Product Description

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 Windows Vista/XP 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.

• First-person shooter for Windows Vista/XP gives players an open-ended gameplaying experience
• Roam the beautifully detailed jungles and savannah of Africa
• Pick up a wide range of weapons and hop into different vehicles
• Dynamic environment, including day-night cycles and fire propagation
• Online multiplayer supports up to 16 players

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1218 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2008-10-24
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Platform: Windows XP
• Original language: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
• Dimensions: .35 pounds

Amazon.co.uk
Exploring 20 square miles of African savannah and jungle is never an easy task. But when you’re up against an army of highly trained mercenaries, the danger becomes unimaginable. Welcome to the world of Far Cry 2.

Far Cry 2 has some of the best explosions in the business

Vehicles are great for cover as well as transport

It’s best to keep some of the game’s factions on your side

The environmental graphics are both stunning and highly varied

It’s been over four years since the release of the first Far Cry, and Far Cry 2 has almost nothing in common with it beyond being a first-person shooter with excellent graphics and advanced artificial intelligence. It’s by a different developer, and you now play one of eight different mercenary characters out to catch an arms dealer nicknamed “The Jackal.”

The sci-fi enemies have also been jettisoned in favour of a much more realistic game where survival skills are just as important as a good aim. The rules of engagement--either by stealth or all guns blazing--are entirely up to you.

Key Features

• Virtual safari: The game features 20 square miles of terrain for you to travel, filled with realistic fauna and flora and fully destructible trees and buildings.
• Fiery realism: With an all-new graphics engine created just for the game, fire moves and propagates exactly as in real-life, with vegetation breaking and snapping realistically.
• The coming storm: A dynamic weather system changes to reflect your mood, with the sky turning dark and stormy during bad times.
• Jungle survival: Highly realistic weapons degrade with use, bullets need to be dug out of your body, and vehicles break down if pushed beyond their limits.
• Buying friends: Meet and co-operate with fellow mercenaries as you pit different factions against one another in a war-torn African state.

About the Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Ubisoft’s huge development studio in Canada has created many of the French publisher’s biggest hits, including the Splinter Cell,/i> series, the modern Prince of Persia games, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Assassin’s Creed, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja and the Far Cry sequels and spin-offs.

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Customer Reviews

Supurb game if you give it time.
First of all, this is not a game you should spend all day playing. It is best played in chunks of an hour or so. I've been playing it for over 20 hours in total, according to the game time, so in actual fact a whole lot longer, what with saves etc, and I am only half way through.

This is a big game. A lot bigger than you think too. Contrary to most of the reviews here I have played it long enough to come across the SECOND map. There may be more too, though I doubt it.

So what is the game like?

Graphics: I am playing it with a new XFX 9800GTX+ and it is quite simply supurb. I upgraded from an 8600 and it looked pretty good then too. If anybody thinks it looks like a 2004 game then they must be using a 2004 card. Thats all I can say.

Sound: nice, ambient. Some of the weapons sound great.

Gameplay: so far I have played the following:

Tutorial: lasts about an hour and is designed to show you how to play the game. The rest of the game is not like the tutorial, you have far more freedom.

Part #1: you get a big map to play with, with loads of locations marked on it. These locations range from:

Gun shops. Here you buy guns and get missions which can unlock more guns. The missions are of the format: go and blow up the ammo train at the following location.
You can also get ammo etc. Once you have bought a gun, you effectively can pick up a brand new one for free whenever you enter any gun shop. Later on you can also buy upgrades and repair enhancements etc.

Radio turrets: Here you can get missions which pay you in the diamonds you need to buy guns. The missions are of the format: Go to a location and kill somebody. The fun often begins when you have to escape having killed somebody.

Safe Houses: these are not safe until you kill the people at the house, but once safe you can sleep there. This means for instance, that if you want to do a mission at night, you can sleep in a safe house beforehand to advance time. As the game progresses, the safe houses get upgraded so that a jeep will also be available, and more ammo and health etc. Also, you can buy crates at a gun shop, and stick a weapon in the crate. That weapon will then be available at any safe house. There really is no excuse other than sheer desperation to use a knackered gun. Just learn how to use the gun shop and safe houses properly. At safe houses you will also occasionally meet buddies.

Bars: your buddies hang out at the bar. Occasionally just as you are about to die, a buddy will appear and save you. However, don't rely on this as they don't do it repeatedly and can be killed. Buddies can give you missions. They really become useful though, when you do faction missions...

Faction Houses:
There are two opposing factions, and you can do missions for both of them. Once you accept a mission you have the advantage of being paid up front. Also, you will get a call from one of your buddies. They will suggest an alternative to the actual mission. You can either do the misson proper or follow your buddy's advice. I always did what my buddy wanted, as it was more fun, so I can't say what happens if you do a vanilla faction mission. If you do the buddy mission you get more reputation and history. I have no idea what the history actually does, but it increases.

Finally, you also get Underground missions. These only appear when you need anti maleria pills, and are fairly straightforward affairs.

With the exception of the underground missions, you can do the other missions in whatever order you choose. I went immediately for the gun shop missions, as it unlocks weapons quickly.

You don't have to do missions to get diamonds though. They are also scattered about the island in suitcases. The island map is divided into sections. If you zoom in the detail map actually has a number at the top which tells you the amount of suitcases in that section, so you at least have a clue as to how thorough you should search.

The other buildings you come across tend to be mission related or guard posts. You can explore them whenever you want though. You don't have to wait for a mission beforehand. Opponents respawn fairly quickly, so if you wipe out a guard post, go and finish a mission and return via the guardpost, it is likely to be repopulated.

One other thing to note, there are bus stations at the extremities of the map. So if you get a mission on the other side of the map, don't spend half an hour driving across the map, just get on a bus and you will be instantly transported.

Weapons: weapons vary. You will soon have a decent variety though. I currently have an Uzi for close range spraying, a decent sniper rifle, and a flame thrower. The flame thrower is just about the best weapon I have ever come across in a game, especially in the second half. It even beats the HL2 gravity gun! Avoid picking up guns from dead foes unless absolutely necessary, otherwise they will invariably jam.

Vehicle: small on realism, big on fun. There are a variety ranging from lorries to jeeps to racing cars. There is even the odd hangglider.

Second Half:
When you get to the second half, things also get harder. People take more hits to die for a start, and wounded people still shoot at you. I am enjoying the second half, though it was frustrating at first as I had got used to the ins and outs of the first map. Plus the enhancements to the safe houses were reset.

this game is big. It isn't a run of the mill shootemup. If you play it all day it will bore the pants off you probably, but if you play it in shorter bursts you will be able to appreciate it to its full. It deserves to be played properly.

+++++ UPDATE +++++

I'm nearly at the end of the game now. I just thought I would say a bit more about the buddies. In the second half I got more attached to them. Whether it is part of the programming or just chance, I don't know, but they seemed to hang around more in part 2. This gives you a chance to get to know them a bit better. Plus, as the game gets harder, they will need your help too. If they come to rescue you it is possible for them to get injured in the process. You have the option of healing them or leaving them behind. You have to find them first though, but luckily they set off flares to enable you to locate them when they are down. You also have a third option of blowing their head off, but this only happens when you press the wrong button by mistake. I might have done this once...

But get this, one time I went to heal a buddy, but it didn't work. I thought it was a bug in the game (so far I have only found one other.) so I tried healing him again. He just looked at me vacantly. I healed him a further time, but his head just rolled back and he died in my arms. My game character closed his eyelids with my hand, and I had to leave him there.

It was quite touching really, and I almost reverted to a save game but decided against it in the end.

As I said before, there is a lot to this game, if you take the time to find it...

++++++++++ FINAL UPDATE +++++++++++++++

Well, I finally finished the game. It has a definate ending, unlike, for instance Crysis. There are a few surprises and I was left wondering how much the decisions I made earlier on in the game affected some of the events at the end. I have to be vague so as not to give any plot elements away. Suffice it to say, that the next time I play it, (this time with the difficulty maxed out) I will make some different decisions.

That's the sign of a good game, whether you will want to play it again.

I won't start again for a month or two though. Need to have a breather first. What I will do first is go back to some old save games, and do some more exploring. I only did 3/4 of the side quests, and that surprised me, as I thought I hadn't missed anything. Also, I want to try some of the missions using stealth. There are stealth weapons I never used and it would be interesting to see how they work. And if I'm bored one rainy day, I can see if I can get from one side of the map to the other using only a pistol, or set myself any number of other challenges. I haven't tried MP yet either. The potential there is enormous...

To summarise this game, it is a genuine sandbox. You can attempt each mission exactly how you want to, especially once the game has progressed a bit and you have had a chance to get a variety of weapons. If you attempt each mission using exactly the same weapons and doing exactly the same thing each time, it will get boring. If however, you use your imagination, and get creative, then the game will open up a whole new world (well a few km at least) for you to explore.

Excellent and great looking game
The premise of Far Cry 2 is fairly simple - you've been sent into a country torn apart by civil war in order to assassinate the arms dealer stirring things up, the Jackal. Set in a pseudo-African environment, you must deal with two warring factions, miles of hostile environment and malaria, as well as helping the underground movement to get civilians out of the country - in return for malaria pills.

It's an FPS in the style of the original Far Cry - you can have four weapons at any time, you can scout far away enemies with a scope, and drive, fly and swim around the huge sandbox environment. Unlike the original, you don't have a handy radar and can't tag enemies, but you do have the entire landscape to play with, whereas the previous was divided up into discrete levels.

The game looks and sounds great - although you have infinite freedom to explore, the game is divided into two main maps. There are desert regions, canyons, grasslands and dense jungles, all of which look and feel authentic. The game is huge, but there are regular jeeps, cars, trucks and buggies to drive, as well as two kinds of boats and (occasionally) hang-gliders. There are, as other reviews have said, different types of mission - arms dealers will unlock weapons in exchange for taking out their competitors; anonymous callers will pay you to assassinate people; the underground movement will give you malaria pills to help people escape the country, and the two factions will employ you to try and outfox the other. You're paid in diamonds for most of them, which you can use to buy and upgrade various weapons.

It's an atmospheric game - you can almost feel the dry heat of the desert, and you sometimes feel very, very alone in the country. Although you can recruit buddies to help you with missions and sometimes revive you when you die, you're basically on your own. It's easy to fall in love with the long grass, clear blue skies and little boats which zip along the rivers. The go-karts are also great, and you'll thunder along the dirt roads enjoying every second of it.

The weapons are versatile and satisfying, from the humble pistols to rifles, sniper rifles, mortars, grenade launchers, flame throwers, rocket launchers, machine guns and remote-controlled improvised explosives. You'll find that different combinations work in different situations, and keeping a spare set in your weapons crates (which you can then access from any 'safe house') is very handy.

Time passes realistically in Far Cry 2, although doing missions by night can be annoying. The realism of the malaria also seems annoying, and somewhat unnecessary, although it's a nice touch that you can run faster and for longer when you're not sick. On the other hand, you can repair vehicles, which is very handy, and a significant improvement on the first game.

It's a relatively long game - it took me about 12 hours to reach the second map, and about 23 hours to finish the whole game, doing all of the missions. The second map feels a lot harder at first, until you upgrade your guns - enemies have access to mortars, better rocket launchers, and better rifles!

Whilst it's usually a pleasure to play, there are bugs - it'll sometimes lock up on a load screen, which is annoying. There are also in-game bugs - the enemies won't always face you to shoot you, which can be confusing when you're trying to be stealthy. The main plot is also handled a bit badly - you do see The Jackal at various intervals, but aside from the odd random recording of his voice, you don't really gain much information about him along the way, and the plot doesn't really feel like it's advancing or unfolding very well.

There's a healthy dose of political scepticism in the game - you can hear the factions discussing intercepting charity donations at one stage, and the mercenaries discussing their pay.

Overall, Far Cry 2 is a great game and very enjoyable to play. The ending is slightly inconclusive, and I would have liked more build-up, hints about the Jackal and a better sense of unfolding plot. It works really well as a game, and it's absolutely gorgeous to play. I'll definitely go back to it. I wish I'd been able to give it 3.5, because it is a great game, but there are just a few flaws which stop it being excellent.

Forget the DRM rubbish
[With the 1.3 patch, Ubisoft got rid of all DRM for Far Cry 2 so now you don't even need the DVD in the drive to play it - just so long as it is installed that is]

This is a game which has one main flaw. This is the reason for all the bad reviews and press. This flaw has nothing to do with the game itself, more the current state of gaming. This flaw, is that Far Cry 2 was marketed to the wrong crowd of people by a big margin. The trailers made it out to be a balls-to-the-wall action game a-la Call of Duty 4 or Gears of War. It is nothing like those games, and in my opinion that is for the better. Typically, those who favour the aforementioned games need the high-octane, constant action that they provide in order to hold their attention. I apologise if this is a generalisation but I feel that they typically lack patience. In some cases this is warrented. Perhaps you work from 9am-9pm and don't have time to play anything which doesn't give instant gratification. Maybe you have the attention of a humming bird on adrenaline. Regardless, this is a game where if you put in the time you will be rewarded.

First of all I would like to mention the most basic layout of the game. While there is a multiplayer, forget about it. I doubt many play it - I definately don't. But the single player will take at least 20hours to complete, which becomes 40+ if you don't just do primary missions. Compared to the average campaign length of <10hours we seem to get sold these days, this rocks. I talked earlier of this game requiring patience to play. I derive this need from the fact that it is quite a realistic game. It's up there with S.T.A.L.K.E.R in this respect. Like many games, you can sprint but can't do it indefinately. Unlike many though, your guns deteriorate the more they are used and become prone to jamming. This never gets annoying though, instead it adds a great rush of tension to a gunfight. A gunfight which is typically quite tough on all but Easy level. The A.I is good. Really good. It will flank you, occasionally grenade you (not CoD ridiculous grenading) and communicate with each other (which you can listen to and flank accordingly). The only problem I've seen with the AI is that they can be blind to fire. If you start a fire, they won't dodge it and the flames will kill them unless they dodge accidentally.

On the subject of the fire, I must speak of the graphics. Luckily I can run the game at max on a decent resolution - this is with 3GB RAM, a Phenom II and a GeForce 275 GTX - and so it looks utterly incredible. In the approx. 8km^2 of African wilderness on offer, almost every style of African terrain has been included. From plain and savannah, to desert and jungle, it is in the game and looks beautiful. Which is good, seeing as when you get a mission you typically have to travel somewhere by foot, jeep or boat (or hang-glider, but these are more for fun). this is where the idea of patience comes in. If you don't mind driving around, you'll be fine. Especially seeing as while driving you are never more than 1 minute away from a fight if you so choose. Dotted along the roads are enemy checkpoints which contain anywhere between 4 and 20 enemy. One major complaint is that these guys respawn too quickly meaning if you clear them out then drive back through 2mins later they will all be back too. Yes this can get annoying, but usually you can find an alternate path or sneak by them.

This game allows you to play however you want. Charge into the checkpoint in a jeep and then jump onto the .50 cal on the back if you want. Or sit 0.5km away with a sniper rifle. Or sneak around with the silenced weapons. Do whatever you want. You can always drive straight through while a hail of gunfire comes your way, or spend the time sneaking round the edge before continuing along. And there are easily enough guns to supports whichever style you like. There is a silenced pistol, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle and explosive weapon (if you ge tthe Fortunes Pack). There are many other pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, explosive weapons all of which are unlocked by doing missions for the gun shops and then buying them with diamonds earned through the story missions, the assassination side-missons, or finding them around all the different maps.

The different mission types are: story mission which involve blowing stuff up or assassination - usually during which your 'best buddy' will give you an alternate mission choice which requires more time but gives extra benefits, side missions which are either assassinations for diamonds, blowing up convoys to unlock more weapons or buddy mission to increase reputation and status with buddy's. So all the missions do essentially boil down to blowing something up or killing someone. But then again, very few FPS games have any other type of mission, and at least these two things are always fun. The buddy system is something I should mention. Beginning the game you pick on of 9(?) characters to play as. This is a very arbitrary choice, it doesn't really matter who you pick. But on the 1st mission you will meet your first buddy who will become your best buddy. They will give you extra things to do during story missions in exchange for certain bonuses. These buddys can be killed, and it can be up to you to save their life. Then you have a secondary buddy, who will be introduced to you. These ones can be rescue-ready if you meet up with them at some point. This means that if you get 'killed' (no health left), the will in actual fact save you and stand over you defending you whilst you stand up and heal yourself. Then they give you a gun and you fight off anyone nearby. It's a nice system which avoids an immersion-destroying reload. These buddy's can also die or be incapacitated during which, if you get to them in time, you have the option to use your limited healing kits to save them or you can switch to a sidearm and euthanise them.

This review is too long already so to finsh I'll just reiterate. If you need action constantly, don't buy this game unless you are willing to change. Otherwise, if you like fps games and enjoy something a bit more complex, buy this game. And seeing as it kind of bombed, it's cheap so hey, what are you losing?