Far Cry® 2: Fortune's Edition

When this came out the biggest draws were "Far Cry but open world" and "fire propagation engine". I literally spent dozens of hours just shooting flares into the African savannah brush and laughing as the flames devoured all vegetation (and screaming enemies if you box them in). You have to see it, it has the best (not perfect, but best) fire system ever devised that I am aware of in an FPS. The fire will die after travelling 100 feet (30 meters) or so for balancing purposes, but just uses flares or molotovs and set fires in multiple locations. The flamethrower is gimmicky, feels like it has a range of about 5 feet and honestly your machete is almost as useful, so stick with the flare gun. You can even see leaves burning off of trees! Now the gameplay is fun to me. I usually walk through sandbox simulators and like doing as I please, and this game delivers that. It isn't quite like Just Cause 3, not as bombastic or fast paced, but it scratches an itch. Slice up enemies with a machete, burns villages (with only bad guys in them), deploy a personal mortar and make your own airstrikes, or simply pop heads from a kilometer or more away (similar to Far Cry 1). The only irritation is that the player character is a complete dunce, has malaria and is thus somehow talked into committing suicide for the villain "because your sick and screwed and why not?" Or you save yourself and implied to die immediately later from the malaria (despite taking medication the whole game). Either way, you are doomed. The devs wanted you to feel the hopelessness of war and not glorify it, but it really came off as preachy and my reaction was "well, how dumb do you have to be to get roped into that? RELOAD!" Ignore the story, focus on the combat and burn everything in sight, then later use the unlimited ammo cheat and you should have a blast in this game. And whatever you do: don't listen to the ass**** at the end and take the battery...

This is really a unique FPS. If you have ever played Crysis, then this one is very similar, minus the high tech suits of course. It's an open-world game set in an unnamed African country, where you are stuck between two warring factions, willing to do anything in order to beat the other, and becoming the leader of the country. To me, the missions and side-missions are somewhat disturbing in nature, with their unhuman motives such as "poisoning the water", "cut off the humanitarian aid" or "poisoning this or that". Anyway, that's the story. Gameplay-wise, this is a FPS that reward prior planning and tactics. Of course in easier difficulties, you can just do the regular 'gun-and-run' fiasco, but on harder modes, that's where Far Cry 2 shines. To assault enemy posts and bases, you need to be ready and make plans. And in FC2 you are provided with countless options to suit your style of play. Do you strike at night, when it's easier to stalk around silently but with limiting visibility, or attack at noon where you can easily spot your targets? Suppressed weapons, or mega loud and powerful ones? Set up traps to stop incoming vehicle convoys, or just shoot a mortar shell from far away? Or maybe I should just set the grass on fire and let wind do the job, spreading the wildfire to the enemies. In FC2 it's all about choice and planning. Of course the driving parts are the boring side, but the guns are very satisfying.

Despite a lot of people hating the game for having an open world and being "boring", it is still a really good FPS. There are so many different ways you can complete a mission, either by doing as the faction you accepted the mission from wants you to do or what a Buddy you rescued earlier suggests. Also, fire plays a big part in here as it takes place during a dry season in Africa and thus the grass is easy to set fire to with either molotov cocktails or a flamethrower, you can even clear out entire enemy camps by setting fire to a grass field next to the camp and watch as the wind blows the fire towards the camp and sets the enemies in there on fire. Another thing is that the guns you get in the game will eventually break, or jam more often as they degrade with use, which forces you to grab guns from fallen rebels or get to the nearest safe house and grab a brand new gun. There are also upgrades you can buy like ammo bandoliers so that you can carry more ammo, handbooks that improve your handling of certain guns as well as making it easier for you to repair the various vehicles you will drive. And also, the map creator for the multiplayer is really well done too. Its not overly complicated as most map maker programs that some FPS games comes with as it allows you to with ease adjust the height of the land, if it will be a foggy jungle or field and also add small buildings and vehicles to spice things up. I personally really loved the game on the PS3 and the PC version is really good, especially this version as it doesn't have any of Ubisoft's infamous DRM.

This was my favorite FPS for a long, long time. The music and the graphics are evocative and compelling. I've played 240 hours of this troubling, sorrowful but oh so beautiful depiction of Africa! Highly recommended!

There will be a lot of different assessments of Far Cry 2 from a lot of different people. It's was and is a very divisive game due to it's 'no hand holding' style of play, deep commitment to realism, and it's slim narrative content. Personally, these are half the reason I love the game so much. Fast travel points are few and far between, so every trip becomes a journey. Enemy checkpoints and patrols are ever present, so every journey becomes an adventure. There's no regenerating health, you have limited health packs and ammo, and your weapons can degrade and malfunction in combat, so every adventure can become a struggle for survival. And there's simply nothing like the anxious thrill you get when your gun jams in battle, or you have to race for cover under fire, or you have to scavenge for ammo or weapons because you've exhausted all your bullets. This game makes me feel a palpable and dynamic tension and excitement that I can't recall any other modern FPS giving me. You have to think on your feet and react to the ever-changing circumstances; there aren't any incentives for doing a job one way or another, you won't get more experience for doing a different playthrough, you just gotta get it done, however that happens. It's all well and good to waltz into a firefight guns blazing, but just when you think you have it under control is when a patrol will roll up behind you and take you by surprise, or enemies from a nearby settlement will show up investigating the noise, completely changing the balance of the fight. Maybe someone shot a rocket at you, and you feel relieved after you dodge it, but the explosion sets the grass alight and now you're fleeing from flames whilst under relentless fire. This is Far Cry 2, and while some may find the travel tedious, or feel directionless with a lack of a solid narrative structure, this is one of the few FPS games that gives your imagination room to grow. Graphically, I don't think I've ever experienced a game that recreates a real environment as authentically as this. Far Cry 3's technicolour paradise feels like an oversaturated toybox, and the junk that fills the HUD in that game only draws you out of the moment even further. This IS what Africa feels like. There are no day-glo-vested enemies waiting to be shot. These guys can and will disappear camouflaged into the scrub, meaning you have to be alert at your best to succeed. I'd venture so far as to say that it might be one of the best FPS games of all time. Note: I didn't say it was *perfect*, I just said that it might be the best. It has its flaws, both technical and gameplay-wise, although I'd argue that one man's frustrating design decision is another man's immersion-booster. I tend to fall on the latter side, and I can think of a positive side to every common criticism of this game. I've thoroughly enjoyed going back and playing through this tense, visceral, stunning creative achievement.