Far Cry 2 Message Board  

I haven't written a Dark Side Review since Doom 3, but this time it became imperative for me to do so, because Far Cry 2 blovvs. Sorry for any hards language, but it's well deserved by the game.

Top Reasons why:
1. It is not a FPS, but a random race game. You get a mission (~30sec) then you drive a few minutes to destination (5~15 min), then you shoot some up (~30 sec), then you drive all the way back for a new mission (5-15min). So it's a cars game. An ultra-boring one (since no one else races with you) I might add.
2. There's no AI. There was a base where I attacked and about 3 characters were shooting after me... with their backs at me (I didn't film this one but will do next time it happens).
3. There's no story. Factions fighting for their own interests. No general story; nothing interesting.
4. The game is unplayable. It has critical bugs. Main characters just happen to die (for heart attack or something). It's proved here. At least in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: C.S. they were fixable... Oh...I just remembered something: In some of the old RPGs (the game genres that is) the player had a skill called 'enemies of lower level die on sight'. Well, perhaps the FarCry 2 player, since it's diseased, has a skill called 'allies of any level die on sight'.
5. Guns su*k. Or it's the enemies that have terminator bodies anyway. Not the metal heads on the first farcry...but still it takes a lot of 7.62s to waste them. Guns get stuck to ofter and brake very fast. Unacceptable for any AK-class gun.
6. Repeat until... Everything is too cloned: soldiers, outposts etc... even the missions you get at the comm towers will be repeated over and over again.
7. Diamonds and detector. P3n15. lol. Why would anyone search for a diamond or two somewhere when they can get 15-50 in diamonds from each mission ? It looks like the detection system is made so that you waste a lot more time ghost hunting instead of playing what supposed to be a FPS.
8. Sick motha'. Pills for the sickness. Ok so far. There's a priest that gives you the pills. That's if he were to be alive to do it. Unfortunately it decided to go for a heart attack. Or maybe Vader Force-chocked it to death. Anyway... no priest -> no pills --> character fainting --> long missions impossible to complete.
9. Civilians = none. That's right, there are no civilians in this game. Everyone is armed and everyone shoots at you without asking you about your health problems first. That's actually somewhat good, since else it would of added to the boredom.
A. Situation: Red. You go into a main city. Suddenly you get a message to escape the area and everyone hunt you down until you do. Note: that's not related to the restricted zones (red-marked on the map) or to the no shooting-in-town rule. It just happens at random. So there you are... going to get a mission and suddenly the Red Alert is on and you must evacuate the area. At least with this bug you actually get some real action like the game suppose to have otherwise.
B. Anti-player landscape. In FarCry 1 you could somewhat use shortcuts to get to destinations. Now this is impossible. No road = no pass-by. Most if not all hills are made impassible by foot so there's no way to work around the very long traveling times.
C. Buying system useless. The weapon purchase system is only a little good because you can get more durable weapons. Except that, it's totally useless. The player will always find and use in-field weapons instead of the one it comes equipped with not knowing what will be next (i.e. player will use sniper / RPG instead of A.R./M.G. because it finds those weapons 4 3 at the target area and these weapons fit 100% with that specific situation). So instead of hunting diamonds you get tons of anyway and loosing time by going to shopping points, the logical thing to do is always use the weapons the enemies have.
D. Let's not forget the phxed-up FoV and wide-res problem.
Pre-P.S. Q : How do you stop a mortar that shoots from beyond the texture ?
P.S. Reviews ? W7F ? Those look like they're all payed by Ubi and the score the game gets is the one for graphics only.
Most of the respective reviewers didn't even bother to play more then 15 minutes. They entered the game, enjoyed the view and spawned a few rows of text along with a high score and some nice pictures. Lame^2.
* * So let's re-review:
GFX: 9.0/10 (Everything ok - just a little too much copy-paste and animations su*k)
Story: 4/10 (Improvised)
A.I.: 3/10 (better mount guns on trees - same thing)
SFX/music: 7/10 (sound is just standard...nothing impressive...and sound is range-less)
Gameplay: 1.5/10 (boring road driving with occasional encounters)
Action: 3/10 (I think the cars should of had movie players included)
Feeling: 3/10 (a very nice feeling of extraordinary boredom)
Innovation: 2.5/10 (That's if you call the card rides as such)
Overall: 3.7 / 10.0
If you count weapons and balance we can give it a 4.
P.S. 2.0: Don't waste your $ on this one. Better buy a ton of popcorn with that and enjoy a good movie.
And I'm not the only one that can say things as they are. Other reviewers also share some of the vision.