It’s time to look at Far Cry 2 out on next-gen consoles and PC. I loved the first game on the PC, not so much on the 360. Now it moves from the desert island jungle to the plains of Africa. Hopefully, Ubisoft will bring us a game with even more open-ended gameplay where you could choose how to reach your mission objectives on the open island.
This time it’s developed by Ubisoft Montreal using a brand new engine and not Crytek whose engine was also very good and used on the recent PC title Crysis.
They’re aiming for a very open-ended game here with a narrative which plays out according to what you do, similar to Western RPGs. This time there’s also no special abilities like being able to rip someone apart like a knife through the proverbial butter. This time it’s all about guns, wits and I guess a little bit of luck. They’re also aiming to make the game incredibly immersive. No more map screens, when you want to survey the current square Km you’re in out of the 100 square km in the game, you actually hold a map out in front of you. Same goes for getting into vehicles, healing yourself or patting out burning clothes. All is done through your own eyes to keep you firmly inside the main character’s big meaty head.
This is a proper sandbox world. You can even set fire to long grass which will be harder to do if it’s just finished raining, destroy buildings, ride vehicles and get other NPCs they’re calling ‘buddies’ on your side. To help you complete your objectives they can cause distractions and set up road blocks. Whether they’ll let you use them as a human shield is yet to be seen – spoilsports!
Even though it seems to be losing its Sci-fi roots, it does sound like lots of fun being given the freedom to go nuts in the African plains. You can get your hands on it later in the year.
