In Far Cry 2's chaotic world of mercenaries, gunrunners, and armed
militias, you'll find yourself dropped into a dizzying web of shady
clients and paper-thin alliances. All manner of names and faces are
introduced during the course of the storyline, but the real star isn't
anyone brandishing a smuggled weapon in search of blood diamonds; it's
the daunting and awe-inspiring 50-square kilometers of African
landscape that make up the game's open-world setting. Aside from
providing the opportunity to soak up an amazing sunset, Far Cry 2's
free-roaming terrain brilliantly harmonizes with the first-person
combat. The diverse landscape and myriad environmental factors work
alongside a wide assortment of weaponry to give you tremendous freedom
to approach each mission. Combined with solid multiplayer, Far Cry 2's
sheer breadth of action provides you with plenty of reason to stay lost
in the African wilderness despite an underwhelming plot and the
occasional sense of tedium in navigating from one location to another
on the gargantuan map.
Far Cry 2 is quite the looker.Far Cry 2's story is filled with potential. You're a mercenary
working for a client who's sent you to an unnamed African nation
engulfed in civil war, and your job is to take out a notorious arms
dealer known as "The Jackal." He quickly proves to be an elusive
figure, so you'll need to begin working for various warring factions
that the Jackal has armed so you can trace the supply line back to your
target. The two primary organizations at the heart of all this
bloodshed are the militaristic UFLL and the revolutionary APR. You'll
spend the bulk of the story working for these two groups, getting to
know their power structures, and taking on all of the violent tasks
they throw your way. Complicating things is the fact that your
character has malaria, which means you'll need to occasionally play
nice with the more ragtag Underground, the only group with the medical
connections necessary to keep your potentially life-threatening
symptoms at bay. Each story mission can be played in multiple ways. There are 12
potential buddies randomly scattered throughout the storyline who you
can befriend (nine of whom are available to choose as your silent
protagonist), and they're often keen to tack on their own interests to
the quests handed out by the UFLL and APR. Instead of just taking out a
target, you have the option to earn extra reputation points by working
alongside your buddy to first squeeze any remaining assets from the
soon-to-be-deceased. This also earns you the ability to increase your
level of companionship with that buddy. It's a neat reward, but it
doesn't shed much light on their backgrounds. But that's par for the
course; the main story is delivered in such a rushed, quick-and-dirty
way that you never feel very involved in the game's overarching
conflicts. The plot is less
Blood Diamondthan it is early Grand Theft Auto, a long roster of changing faces that
scroll by far too quickly to capitalize on the politically charged
setting. Although disappointing for a single-player campaign that could easily
drain more than 30 hours of your time, any shortcomings in the plot are
mostly forgivable thanks to Far Cry 2's overall structure. The game is
organized in a way that provides a daunting amount of freedom to
explore, earn currency, and wreak havoc on the game's landscape and its
denizens. It's all laid out in a manner typical of sandbox action
games. Pulling out your map reveals a collection of icons that signify
available missions and points of interest that you can meander toward
at your own leisure. Among these are dozens of side missions that you
can take on, with various forms of rewards. Delivering transit papers
to trapped refugees earns you malaria medication, destroying rival
convoys for gun merchants unlocks new weapons for purchase, and
performing assassinations for mysterious voices at the other end of
your cell phone rewards you with diamonds. You can also rough up
militias stationed in small camps and turn their dwellings into your
own safe houses. The side missions can feel a bit repetitive when
played through in rapid succession, but they offer a great change of
tempo when sprinkled throughout the main narrative. But what's most
clever is how their differing rewards intermingle so wonderfully with
your needs in progressing through the story: Malaria pills keep your HP
and stamina up, diamonds buy you new weapons and ability upgrades, and
safe houses provide temporary shelter to stock up and save your game.
With so much ground to cover, you'll be spending a lot of time driving, boating, running, and swimming.The freedom of choice that goes with selecting which mission you want
to perform carries over to how you execute them, and that's where Far
Cry 2 really shines. There are a variety of factors that affect the way
you approach each mission, from the number of people you need to kill,
to the landscape, to the weather and time of day. If your job is to
take out a key figure hidden deep within a militia camp in the jungle,
you'll do well to take a nap at your safe house until nightfall and
silently stalk your prey under the cover of darkness. If it's a windy
day and you need to take out a bandit outpost in the dry plains, you
can start a fire from far away with a flare gun and let the breeze and
arid conditions collude to spread the flames toward their camp,
finishing off the survivors with a sniper rifle. Need to clear out a
bunch of scattered guards? Why not shoot an oil drum near an ammo
stockpile and watch as the bullets erupt in every direction like deadly
pieces of popcorn? Of course, you can also get up close and personal
with pistols and machine guns, but the moments in which elaborately
planned assaults succeed are some of the most gratifying points in the
game. The whole process of staging an attack only becomes more
intricate and rewarding as you slowly upgrade your safe house into a
full-blown armory and unlock new weapon and vehicle abilities--all done
through the gun shops.
The sheer variety of weapons plays a big role in your ability to craft
a personalized approach to each mission. For every situation, there's a
weapon ideally suited to delivering mercenary justice. From the AK-47
to the Molotov cocktail and the remote-detonated improvised explosive
device, they all feel like weapons that could easily be plucked from
the civil wars of Africa. Furthermore, your weapons will cycle through
an authentic level of wear and tear, particularly those picked up from
ragtag militiamen; secondhand weapons will show dirt, frequently jam,
and eventually break, which means that it's best to buy them from the
shop. All of the above makes for a uniquely desperate and makeshift
style of combat compared to other first-person shooters.
Fire is often your best friend, but not when it's raining or a mission takes you to a dense jungle.If there's one drawback to the combat, it's that it tends to be a
little too forgiving after the first few hours of the game. Your health
is divided into several individually regenerative bars like Resistance:
Fall of Man, but once it gets low, you can inject yourself with a
syrette for added health (though if it's really low, you'll first need
to perform a slick self-heal such as yanking bullet shells out of your
leg or snapping a broken arm back into place). You can eventually
upgrade the amount of ammo and health you have to further tip the odds
in your favor, and even have a buddy rescue you whenever you die
(though you need to keep an eye on him because he can be permanently
killed in a scuffle). Most of the challenge arrives when you're looking
at your map in search of the next mission and then get surprised by a
bunch of roadside bandits while you're driving one of the game's
numerous run-down SUVs or river boats (which exist alongside
hang-gliders, trucks, licensed Jeeps, and dune buggies as the types of
vehicles you can operate). However, there are still very few moments
when you don't feel like an everyman caught in a nasty situation, and
that sort of improvised payback is what makes Far Cry 2's combat so
engrossing. Visually, Far Cry 2 is a stunner. Though not as technically amazing as
the jungles of Crysis, Far Cry 2's depiction of the sprawling African
wilderness makes up for it with environmental diversity and
intimidating scale. Several landscapes are represented here: dense
forests, rolling plains, arid deserts, craggy badlands, and even
shantytowns and hut villages. You'll see trees swaying, the charred
remains of a brush fire, and several forms of wildlife running around.
It all looks incredible in the transitional period of the day-night
cycle when the sun is falling or rising through the horizon and
everything is cast in a warm glow. The game also sounds great, with
tribal music accompanying you at all times, from a relaxing ambience in
calm situations to a rapidly escalating roar of drums in battle. The
voice acting during mission briefings feels strangely hurried (as if
it's some trick to squeeze more dialogue onto the disc), but that's
largely offset by excellent enemy banter during combat. Adding to Far Cry 2's value is the 16-person online multiplayer. The
gameplay modes on display are nothing terribly special (you'll see
variations of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and
Territories), but the fighting captures a lot of the appeal of
single-player, including vehicles, fire-based weaponry, and a great
sense of scale in each map. But what sets the multiplayer apart is that
you don't need to settle for the included maps; each version of the
game comes with a deep but intuitive map editor capable of letting you
create everything from dense urban locales to sprawling forests. And
downloading new maps is simply a matter of seeking out featured
selections or hitting "download" when a Quick Match search lets you
know that you don't have that one yet. Such uninspired gameplay modes
are certainly a letdown, but the map editor has great potential to
inject loads of lasting appeal into Far Cry 2's online component.
The map editor is easy to use, but capable of making great maps.Although the original Far Cry was available only on the PC for the
first year and a half of its existence, Far Cry 2 will see an expanded
audience with the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions all
available out of the gate. However, its roots are clearly on display
when taking in the differences between the three platforms. Far Cry 2
looks best running on a PC, with clearer textures, better foliage, and
less pop-in. The console versions also suffer from the occasional
loading hitch when you're driving into a highly populated city. Another
key difference is that the PC version lets you save anywhere you want,
whereas the 360 and PS3 games only let you use predefined save points.
However, the latter difference isn't quite as lopsided as the graphical
disparity; saving anywhere gives you more room for experimentation in
approaching your missions, but the console versions provide a more
clearly defined sense of consequence that adds extra tension to the
combat. You'll definitely want to go with the PC version if you've got
a system capable of approaching the hardware requirements, but the
differences aren't so great that you won't have a blast with either
console version (which are virtually indistinguishable from one
another). Overall, Far Cry 2 is a game in which you can quite literally get lost
for hours at a time. But that feeling of exploration is precisely what
makes the game so much fun; your creativity never feels stifled when
approaching a mission, and the game's overall structure of side tasks,
friends, rewards, and upgrades is a diverse ecosystem rivaling the
landscape itself. No matter whether you're a PC fan whose played
through the similarly structured Crysis or a console owner new to the
world of open-ended first-person shooters, you won't be disappointed by
Far Cry 2.
Joi Iul 21, 2011 4:08 pm Scris de sabin
Subiect: UBISOFT'S FAR CRY 2 
