One of the biggest game I was looking forward to this winter was Far Cry 2. I enjoyed the first Far Cry and my strongest game style has always been the FPS genre. So how is the sequel?

Story: One of the biggest things I noticed first is that this isn’t a sequel. There is not mention of Jack Carver, no powers, no nothing from the first game. This really made me sad because I actually enjoyed the story from the first game and loved the powers and abilites. So my question is why is this Far Cry 2? Instead of a new IP? Well probably because they want to garner fans of the last game into this new game. 

As far as the actual story goes, you are in Africa trying to hunt the Jackal. You’re character has maleria (really? why?) and are put in a middle of a war between UFLL and APR. Then you do mission for each sides leading with eventually you trying to stop the Jackal. Honestly the maleria is just annoying, it has nothing to do with the story. It just makes you do side mission to get medicine and makes you care about people trying to get out of the country. I’ll get into the end a little bit later.

Gameplay: This is of course a FPS and that’s how I’m going to grade it on that. My biggest gripe was disengrating weapons. Guns that jam when you use them too much encouraging you to pick other weapons up. It really gets annoying when this happen 90% of the time when you are in a gunfight. If it didn’t happen all the time I would be alright with it. The other thing I want to mention is fire. Fire in this game is awesome. You can burn grass and trees, which is really the entire game. Fire is fun and the engine that controls the fire is really really awesome. I think this has to be one of the best engines I’ve ever seen.

Spoilers: Here come my biggest gripe and it involves the ending. Throught the game you are given buddies who help you when you get hurt. They also give you alternate routes of completing mission. Even during the story some of your buddies die. However at the end all of your buddies reappear (even one’s that are dead) and want to take your diamonds. No explanation at all, I mean WTF? How are these people alive? Then at the end when you confront the Jackal you work with him to leave the country. Then nothing happens, at all. You go either kill yourself or go to the border and then kill yourself (never see you actually do) 

+ Fire engine

- Disengrating weapons

+ Open-world gameplay

- Not enough vehicles to travel with & no fast-travel

+ Multiplayer & Map-editor

- Story & Story ending

Score: 87 (Or B+) Overall I liked this game. It did get really long. Multiplayer is the real charm here and it is really fun. Not to mention how awesome the Map-Editor is. I’d say rent this game if you love the FPS genre as this game shines but really try to ignore the story and enjoy the game and you’ll be alright.