Far Cry 2 (PS3)

As the late '80s poet Axl Rose once sagely said, "Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games."
10/24/2008 4:43 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 4

One night while driving my jeep across Far Cry 2's virtual veldt, I caught a glimpse of something just out of range of my headlights. It was a zebra, bounding through the tall yellow grass, fleeing.

I braked. The zebra galloped across my path, paused briefly, then vanished into the night.

I sat there for a moment with the jeep engine idling, staring at the spot where the zebra had just been. I'd seen wildlife during Far Cry 2's daylight hours -- the game has a fully articulated day-night cycle, complete with sunrises and sunsets -- but never before at night.

There was something about seeing that lone zebra after dark that gave me a chill; I felt a tangible sense of awe and mystery. I thought, There are things out there in the darkness that are moving around independently of me. At that point, the controller in my hand, the television in front of me, all of it slid away. These are the moments I live for -- when a game transcends its limitations, when it reveals an unexpected soulfulness, when it becomes, briefly, more than a game.

Fortunately, Far Cry 2 -- the Crytek-free follow-up to the 2004 original -- has plenty of moments like this. Fans of the original should know a couple of things up front: Gone is Jack Carver, the reluctantly feral protagonist of the original. Also gone: the lush tropical island setting.

And while the original Far Cry pushed the envelope when it came to nonlinear gameplay -- i.e., there were always two or three ways to resolve every situation -- the sequel takes that notion to its logical extreme by giving you a Grand Theft Auto III-like open world (50 square kilometers, to be exact) in which to wreak your first-person shooter mayhem.

At the game's start, you select an identity: the old guy, the young guy, the little white dude with the annoying face, etc. Don't fret too long over your decision; your choice has no bearing on gameplay whatsoever. After you've picked someone, you're given a passive, 10-minute-long Half-Life-esque jeep ride into the game's rural African landscape.

Your ultimate goal is to find and kill some guy named The Jackal. (I'm guessing his mother didn't name him that.) The Jackal is an arms trafficker who is supplying the local warring factions with weapons. Your job is to accept various missions from both factions, all in the name of eventually discovering the location of The Jackal and killing him, which will end the war.

Oh, and by the way, you have malaria -- which is mostly an annoyance. The screen goes all foggy every 15 minutes or so. Hitting the left trigger on the DualShock accesses your antimalarial prescription. Pop your pills and you're good for another 15 minutes. This only becomes a serious problem when you're in the middle of a firefight. Personally, I could have done without the malaria subplot, since it only serves to slow down a game that's already in danger of being overly long.

According to the game's manual, there are six different mission types to choose from: Story, Faction, Underground, Side-Quest, Convoy and Assassination. But, in my experience, 99 percent of the game's missions play out like this: 1. Go to this location; 2. Scout out said location; 3. Fight through waves of bad guys; 4. Destroy a specific target and/or assassinate someone; 5. Get new mission.