by Tom Chick
If you think shooters are a dime a dozen, well...let's just say you need to quit slumming it in the bottom-rung bargain bins. But you would be correct that many shooters blend in with each other. They get lost in a swirl of flashy graphics, unimaginative settings, and same-old-same-old gameplay. So when something truly different like Far Cry 2 comes along, you can't be blamed for not knowing any better. But you'll have no excuse after reading these five reasons Ubisoft's radical new shooter set in Africa is a far cry from the average shooter.
1) Where do you want to go today?
Some shooters have attempted wide open maps. The original Far Cry, for instance, and Crysis. But those games still moved you map by map through a very linear storyline. They were like any corridor shooter, but with exceptionally wide corridors. Far Cry 2, however, has a wide-open world. You can move around through the entire game world, taking on various missions in any order, roaming freely, trying to follow the storyline, or just exploring. Far Cry 2 is to shooters what Grand Theft Auto is to driving games.
2) Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map
You probably don't want to mess with a map editor. Who can blame you? They're complicated and messy and hard to learn. But you haven't seen the map editor in Far Cry 2 yet. It's simplicity itself, letting you build your own maps quickly and easily, messing with them as meticulously as you like or just splashing them out and playing them. If you can pick up a basic paint program, you can make a custom map in Far Cry 2. And believe it or not, that goes for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions just as much as the PC version.
3) Fire in the disco, fire in the Taco Bell, fire in Africa
Everyone does exploding barrels. But no one follows through on what happens when a barrel explodes and there's flammable stuff nearby. That's not the case in Far Cry 2, which is often set around plenty of dry brush and trees. As long as it's not raining (did we mention the dynamic weather?), these will catch fire, and the fire will spread, and you will definitely not want to be standing where it spreads. And just to make sure that there's plenty of opportunity to turn up the heat, there are lots of propane tanks and Molotov cocktails in this version of Africa.
4) VIP treatment
An impressive new multiplayer mode called Uprising isn't quite like anything you've played before. Each team randomly has one player designated as the VIP. There are capture points around the map, but only the VIP can capture them. So a team has to guard its VIP, while making sure he puts himself in harm's way to capture points. The only way to decisively win a match is by taking control of all the capture points and then hunting down the enemy VIP. Who, incidentally, will need to head to one of the capture points, so it's not like he can just hide somewhere.
5) The inanity of inanimate objects
Don't you hate it when you're in a heated firefight and your gun jams? Of course you don't, because it never happens in games. Well that's about to change in Far Cry 2. The more you use a gun, the less trustworthy it will become. The gun itself will start to look battered and worn out. Eventually, it might jam or misfire. To clear it, whack repeatedly on the reload button and hope that whatever or whoever you were trying to shoot hasn't killed you. This lead to some dramatic tension, it'll encourage you to use a variety of guns, and it might even save your bacon when the jam happens to the other guy.
Far Cry 2 Image Gallery
Posted: 9 Oct 2008
