From the start of the game the player is plunged into the nightmare of a war torn African savannah, playing the role of a mercenary sent into the heart of a civil war to assassinate the Jackal, an arms trafficker that is funding both sides of the civil war. Within the first five minutes the player’s chosen character contracts malaria and has a run-in with the Jackal as all hell breaks loose. The scene setting is perfectly executed; the horrific state of the country is clear and the sense of being a foreigner in a conflict you shouldn’t be involved in is palpable.

This sense of alienation carries on throughout the story as the player meets leaders of the opposing factions, arms dealers, underground refugees and an eclectic assortment of mercenaries who can be befriended and will help the player out. The Jackal’s location is unknown and the player embarks on a long line of quests to find information about the mysterious character or destabilise the region in order to bring him out of hiding. The player character never talks and communicates only in unquestioning silence or by putting a machete to the throat of a NPC to imply what they want to happen. This muteness and seemingly unthinking willingness to participate in the plans of men to commit genocide could be interpreted in many ways. Perhaps the player is like Jack Bauer, the ends justify the means? Perhaps the player realises that the only way to make it out of this heart of darkness is to capitulate and serve madmen in order just to survive? Perhaps the player doesn’t care and just wants to blow heads off? Some players will undoubtedly question their actions and why they accept murderous missions so easily and for those players the game becomes more than just killing everyone they meet.

Far Cry 2 is one of the rare blockbuster games that tries and succeeds in being more than just visceral action played out in fifteen-minute chunks. The game wishes to open a discussion with the player about the worlds created in games, the motivations of the characters and why players do what they do in these worlds. This is of course a largely subjective discussion that many will scoff at but if the player buys into the fiction and aesthetic they can start to question why they are in this conflict, what the conflict means to them and why every NPC seemingly knows more than they do. This leads to thinking about other games and how players plant themselves into a conflict they have no investment in and like a puppet are willing to complete objectives set by lifeless characters. The constant battles in the game almost seem to be a metaphor for the personal view of a man caught in a war. The player is eternally put upon and there is no respite from danger. Instead of trying to make the player feel like a powerful soldier, this game does away with that exaggerated fantasy and instead focuses on the plight of a character stuck in a foreign region helping a country that no one cares about. Far Cry 2 achieves a greater sense of the horror of war than most of the other war games out there.

The world of Far Cry 2 is not one where people talk things out. There is no reasoning or discussion, there is only shooting. Whilst initially annoying, this unthinking bloodlust in the enemies allows the combat to shine through. The gunplay is simply excellent. The guns have been modelled and designed to feel weighty and gratifying to use and, combined with a great variety of weapons to unlock, the combat is fast paced, exciting and unrelenting. The freedom of choice within battles makes the player assess and experiment within firefights and this rarely goes unrewarded. Along with the usual assortment of pistols, rifles and shotguns, the player also has access to mortars, grenade launchers and the rather excellent flamethrower. By selecting different loadouts the player can try all sorts of battlefield tactics from long-range sniping to stealthy raids and makeshift artillery barrages.

This variety of combat would all be for nothing if the AI and environment didn’t react accordingly. The enemies do a great job of moving and firing, making full use of the open nature of the battlefields. They will flank, flee, advance, use emplaced weapons and even go and find a vehicle to run the player over with. One of Far Cry 2’s selling features is its fire propagation system. This means that explosions and flame throwers can set fire to the vegetation in the game and that the fire will spread, taking out huge swathes of undergrowth and burning trees to a crisp. Sneaking up to an enemy camp and setting fire to it to drive the enemies to one area before running up a hill and using a grenade launcher to shell the fleeing bandits is a defining moment from the game and makes the player yearn for more situations like this in other games. Seeing a lone tree ablaze on a hill with the night sky behind it is a poignant and beautiful image. Catching glimpses of this visually stunning world during the chaos of combat gives odd moments of surprise or peace.

The game follows the recent trend of softening the blow of death and the use of the buddy characters creates some amazing moments. When the player dies having made friends with a fellow mercenary they will be rescued by their ally. As the player fades in and out of consciousness they catch glimpses of their buddy pulling them out of the firefight and dragging them to safety. This allows the player to pry a bullet out of their leg or reset their dislocated elbow before returning to the fight and working with their ally to clear the area. This eliminates the problem of losing progress in a long game and the situations created look amazing.

Unfortunately Far Cry 2 has the potential to come off as obnoxious and tedious during the first couple of hours. There are a number of design choices that are very likely to confound and enrage many players and these threaten to destroy the experience. If the player persists with the game though, they will find a treasure trove of inspired mechanics and a breathtaking world to explore; but for some players the endlessly respawning enemies, seemingly psychic sentries and weapons that wear out over time will ruin whatever atmosphere the game tries to create. The first few hours can be considered somewhat painful as vehicles break down extremely easily, forcing the player to disembark and fix them with their trusty tool kit. This is exacerbated by the way that early fights in the game play out in the same way every time due only a basic weapon selection being available. The player will find themselves driving towards a group of enemies, switching to the gunner seat of their truck, mowing down everything that moves, exiting the vehicle and fixing the truck before being able to carry on with their journey. Once the player has unlocked and purchased more exciting weaponry they will be able to approach these fights in new ways but until then the game has a gruelling tediousness about it. This is made worse again by the way that, despite killing every enemy in an encampment, the encampment will be refilled with enemies the next time it is encountered, even if that is only five minutes after the player has wiped it out.

The amount of work that has gone into Far Cry 2 borders on the insane and this is no more apparent than in the generous multiplayer offering. The game features a number of multiplayer modes which are all fairly standard but the real draw of adversarial play is the map editor. The map editor is a surprisingly powerful tool that allows players to use all sorts of assets from the game to make brand new maps that can be shared between players. Predictably there is a lot of garbage out there but using the efficient search functions makes it easy to find new and excellent maps from community members that have sunk a lot of time into the editor. A particularly great example is the D-Day map that is suitably huge and dramatic. Unfortunately though, Call of Duty, Halo and Gears still all rule the roost and the community isn’t as vibrant as it could be, which is a shame as the game is one of the better online shooters available.

Far Cry 2 is a game that thrives on the moments and experiences caused by its mechanics working in harmony and by making the player think about where they are and what they are doing. This is not to everyone’s tastes and it certainly hasn’t been pressured by focus group research in the same way other similar titles have. If the player can buy into the world and fiction they will have a thoroughly exciting time surviving through the twisting plot and explosive gun fights.