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FarCry 2
FarCry 2
Released n/a
Details
Far Cry 2 is a first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. Crytek, developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few recognizable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a fictional modern-day Central African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate "The Jackal," a notorious arms dealer.

However, it should be noted that players have reported the game suffers from serious technical problems that greatly hamper both playability and progression which, to date, have yet to be addressed.



Gameplay
Gameplay is open-ended, with the player being able to ally with one or multiple factions and mercenaries and to progress through the game world and the missions as they see fit, resulting in a sandbox style of gameplay that allows the story to progress at the speed and in the order the player chooses. The player can choose from a wide range of vehicles to make his way to the target, accommodating play styles ranging from head-on assaults to stealthy infiltrations. Instead of using individual maps, the game takes place in a sprawling African landscape, with terrain ranging from savannah to jungle. The gameplay area is 50km2 (19.3 sq miles).

The player's actions may also have a lasting effect because the character may interact with the environment: for example, one of the missions shown by the developers had the player sabotage a pipeline owned by one of the factions that is pumping fresh water from the lake to a neighboring country, exchanging it for arms and munition. After the player destroys it, part of the surrounding area becomes flooded, including a mine where another mission may take place.

Various factions and vehicles are featured; enemies include human mercenaries, but sci-fi creatures such as the Trigens from Far Cry are not featured. Furthermore, the player's feral abilities introduced in Far Cry Instincts and its expansions do not return in Far Cry 2. There is also a dynamic weather system that has a day-night cycle and different weather conditions such as storms and strong winds. The time of day also affects the behavior of AI, in terms of enemy alertness and aggressiveness; for example, an enemy might have a slightly heightened awareness at night, but be unable to see the player in hiding, while during the hot part of the day the enemies might be sitting in the shade in groups but easily spot the player from a distance. One minute real-time is equivalent to five minutes in-game.[citation needed]



Weapons
The player also has access to a large arsenal of real world weapons, including assault rifles, sniper rifles, RPGs and light machine guns, and three weapons can be carried at any one time. All weapons in game are "mirrored", with ejection ports on left side. A detailed list of weapons in the game can be found here. A major gameplay feature is that these weapons degrade over time. Weapons become dirty and prone to jamming and eventually become completely unusable. The player can purchase weapons at various gun shops, which provide an unlimited supply of the weapon once it is purchased, along with manuals to upgrade weapon reliability and accuracy. More weapons can be unlocked at the gun shop by completing missions involving the destruction of competitor's arms convoys for the gun shop owner.



Realism
The game has realistic features such as the previously-mentioned weapon degradation and the dynamic weather system. Also, the player needs to hold a physical map and use a handheld (presumably GPS) navigation system to get around, but they are automatically updated as the player travels through the environment. The player is able to tag certain objects and locations such as cars, sniper towers, ammo pickups and buildings, so that they are able to monitor them on their map. When nearing death, the player's character must perform a brief first aid on himself; for example, the player must dig bullets out of the body when shot and pat himself down when on fire. Vehicle damage is handled similarly, requiring the player to perform a short repair animation. The player also must deal with malaria. Every 30 to 40 minutes in real time, the player must take a pill in order to combat the effects of the illness. When the player runs out of medicine, he or she will have to do a simple mission in order to get more. The player's reputation comes into play as the more and more notorious the player becomes, the harder it will be to obtain the medication.

Several species of African wildlife can be encountered in the game, and are able to distract the enemy as well as make them aware of the players' presence. All the large animals in the game are grazing herbivores, such as zebras, wildebeest, gazelle, buffalo, impala, and gemsbok. It is believed, however, that carnivorous animals such as Cheetahs (in the savannahs), Leopards (in the jungles), and Lions (on the savannahs and plains) will be added to the game Far Cry 2 in an upcoming patch.[citation needed]

However, some reviewers thought that the focus on immersion has sometimes gone too far (to the point that the game became to be annoying at times), and was sometimes killed by bad game-design choices and game glitches (some inconsistent textures and generic character models, magic map, instant spawning of enemies at check points, etc, the diamond caches, the malaria trick overused in the game, vehicles and firearms jamming, etc...).



Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Far Cry 2 attempts to include the dynamic elements of the singleplayer game (such as fire propagation) and to provide as accessible gameplay as possible so that it is available to all skill levels and so that players have specific gameplay aspects to keep in mind when designing their own maps in the map editor. It also includes a vast number of vehicles.

Online matches can be held for a maximum of 16 players, but there is no split-screen multiplayer available. Four modes are available with the shipping of the game, consisting of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond (a slight variation of the standard Capture the Flag), and Uprising. The Uprising mode provides a twist on a node-capture match by including a captain for each team. Only captains can capture the designated points across the map, and a team must assassinate the enemy captain after capturing all the points to win the round.

Multiplayer gameplay is class based, with six classes available. The Commando is the standard grunt; the Sharpshooter specializes in long range; the Guerrilla excels in close combat and ambush; the Rebel uses explosives and fire; the Gunner provides heavy firepower; and the Saboteur uses stealth and silenced weapons. Each class can choose an appropriate primary weapon and a side arm, as well as explosives such as frag grenades or Molotov cocktails. Players are able to unlock more powerful weapons within each class by spending up to three "blood diamonds" on a class; the diamonds are earned through the experience points from killing other players and completing objectives. Potential upgrades for individual weapons within a class include operation manuals, maintenance manuals, and bandoliers.

The Multiplayer lets you gain ranks through killing enemy players, capturing control points, and capturing diamonds. You could go from Rank 1 - 30.



Setting
Far Cry 2 abandons the science fiction aspects of its predecessor in favor of a more realistic setting. The game takes place in late 2008 in a small, fictional, failed Central African state, never named, currently embroiled in a civil war. The government has recently collapsed, leaving two factions vying for control. At war are the United Front for Liberation and Labour (UFLL, led by Addi Mbantuwe, a former opposition leader) and the Alliance for Popular Resistance (APR, led by Oliver Tambossa, Chief of Staff for the former government). Both factions have claimed to have the people's interests at heart, but both have shown ruthlessness, warmongering, greed, and a general disregard for the well-being of the people. Both sides have hired many foreign mercenaries to bolster their strength over the course of the conflict. The recent exhaustion of the nation's diamond mines has thrown the nation into further turmoil, leaving many foreign mercenaries without payment and no way out.

The goal of the player's character is to find and assassinate the Jackal, an arms-dealer who has been selling weapons to both sides of the conflict. The player must accomplish this goal by whatever means necessary, even if he has to reach the level of immorality employed by the warring factions and the Jackal himself.

The Dunia Engine allows incredibly complex sequences and runevents. The game also features a real time day and night cycle, as well as tree and vegetation regeneration. Also included is fire propagation; the ability of fire to spread and eventually cause large brush fires. The behavior of fire is dependent on factors such as wind speed, wind direction, whether or not it is raining and vegetation type.



Characters
The protagonist of previous Far Cry games, Jack Carver, is not featured in this game. When Ubisoft interviewed players about the original Far Cry in their research for this game, the interviewees did not find the character very memorable or likable. As a result, in the sequel the player chooses from nine different characters to play, each with a unique look and back story.[23] All of the playable characters are different types of mercenaries. The playable characters the player does not choose to play become non-player characters who are friends of the player's character and who can be found around the in-game nation.[10] These friends are called Buddies and they can be used to complete some missions; for instance, bringing a container of defoliant to one Buddy who has access to a plane will allow her to deprive the enemy of cover when the player assaults a plantation. In addition, when a player and a Buddy have a good enough relationship, the Buddy will come to the player's aid, to revive him when downed and to help fight off the remaining enemies. Similarly, the player may be called upon to aid wounded Buddies, and may have to euthanize them if they are unable to provide adequate first aid.




Plot
Act I
The player's character lands in the northern territory of Leboa-Sako and is introduced to the harsh reality of life in the country. On the way to the town of Pala in a cab, the player character begins to suffer from the effects of malaria and passes out. He awakes inside the hotel and finds the Jackal standing over him. With the player incapacitated by illness, the Jackal briefly offers some insight into his philosophy, quoting from Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil about the will to power. He threatens to kill the player character, but ultimately chooses to spare his life and leaves without his weapons.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire in Pala has collapsed and the UFLL and APR are engaged in open fighting. The player either passes out with malaria after managing to escape or is severely wounded before he can escape. The player is revived in the camp of one of the faction lieutenants in the area. In return for saving the player's life, the lieutenant orders the player to conduct basic errands. The player meets a journalist named Reuben Oluwagembi, who is writing a book about the conflict and the Jackal's part in it. He requests that the player find the tapes of his interview with the Jackal, scattered over the region. Once the player has acquired some malaria medicine from a priest who is helping civilians escape the violence, the player is given the freedom to choose their next mission. In addition to the hunt for the Jackal, the player can provide the Underground with stamped travel documents for refugees in exchange for anti-malarial drugs, ambush convoys of weapon shipments in order to gain access to a greater variety of weapons and equipment from arms dealers, and assassinate targets acquired by intercepting signals from various cell-phone towers in the area.

The player is forced to work with both the UFLL and the APR in Leboa-Sako, each using the player as a deniable agent in order to avoid a full-scale war. After many successful missions, a faction captain contracts the player to assassinate the other faction's captain. Once the assassination is complete, however, the player is betrayed and ambushed by the contractor and his troops. The player escapes, but in the chaos, he is forced to choose either to defend the priest and the civilians under his care, or to aid fellow mercenaries. The player's character eventually falls in combat, and awakes in the back of a truck filled with bodies. He escapes into the desert and collapses in the following sandstorm. The Jackal appears and takes the unconscious player to safety, but is then forced to flee when retreating troops of the other faction, now without a captain, arrive. A lieutenant from this faction offers the player a chance to redeem himself by assassinating the faction captain who betrayed the player. The player assassinates the target at a troop rally and escapes south, to the province of Bowa-Seko.



Act 2
In Bowa-Seko, the player and a Buddy follows the lieutenant's orders to destabilize the area and reignite the conflict by conducting a false flag operation in Port Selao. Following this, both factions are now at war in the new province as well, opening up a variety of work from both sides. Eventually, the player is hired by the one of the leaders, either Oliver Tambossa or Addi Mbantuwe, to deliver diamonds to the opposite faction, for a peace settlement between the factions. When the player arrives at the location, however, he finds the area devastated and the faction leader dead. The Jackal appears and explains that he wants the conflict to continue, since the warlords want peace only to conduct their crimes outside the world's attention. He then seizes the diamonds and knocks the player character unconscious.



Act 3
The player awakes imprisoned in an old slave outpost, and discovers that he has been used as a scapegoat, blamed for murdering a faction leader and disrupting the peace settlement. The player escapes and continues his search for the Jackal. In the process, he performs a series of missions, consisting of assassinating Mr. Greaves and Hector Voorhes, the new warlords of the APR and UFLL respectively. However, the player can choose to kill his contractors instead after meeting with Greaves and Voorhes. Reuben then calls the player for help, fearing that he and some other journalists are either going to get deported or shot at the airfield. The player fights off the militia and rescues the journalists.

With Reuben's help, the player finally tracks down and meets with the Jackal, who reveals his intentions to help the civilian population escape the war-torn country. Although he must eventually kill the Jackal, the player character agrees to help. The Jackal's plan is for the player to assassinate the two remaining faction leaders and take a case of diamonds to bribe the border guards. After finding the diamonds, however, the player must fight his fellow mercenaries and friends, as they want the diamonds for themselves to escape the country.

With both faction leaders dead and the diamonds in hand, the player meets the Jackal at a hut near the border (named 'The Heart of Darkness'). The Jackal plans to dynamite the valley leading to the border, in order to prevent the militia from following the evacuating civilians. However, the detonating cord has malfunctioned, and the explosives must be short-circuited with a car battery at the site, leading to the detonator's certain death. The Jackal offers the player a choice; he can detonate the explosives, or take the diamonds, either way ensuring the civilians' escape, and shoot himself upon leaving the country. The game ends with Reuben Oluwagembi witnessing the explosion, then turning to take a picture of the massed crowd of refugees crossing the border. One of the border guards is seen holding the case of diamonds.

The Aftermath

The APR and UFLL warlords have attempted to end hostilities and establish a government but the violence continues. Reuben's story was ignored by the international press, and he is supposedly publishing it on his personal blog. The civilian population largely escaped, and NGOs credited the low casualty rate to the work of the country's Underground. The Jackal has since disappeared, and world governments insist that he died in the conflict, although no body has ever been found. In addition, the player's exact fate remains unknown - for instance, if the player chose to take the diamond case, it is not shown whether he honored his agreement with the Jackal to shoot himself.