Finished with Far Cry 2
January 23rd, 2009 Tengaport
That’s it, I’ve had enough…
I had planned to stick with Far Cry 2 (Xbox 360) until Skate 2 arrived from Amazon but it has gotten to the point that I’d rather play nothing than play Far Cry 2 anymore. It’s not that the game is particularly bad or anything I just have absolutely no desire to play it anymore. I picked up Far Cry 2 after coming off a Dead Space high, so that may be clouding my opinion on the game – but I was looking forward to a capable and compelling shooter, and I ended up with neither.
The game is slow to start with your in-game nemesis kicking off the story line. After a brief tutorial, the story vanishes into the vegetation and I was standing there wondering “what the hell am I supposed to be doing?” I don’t need hand-holding when it comes to video games, but if you’re going to just drop me in the middle of Africa with nothing but a set of car keys at least tell me why the hell I’m there in the first place. Oh wait, the guy in the beginning told me why I am there, but he is gone, everyone wants to kill me, and it all seems to be a mute point at the moment.
Hour after hour I found myself driving all over Africa-town picking up random yet extremely repetitive missions for reasons I honestly could not tell you. All the while EVERYONE I encountered in the game would instantly try to kill me. Once I caught on to the friendly disposition of the game’s locals I ditched my nice-guy instincts and just made sure to shoot first whenever I crossed path’s with anyone in the game.
After nearly 20 hours of this same lather, rinse, repeat formula I finally dropped my controller and said out loud, “I’ve had enough”. While there may be plenty to do in Far Cry 2 (ala Assassins Creed) I just had no desire to tackle any of it. The game got boring for me real quick and while I tried to stick with it for the achievements it got to the point where even the points couldn’t keep me interested. I think a good rule of thumb is when you find yourself aimlessly surfing the net WHILE playing a video game it is time to call it quits. And by that rule, I am done with Far Cry 2.
Far Cry 2 did have a few things going for it. For one, I thought the ‘buddy rescues’ were great as a sort of a ’second chance’ when you were gunned down in a firefight. Your buddy comes in, picks your sorry ass up and then helps you get back on your feet. Once you’re ok to handle a gun again he’ll stick around and help you mop up the mess. This came in handy the few times when the moronic enemies actually got the drop on me. For the most part, enemies will just stand in place (many times spin in place) while shooting at you which makes taking them down easier that shooting ducks in a barrel. The only time I had problems with enemies was when they were firing at me while completely obscured by the tall grass or vegetation.
Another thing I liked about Far Cry 2 was the unreliability of weapons you pick up off of dead enemies. You get a visual clue to the condition of a weapon by the amount of rust & cunk (that is a made up word) on it, and having some POS gun jam on you in the middle of a firefight creates some great ‘OH SHAQ-FU!’ moments. While the weapons you buy from the gun shop are much more dependable, they are prone to incidents as well until you upgrade them. I nearly crapped myself as I fired a RPG at an oncoming vehicle only to have the rocket dribble out of the gun and spin at my feet. As soon as I noticed I sprinted away only to have the rocket explode a split second behind me.
Weather and time of day effects were a nice touch to the environments, and the environments & settings themselves were done well even to convey the feeling that you were actually in Africa. There were lush, tropical jungles, barren sand dunes and plenty of changes in elevation to give the settings credibility.
I didn’t step into the multi-player for too long, but perhaps that’s where Far Cry 2 shines. I was only along for the single player ride, and it is now time for me to get off the Far Cry 2 bus.
If anyone is interested in taking this game off my hands shoot me a PM. $25 shipped is all I’m looking for so if you’ve missed out on the $30 deals this might just be worthwhile for you. Maybe you’ll get more out of the single player campaign, but if you don’t – don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I wouldn’t count this post as an official review since I didn’t play the game to completion (nor spend quality time with the multi-player) but still, if I had to put it on the money scale I’d say:
Far Cry 2 (Xbox 360)
$60 – $30 STOP (Do not buy!)
$30 – $20 CAUTION(May be worthwhile)
$20 – $0 GO(Hell, what do you have to lose?)
