Far Cry 2 Hands-On Preview

We've been playing a stunning near-final Xbox 360 build over the weekend.

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By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, September 22, 2008

Having done the dirty on Mercenaries 2: World in Flames a couple of weeks back, we weren't exactly stoked for another shooter set in a developing nation. EA Pandemic's flawed exercise in swilling neat testosterone was an uncomfortable reminder of how many games have adopted war-torn contemporary settings for entertainment purposes. From the tattered bunkers of Battlefield: Bad Company through the original Far Cry to innumerable Tom Clancy games, it seems there's no better place to shoot virtual shit up than the alleyways, plains and jungles of nations stricken by violence in reality.

While typical of this trend, Ubisoft Montreal's Far Cry 2 manages to be a little more restrained about it than Mercenaries 2. Our 360 build begins not with a bang, but a bumpy first person taxi ride through the savannas of an unnamed African region. Your driver leans out to exchange greetings with columns of bedraggled refugees, and at one point is obliged to halt to let some cattle clear the road. There's a definite idealized quality to your surroundings, not to mention a touch of Hollywood flair to the dialogue, but on the whole the depiction is impressively low key.

Going into more details on the plot would make Uncle Ubisoft grumpy, but suffice to say you're kicked out into Far Cry 2's 50 square kilometres of streaming terrain with rather less in the way of genetically modified super powers or sci-fi trinkets than was the case in the original game. On the contrary, you've managed to contract malaria somewhere along the line and must continually seek medication to avoid collapse. The effects of the disease are undoubtedly quite "gamey" - while your health and stamina is determined by a "sickness level" accessible via the pause menu, you still black out at scripted intervals, or whenever you cut against the narrative grain - but it's otherwise a provocative digression from the usual near-invulnerable protagonist template.

Elsewhere, Far Cry 2 reprises the naturalistic directorial techniques first popularised by the Half Life series and buffed to a fine sheen by the likes of Condemned. Open a door and you'll see your hand turning the handle; break into a sprint by clicking left stick and the view will roll and bounce with your momentum. When you heal up on the verge of death, your character will dig rounds out of parts of his anatomy with a pair of pliers - not the most kiddie-friendly of sights. When one of your AI "buddies" arrives to save your arse from termination, you'll see them pull you to your feet and haul you out of the fire zone. We're a long, long way from the floating perspectives of Unreal Tournament and Quake.

Perhaps most strikingly (and, we suspect, controversially), the developer has folded abstract elements into the real time action: hit Back and your character will holster his weapon and flip out a paper map plus handy GPS unit. As in EA's upcoming horror romp Dead Space, you'll be vulnerable to assault while thus preoccupied, which may deter those who like their freeform mayhem a little more regimented. Less forgivably, the map also takes up an annoyingly large proportion of screen space. When driving, you can tilt right stick to look down at the map in your lap.

Control-wise we're looking at the trusty two stick movement-aiming formula which has served almost every FPS for the past few years. The D-pad directions let you flick between melee, primary, secondary and special weapons (you can carry one of each type at once), while left trigger zooms in and right trigger shoots. There are thirty weapons on offer, most of them known real-world quantities like rocket launchers, shotguns and sniper rifles. Firearms degrade over time and can jam or even explode with heavy use, which can be a bit of a pisser when you're looking down the business end of an AK47.

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