by Timothy Hoarwood

Created on: August 29, 2009

Far Cry 2 is a big-budget first person shooter from Ubisoft. It offers a large open world in an unconventional setting, with plenty of tasks to keep the player's interest? So, does it actually live up to the enormous hype generated by Ubisoft's impressive publicity campaign?

Firstly, a potential buyer should know that this is entirely unrelated to the original Far Cry. There is absolutely no resemblance between the two, save for the fact that they both involve shooting inordinate numbers of people in large and open maps. There are no residual game mechanics from the first Far Cry - this title could have been named something else entirely. The name was evidently retained for recognition purposes.

With that out of the way, on to the game itself. Far Cry 2's plot centres around a conflict in an anonymous African country between two rival factions. You play a mercenary of your choice,of which there are about 9, with the eventual objective of assassinating the Jackal, an arms dealer fueling the conflict. Sadly, far from presenting different and exciting angles on the plot, each character is reacted to in identical ways by the game characters and their arms are all you ever see of them in normal gameplay. In fact, the plot of Far Cry 2 is rather unengaging, with an exciting premise totally wasted on generally mediocre voice actors delivering dull lines.

Graphically, however, the game is rather pleasing. It uses Ubisoft's new Dunia Engine. It effectively renders huge environments, full with lush vegetation. Lighting is also a strong point, with every object casting a shadow on it's surroundings, leading to visually stunning vistas with trees, grass and their shadows swaying in the wind. Character models are perfectly serviceable, if somewhat repetitive. However, the special effects are excellent, especially the fire effect (more on fire later). Sound is also of a high quality, with crisp audio with particularly good environmental effects, such as the rustling of wind in trees and similar noises.

The gameplay itself centres around various missions you can pick up from different locations. For example, a faction leader may want someone assassinated, a weapons merchant may want an competing merchants convoy destroyed. However, these missions are highly repetitive in nature - the boil down to 'go here, kill stuff, destroy/use/pick up an object. Whilst the faction missions tie into the overall story, they are just as uninspired as their normal counterparts. The reason

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