Let me start off by saying, yes I know Farcry 2 is not a MMO and yes I realize I’m reviewing a FPS on a MMO blog.  However I do play games other than MMO’s and while normally I would refrain from posting about them here, I just could not resist considering how hyped up Farcry 2 was and how horrible the game acutally is.

Here’s a quick introduction to what the game is like.  Drive 5 mins to a mission point, spend 5 mins getting your mission, spend 5-10 mins driving to your mission, spend 5-15 mins completing the mission and finally spend 5-10 mins driving to the next area to get another mission.  Rinse and repeat for the rest of the game.   Think of it as GTA except driving around is not fun at all, it’s the worst part of the game and you’ll spend about 50% of your time doing it.  Then think of having to do basically the same mission over and over, with almost zero variation.  What fun!

To make things ever better, you need to buy all your own weapons, which are mostly pointless.  Here’s a great example.  I used a “silenced” pistol to shoot a guard, before anyone saw or heard me, I ran behind a mountain and made my way to the back of the base.  Without so much as a peep from me I had about 10 guards running to my exact location.  WTF Ubisoft?  Is there no AI at all?  Does buying a silienced gun even matter if the comp knows exactly where I am regardless of how stealthly I’ve been?  But what I like even better is when I’m outside a building with no windows and the guys on the inside shoot me through the wall even though they should have no clue that I’m there.  No it’s ok, I doing mind playing a game with AI from 1995.

Moving on to the game map.  This is a map you’ll use a lot and the best part is that it covers about 45-55% of the screen depending if you’re driving (45%) or walking(55%). No mini map at all unless you’re driving. However the minimap in cars is pretty much useless as it only shows about 200 yards around you, so you’ll have the main map open anyway and have about 1/3 the road blocked by the map.

Next up are diamonds, the currency that you’ll need to use to buy shit.  You can either get diamonds by completing missions or by finding breifcases randomly thrown about the map.  To finds a breifcase you need to use a radar that will beep green when you’re near a case.  Best part here is you only have the radar if your map is open.  WoooHooo!  Why there is no radar on the UI is beyond me.  I think developers goal here is to frustrate the gamer to a point that they take their mouse and shove it into their eye.  So as a fun mini-game you’ll be opening and closing the main map about ever 10 seconds you’re walking to see if there are any diamonds near by.

Gun shops are by far the best mission givers in the game.  There’s a handfull of these places around the map and guess what?  Every mission is EXACTLY the same which you have to do in order to open up new weapons.  Seriously it’s the same exact mission over and over again!  I did 4 or 5 of them before deciding I would just use the weapons that are currently available. I couldn’t stand doing the mission again, it was that boring.

Jeeze, this list is getting long.  Next we have the game animations.  There’s basically an animation for everything, which you HAVE to watch.  Off the top of my head there’s knocking on a door, opening a door, sitting down, standing up, getting padded down, healing yourself, fixing a vehicle, even a dying animation which is about 30-40 seconds long that cannot be skipped!  The fact that you’re constantly doing all these things and have to watch a 1-2 second animation every single time takes some getting used to.  While I love games that are realistic, please cut the crap that makes gamers bored as F@#K. I don’t mind the animations that are 1-2 secs, I can live with that.  But when I die and have to sit there for 30-40 seconds as I watch my character fall to the ground, black out, get rescued, watch as they stand back up and get ready to fight again, it makes be want to quit playing the game.   At least put in a skip button.

Finally you have everyone in the entire country trying to kill you regardless of what you’re doing.  You start the game in a taxi who magically is able to drive around without being fired upon, however as soon as you try it everyone shoots first and asks questions later.  It doesn’t matter what time of day, where you are or what you’re doing.  You could be on a cliff viewing the wildlife and randomly a jeep will pull up and open fire.  This is the most ridiculous attempt at trying to break up the boring and tediousness of driving around. Good job Ubisoft.  Also thank you for making quick saves not actual save files.  I very much enjoyed it the first time when I exited the game and came back the next day only to find out the last hr and half was not saved.  ..|..

Being a huge fan of Farcry this game was the biggest disappointment in 2008.  An absolute pile of shit, I only wish I could get my money back.  On another note I see PC Gamer gave this game a 94%.  Having been subscriber for 8 yrs going, I can only assume a huge pile of money was dropped on the table to get that score. To be very very kind, I would give the game a 60% tops.

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