The intro of the game perfectly describes what you’ll be doing for most of the game; sitting in a car for about 5 minutes, getting into a 1 minute gunfight, and then collapsing from bullets or malaria. The difference being that you don’t get shot on sight in the intro. If you enjoy driving 5-15 minutes to your destination just to get your mission and then 5-15 more minutes to go to the mission area like some kind of bad GTA clone, then maybe you can tolerate this game. And that was with the buses; without the buses, you’ll probably be taking 15-30 minutes just to get to your destination. But then again, there’s people who can actually choose to walk to their destinations, so maybe Ubisoft was aiming for that demographic. Oh, and everyone’s trying to kill you. There’s these annoying jeeps that patrol the roads and will go out of their way to shoot you on sight as well as respawning guard checkpoints which are there to waste more of your time unless you go around, but that’s usually not an option. If you get killed while traveling to your destination, you have to go all the way back to your last save point. And you can only save inside save houses scattered across the world, unless you’re playing on the PC, which lets you save anywhere (Good decision they made there).

There’s really not much of a point in creating an open-ended world and then putting mountains and trees everywhere to prevent you from going off the road most of the time and having 99% of the population shoot you on sight. Think of it as having a 6 star wanted level in GTA all the time and you can’t outrun the enemies. They gave you pretty much no choice at all in how to approach the story; think of Fallout 3′s original ending, and then apply it to the entire story. That’s about the amount of choice you’ll get. The game’s idea of “choosing how to complete the story” is “Have your buddy contact you on the cellphone just to tell you to take a 5-15 minute drive to a house somewhere just so he can tell you another way to complete your mission that has the exact same results on the story”. For some reason, your buddy can’t just tell you this over the phone. No, you have to go and drive all the way to his house so he can take 10 seconds to tell you how to complete the mission the alternate way. The story isn’t even good, and the missions are incredibly repetitive.

The edge of the map is a desert, so you can usually go there for a shortcut if the mission location is located near the edge. Unfortunately, most mission locations aren’t placed conveniently, so you’re going to have to take a long drive through the narrow dirt road just to get to your destination. Driving an extra 5 minutes because there’s a mountain in your way isn’t fun. This game would have benefited from many more bus stops. Having 5 bus stops on a 50 by 50 mile map just isn’t enough. Traveling by river would work if the river was actually closer to your mission objectives and it didn’t take you 5 minutes to find a land vehicle after you get off of your boat.

The actual combat isn’t bad, but it has a lot of annoying quirks. Your guns will deteriorate very fast (One of the guns deteriorates so fast that you can actually see it rusting with every shot) and end up jamming a lot unless you’re using an AK. Sniper rifles will easily get you through 99% of all your encounters, and are pretty much the only way to take out enemy snipers (Who are incredibly annoying because you need to find out where they are first). Stealth is pretty much de-functional in this game with the possible exception of the dart rifle, which has very limited ammunition. You can’t shoot while in a vehicle unless it’s a mounted machine gun, so if you’re driving one of those faster vehicles without a mounted machine gun and get attacked by a jeep, you have to get out of the vehicle and shoot them. Really annoying and usually causes you to take unnecessary damage. Enemies take a lot of hits to kill (Unless you’re using a sniper rifle or score a head shot), and automated weapons tend to be inaccurate even if you burst fire.

I could probably nitpick on a lot of other stuff like realism, but they don’t really affect the fun factor.

Several reviewers even admitted only playing 45 minutes or so before quitting the game because of this.

Don’t people like to learn things about a game anymore as they go along? Does EVERYTHING have to be dropped in your laps?

Map issue – drop the map, just follow the road signs! They’re color coded. If you are on a red mission, the road sign pointing you in the direction you need to go will be red. If you’re on a blue mission, the same thing. How tough is that? No map needed! (except on some rare occassions).

Driving long distances – go to a frickin’ bus depot (there are 5 on every map) and you will find sign boards there where you can click and a bus will deliver you to the quadrant on the map you need to be at in order to complete your mission. Cuts driving time WAY down as the bus gets you there within a few seconds. (Although game time does continue on, ie, night can turn to day if you;re going a long ways.)

I’m just amazed at all the reviews of this game with these two complaints over and over again. It’s obvious the people reviewing the game didn’t actually play it long enough to form an educated opinion. That’s like watching 10 minutes of a movie and then basing your review of it on that.

I Hyped Far Cry 2 on Everhype and gave it 78% which I think is fairly accurate.

http://www.everhype.com/hyper/thebitch?X=G401

I wouldn’t mind getting some opinions on it . If you get on there, rate me a 5 & request friendship.

The mapping tool is the easiest one I have ever tried to use. I made maps for EA Games Allied Assault and Spearhead and tried a couple of other sdk’s, and have even made a couple of small maps for FarCry2, but unfortunately I can’t find adequate tutorials on the tool and how to manipulate objects or to even remove them once they’re in the map. I would be looking for something that is printable with pictures if anybody knows where I might find them, thanks.

I was disappointed that you couldn’t get over the hills. Your objective is “just on the other side” but you had to traverse too much sometimes. luckily a new car or truck wasn’t “80″ miles away.

I though Africa, land of big animals and danger but nothing jumped out of the bushes to try and eat you. No alligators either. I could however shoot the animals. I also ran a few over by accident. Kinda broke my heart, lol.

I wonder why the camo suit wasn’t unlocked sooner in the game. I still don’t have it. Maybe it doesn’t exist….. along with some of the weapons. Not that more are needed. A sniper rifle, grenade launcher and the saw are all you need.

Haven’t played left for dead so I can’t compare the two. I have however started to play COD W@W and the game sucks in comparison. No freedom of movement, the weapons are a joke, sound problems, if you use an nvidia card you are ok but a 4870 has texture glitches around the water edges. It also got a little rough in a couple of places. Pop in a gtx260 and no problems what so ever. Crysis made me “upgrade”, and it was an upgrade. Blah, blah, blah, I better shut up for a while………….