscene. - Missed opportunity with the factions. While they do have interesting characters, you never see them fighting each other outside story missions, you can't interact with them outside of towns except via bullet to the face, and in general I feel more could have been done to help add variety. - The weapon upgrades are mundane - one recoil reduction and one durability enhancement. - The buddy system is not as well fleshed-out as it might have been, serving mostly as a second life if you go down. Kudos though for having so many lines of voice acting, though every line is spoken so fast and dry that it can be hard to appreciate. - Most importantly, there's just not enough to do. Unlike something like GTA which gives you a plethora of activities, however frivolous, here you're always slogging through jungles or deserts, usually trying to avoid enemy checkpoints that would just deplete your resources. The collectibles and varied environments help a little, but it's still undoubtedly a repetitive game that feels like a chore if played for too long.

This game is in NO way perfect, since my computer is well.. shit i cannot play the most modern games with extreme graphics or anything like that, so i had to buy the PS3 version of this game for me to experience it on high graphics mode, the graphics.. look okay for todays standards, nothing groundbreaking or anything, it gives that African atmosphere, thick jungles, and a desert/grassy wasteland, the gameplay is extremely repetitive, the enemy camps respawn quickly, something i hate with this game is the rusty weapons, while it might make the game more realistic, realism is NOT what far cry needs, in many ways it broke the game, in others, it made it better as its about survival in Africa, and the hunt for "The Jackal", something that was fun to do was to lure enemies into tall grass, then set it on fire, which sat the enemies on fire, this also means you can figure out different tactics to take out enemy camps and outposts, which is a good thing, you can sneak your way into a base taking them out with modified "stealth guns" or your knife, or you can go in guns blazin', the story is just okay enough for you to play through the entire game, i mean its mediocre but.. oh well, there is no replayability besides playing through the missions another way and to get the second ending, if you don't focus on the main missions though you do get a very nice open world game, also it has a few mods out there that add bots to the map generator/editor so you can have endless fun making maps while blowing people away, or making stunt courses, you get a whole pack of awesome with this release, but it depends who you are, do you like open world games that really aren't that fast, or are you the type of person that likes to take your time with a game, while to me this is nothing compared to the first game, its still a very good one, Recommended 4/5. (this review does not do the game justice, you should always try it out for yourself first, thanks for reading)

I just had to write a review to counter all the misplaced one-star slams this game has been taking at GOG, so here goes... Far Cry 2 is unlike its siblings in many ways. It took more chances with gameplay than its predecessor, adding hardcore elements that left fans of FC1 confused. A lot of FC2's mechanics - such as persistent respawns and gun jams - just make players frustrated and impatient, therefore they were taken out of the follow-ups. The narrative is pretty much nonexistent in comparison to 3 and 4, along with a (thankfully) silent protagonist in place of unlikable tools like Hawaiian Shirt Dude and Angry Young Man. I won't bother posting a large rant about how much better I think Far Cry 2 is in comparison to the rest of the releases in the series. However, I unabashedly love FC2, and I've played enough of it to feel competent in handing out some pointers to those who are new to the game or may be hesitant to go back and give it another try. *Play Far Cry 2 in hardcore mode -- FC2 is at its best when enemies present a real challenge. *Case your environment -- don't go in guns blazing; tactics are king in FC2, and rushing into a fight is guaranteed to get you killed. Use your viewfinder and tag ammo dumps, explosive barrels and vehicles. Take out hard targets long-distance and finish off the rest when they come looking for you. Move around a lot and exploit the terrain. Take advantage of machine gun placements. Sneak in if you feel like it and take them out one by one. Essentially, If you don't have patience for tactical firefights then this game probably isn't for you. *Get all the guns -- spend the time to collect those diamonds, because you'll need them to purchase all the guns in the game. And you'll want all the guns - combat becomes increasingly hectic as FC2 advances, and you'll need every advantage you can get. Try each one and get a feel for them, especially the mortar. The more comfortable you are with the firepower, the better you'll do. Also, THE FLARE GUN IS YOUR BEST FRIEND, SHOOT IT AND LOVE IT. *Take advantage of the buddy system -- use them, but don't abuse them. The buddy system has some great perks that go along with it, and you'll be better off if you interact regularly with them. *Learn how to maintain your weapon inventory -- gun jams got you down? Learn to identify worn weapons by sight in order to void picking them up. Make sure you upgrade your ammo capacity ASAP so you don't end up running out during a firefight. Buy weapon cases for your safehomes so you can easily switch gear before a mission. Remember, most mercs carry crap weapons, so you're better off relying on your own stock. It's no one's fault but your own if you pick up a jam-prone gun. *Guard posts suck, but you can lessen the suckiness -- go to moddb.com and download one of the realism mods that lowers the aggressiveness of the guards. They won''t leave you alone entirely, and they'll keep respawning like they always do, but it will lessen some of their more frustrating behavior. *Malaria? It sucks and I can't defend it -- it's so poorly implemented that I took a star off of my rating out of spite. Grin and bear it, folks. TL;DR: Far Cry 2 expects a lot more out of the player than the other games in the series. It's challenging, tactical, and sometimes frustrating. Ultimately, taking the time to learn the mechanics it runs on is the best way to maximize your enjoyment; that may mean a more "on-rails" experience when compared to FC1/FC3/FC4/Primal, but the game plays tighter and more streamlined as a result. One of my favorite games of all time, and definitely worth $9.99.

I love the Far Cry Series, No matter which Edition or Add-on or Expansion. And Far Cry 2 divides the Players in two groups, the ones who hate the complicated traveling System, taking so long to reach the destinations to complete the game 100%. But for others like me, the Far Cry Series always had something meditating in its gameplay, e.g. the flow in collecting diamonds, but especially in Far Cry 2 driving the vehicle from A to B. While collecting all diamonds can make you sick and addictive, driving the car can help you to quit playing for today and continue later, because of the repetetive driving. Of course the driving physics and the junglish environment don't let you drive and have much more fun as you would like to, but that's OK for me, i just believe I'm driving a very old car, so you can't drive it with the feeling sitting in a Tesla. And like said, driving the car felt always doing Sone meditation (you See, I love the word 'meditation' so I use it very often). Sum Sumarum, While trying to play the game to 100%, didn,'t get much of the story of the game, but enjoyed and got addict to all the Series. Thanks Ubisoft... Nice having Far Cry on GOG, now have a Motivation to play All the series again. Hihi.