War might be tough, but a lawless country somehow seems tougher. The sprawling trigger-happy imaginary African country that Far Cry 2 takes place in is the latter. You begin the game by selecting your character from a handful of hired guns with varying backgrounds. While each character has a unique bio, they matter little in the game. The story never references your backstory, nor do you see anything more than your hands and never hear your own voice. Your character does not need much of a personality, since the rest of the cast has more than enough to go around. You arrive in the midst of a civil war between two militant factions in search of The Jackal, the arms dealer supplying both sides of the conflict. Your mission to kill him seems simple enough, but you quickly come down with a nasty case of malaria and need assistance in a country where nobody knows who you are and even fewer care. While your final destination is taking out The Jackal, how you get there is up to you. The story splits into three acts with well thought-out plot and twists along the way and separate maps for each piece of the story.
The open world setting of Far Cry 2 suits the story well. You must build up a reputation within the country to survive and gain access to the medicine and gear you need ton carry out your mission. The people of the country are so corrupt and untrusting that even the priest who gives you your first bottle of pills for your malaria makes you work for them. As an unknown mercenary, you have no allegiance to either side of the conflict, which has its pros and cons. On the plus side, you can take jobs for either side to build up your notoriety within the country. On the other hand, neither side wants to acknowledge that you just did a mission for them and will shoot as soon as you step outside the no-fire zone. You do actually make a few friends, or, more accurately, ‘buddies’, while strolling through the countryside. Though they can save you when downed on the battlefield, they are far more interesting when offering you an alternate objective for just about every job you take on. Each job comes with a conflict diamond payoff, which is the currency in the county rather than gold or cash. Soon after accepting a new objective, one of your existing buddies calls your cell with an alternative plan to sweeten the deal. You earn upgraded safe house inventory for doing the additional step, though the ones requiring you to enter battle with them are a tad tricky. If your buddy goes down you can heal them, but if you are out of syringes you can only end their suffering or leave them to die. Buddies that die on the battlefield are gone forever from the game. The bonus objectives are rarely right next to your main objective, which leads to additional driving.
The country is enormous, but after a couple of missions you will begin wishing it was much smaller. Though the landscape is gorgeous and impressively sprawling, there is too little between towns. The empty plains and dirt roads are speckled with guard posts and not much else. You spend much of the game driving from a town to an objective ten minutes away, only to need to return to a town to get a new objective when done. The game only allows you to have one main objective at a time, leaving you chasing back and forth across the map repeatedly. The guard shacks make the driving even less of a treat, with guards constantly ready to take shots and you and your car. Posts have trucks ready too, and guards are more than willing to hop in to chase you down with a friend operating the turret on the back. Your success at getting away from the guards depends on how damaged your vehicle was before they started shooting it. Vehicles can only take so much damage before they explode, and will slow down considerably with an overheating engine well before that happens. Your character can repair damaged cars with a quick look under the hood, but you are best off making sure the enemy vehicles did not follow before you do. The amount of driving you do would not be such a hassle if it handled better.
Far Cry 2 is first and foremost a first-person shooter, and the driving physics suffer as a result. The vehicles generally do not drive remotely realistic, with most feeling too light when bouncing over incredibly large rocks and too bulky when you drill a passing zebra. The driving remains in first-person view, which takes some time to get used to. Your left stick controls the car, and the right controls your view. The setup feels clunky and never gives you a good view out the windshield. The in-car GPS is no help either, since the cursor showing your direction remains static rather than the map. The spinning map and winding roads make finding the correct route to reach your destination a hassle, since pulling up the larger map in your character’s hand does not stop the action. The street signs are occasionally color-coded to match your destination, but if you are on your way back to a town to find your next mission, you are on your own. At the very least, they reward your exploration with a couple hundred hidden diamond cases, giving you a little extra scratch to spend on weapon and item upgrades. Cases cause both your handheld and in-vehicle GPS to blink green when near a case, with the speed of the flashes indicating how close you are. There are several bus stops available, but they are rarely close enough to your objective to prevent several minutes of driving and a handful of guards to deal with.
There is a wealth of missions to complete, both main story items and smaller bits to enhance your reputation. While the size of the open world can be obnoxious at times, the freedom you have when completing objectives is fantastic. Your objectives are typically to kill someone, destroy something, or pick up an item. Exactly how you get it done is entirely up to you. You have no restrictions when it comes to taking out an entire village to get to your target, or saving the rest of the surrounding property. Those who lean towards more strategic gameplay are able to complete missions rather stealthily, if they are careful. The combination of weapon variety and explosive items in the world make for a combustible mix. Destroying weapons trucks belonging to the competition unlocks additional weapons from your gun dealer. Even without performing these missions, your arsenal is impressive. You start with stock weapons, but can easily pick up dropped weapons from enemies. When you get your hands on an RPG or flamethrower, it is hard to go back to small arms. The diamonds you collect allow you to purchase additional weapons at the computer in the gun shop, but the game does a poor job of detailing what weapon class each item is. It is important, since you can only carry one of each type at a time.
