Far Cry 2 final impressions following a complete play-through
Unlike Grokmoo, I somehow didn’t end up giving up Far Cry 2 for Fallout 3. Having just beaten it earlier today, I’m ready to give my final impressions, as I won’t be playing it again.
My Far Cry 2 experience was a bit uneven. I wouldn’t say that I genuinely loved the game, but I felt a strange compulsion to keep playing it. I would feel this compulsion even after the game succeeded in frustrating me immensely (like never failing to put objectives on the diametrically opposite side of the map, on the opposite side of many manned guard posts), so it was not uncommon that I’d play the game for a half hour, take a short break, and then end up playing it again in another half hour after the frustration faded. These repeating cycles of frustration and compulsion occurred several times in some days.
It finally hit me what the Far Cry 2 experience feels like: an MMORPG. I wrestled with World of Warcraft around the time that it came out (and haven’t played another MMORPG since finally quitting it). Far Cry 2 shares a lot of the same game mechanics that make an MMORPG so addictive: the free-form roaming, the slow grind of achievement (earning scarce diamonds to purchase/upgrade weapons), and the side missions. I kept playing through Far Cry 2 even when I wasn’t enjoying the experience very much simply because I wanted to keep getting to that next “level”.
But thankfully, unlike World of Warcraft, Far Cry 2 does indeed have an end, an ending left me really dissatisfied because — spoiler alert — like much of the rest of the game, you are given a false choice between two “alternatives” that result in the same outcome. The final outcome of the game? Your suicide (and in one of the options, your completely unnecessary suicide). It’s like, after an entire game full of wanton mercenary killing, the developers want to jam a moral lesson into your head and force you to atone for your sins by paying the ultimate sacrifice. Except it’s not really atonement if you aren’t given a say in the matter.
The final mission is decidedly lackluster, being more limited in scope than some of the missions earlier in the game and entirely absent of shock and awe. After the barge level, where you’re blowing up boats left and right with mounted grenade launchers, sending them and their occupants cart-wheeling through the air only to crash down in a delightful spray of mist, I’m supposed to be overwhelmed by taking out a few mercenary camps of regular soldiers, just like every other mission in the game, and I don’t even get a vehicle to spice up the action with? That earned a big “Meh” from the Cyde Weys school of Dénouement.
Ubisoft’s claims of 50 hours of play time with Far Cry 2 are spurious at best. That probably includes tracking down all of the diamond briefcases in the game, a rather boring pusuit that isn’t necessary because the main missions give you enough cash to get the few weapons that are worth it. I’m sure it also includes the excruciatingly annoying buddy missions, which senselessly shift up objectives with the added bonus of longer travel times. Needless to say, I skipped most of the buddy missions (even killing off buddies when I had the opportunity) in my bee-line to the finish line. There were even some main story missions that I managed to short circuit — for instance, a lovingly designed dock level with an assassination target at the end of it that I completely bypassed by taking out the target with a single launched grenade from a bridge off in the distance. Take that, level designers, I’m moving on.
Now that I’ve finished playing Far Cry 2 after a grand total of 16 hours, I don’t see myself picking it up again. It was an addicting experience that had moments of fun scattered throughout sections of driving tedium, and it also had a fair number of bugs for being a AAA title — including enemies that shoot the opposite direction of where they are aiming, enemies that freeze up after getting sniped and then fall down a second later, and rampantly stupid enemy AI — but in the end, I would still sort of recommend it, if nothing else for the experience. If they had just fixed some of the glaring annoyances with the game it would’ve gotten my unequivocal recommendation.
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
And I somehow forgot to include this in the story, so I’ll relate my favorite moment from the game right here.
I was doing a string of the radio tower missions, which basically involve taking out a target that is either standing around in the middle of a cease-fire zone or going in a large loop across the landscape in a convoy. This mission was of the latter type. Having been through a couple of these missions already, I knew my best bet was not to try and catch up with the convoy from behind (who can shoot at you while they are moving but not vice-versa!), but to go in the opposite direction of them and set up an ambush. Well, right on their patrol route happened to be a single lane wooden bridge across a deep chasm.
So I drove my jeep onto the narrow bridge, and in a very Austin Powers moment, managed to wedge it perpendicularly across the bridge. Then I stepped back, pulled out my rocket launcher, and waited. The enemy convoy — two jeeps with mounted weapons and one SUV — came upon the bridge and got trapped in a massive pile-up. This is exactly what I had wanted, as I had messed up on convoy missions many times before and failed to hit the moving target on a pass, having to wait until the next pass to try again. But since my target this time was stuck completely motionless thanks to my own ingenuity, there was no getting away.
I fired my rocket from a great distance and smiled smugly as it impacted my own jeep, creating a huge chain explosion that destroyed all of the tightly packed vehicles in the convoy on the bridge as well. “Mission Accomplished” flashed on my screen after I had fired that single failproof shot, by far my easiest accomplishment of a “destroy the convoy” mission. My exultations were only dampened somewhat by the sudden realization that I was now stuck in the middle of the desert without a working vehicle in sight.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I totally agree with this review - I took 22 hours to finish the game, and for the most part found it horribly tedious and very frustrating - there’s nothing worse than walking/driving for hours on end to a target to find yourself being shot at, with no immediate cover nearby, whilst trying to heal yourself (very slowly). But that pales in comparison to the most annoying feature of all - YOU CANT RUN SIDEWAYS, as in strafing - Many times an enemy car would be aiming straight for me, and i’d instinctively hit the ‘run’ key and left or right, only to find myself pondering slowly sideways and get mown down, causing instant death - which funnily enough didn’t happen after a direct hit from a rocket or grenade. I also found myself being shot at from a man who was INSIDE a boulder at one point, and the stealth aspect of the game is laughable (in a suicidally frsutrating kind of way) - You’ll sneak up wearing your camo suit….and 800 odd yards away, take a shot with a rifle at someone in a camp. Instantly, everyone in the camp knows exactly where you are, miles away, and comes out guns blazing. HOW THE HELL DO THEY KNOW WHERE I AM!! sometimes they’ll shoot at me and I can even see them! BAAASTARRRRDS!!!
But I had to finish it. I dont know why, I just had to. I was also expecting that, given it’s free roaming nature, I would be able to continue playing after I had finished the main missions in order to find the rest of the diamonds, do more side missions and generally do whatever. But no. When you finish the main missions, thats it. Your dead. The trees they went on about so much dont look as good as in crisis (over which little fuss was made) and the flamethrower is fun but pretty pointless - you have to be so close you might as well use a knife. Rant over. For now.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
James: Yes, the final mission was very hardcore in an old school games kind of way. It reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics; the final boss battle was a two-parter, and you could save in between. Woe is you if you overwrote your only save of the game with that save, because then all you’d ever be able to do upon loading is to play that one final battle again before the end. Far Cry 2 should’ve handled it better. And definitely do not overwrite your only save with any save during the final mission.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I finished it in 16 hours and just finish the main story not the side missions except 2 or 3. But I think I have to kill Jakel but letter I found I am helping him. I do not understand the finishing! Why I have to die to why Jakel? Why I didn’t kill him as I read the whole game is to kill him !!
December 5th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I’ve just finished it after 20+ hours. I got the Blood Diamond vibe from the offset and kind of suspected that you’d end up dying at the end of the game. I liked the wandering about, hunting Zebra and Buffalo enroute, side of things. Though I do appreciate the annoyance of having a mission open up right over the other side of the map. And I felt the compulsion to play very strongly too. I can’t really explain it but it was like an addiction, I just had to play and complete this game. Buddy missions and all! Bit annoyed that you can’t go back and rain merry hell on the country for the sake of it. Not sure there’s much replay value in there, unless you really felt compelled to get all the extra diamonds. I tried the Multiplayer as well but wasn’t as impressed, so will probably end up back on TF2 or whatever on Steam.
Best moment in the game for me was the firing of a rocket right across a canyon area (from my safe house to the Guard post on the other side near the diamond mine). At the time I didn’t realise it was a fuel dump and sat in awe as the whole area errupted into a fire storm of epic proportions! That really made me sit up and take notice with a “Whoa!” moment. That and watching an area of the map become flooded on the fly. A very nice touch.
Oh and the first part of the finale was a pretty impressive and unexpected one. Though potentially the replay killer for me.