Far Cry 2 was both a disappointment and a great success for me. There are parts that I loved, and overall was worth my money, but I expected more; something that would exceed HL2, Crysis, and even the original Far Cry. This it did not do for me. A myriad of downfalls marred what could have been one of the greatest games that I ever played; this game had such incredible potential.

It amazes me how short the load times are for how huge this game is. As I stated earlier, my PC is nothing special, but I still manage to load the game in a measly 15-20 seconds. THE ENTIRE GAME!!! All thirty whatever sq. km. of in game land loads in one go; you won't have a single mid-game load screen.

The visual eye candy can only be described as awe inspiring. Even on my modest PC (core 2 duo 2.8ghz, an agp geforce 7600gs (yes I still have an AGP GPU), and 2gb of ddr2) running on all low settings with the exception of upping a few of the textures, this game was beautiful and ran at a decent 25 fps. Trees and grass that sway in the wind, bend when I walk/drive over it, and ripple with fear at a grenades shockwave. Of course, if I decided that I didn't care for this beauty anymore, I could simply reduce it to a charred husk with a molotov placed upwind. Where the foliage dissapointed me, was that it wasn't completely destructable. I couldn't get all Predator on it and mow it down in a hail of gunfire, only small saplings and a few small limbs would break off. As for the fire, while it was pretty, fun, and even tactically useful, it seemed to magically burn itself out after spreading 50-100 feet. It was not possible to burn down an entire village or even a plains. The water's surface is as all games seem to be nowadays, even better than before (although I really don't see how they can really make it much better, it's damned near photo-realistic right now). Unfortunately, once you dive under that pretty surface, you are greeted by an opaque yellow green color that doesn't dissapate until you are within a foot of either the surface or the bottom.

The map itself is a thoughtfully laid out and very diverse representation of Africa in general. Dense jungle, steaming marshes, savanah, open desert, rugged mountains --- it's all here, and all incredibly well crafted. The map centers around a main city, with smaller towns, farms, and other establishments scattered across the map. All of this is connected through a maze of winding roads and rivers. Unfortunately, that's where my praise ends. The generic roadside guard posts are far too common of an occurance and very few of them can be driven around due to impassable mountain bottlenecks. And speaking of mountains, that brings up another part of the game in which I was GREATLY disappointed: all the mountains, and even most of the small rock outcroppings are purely to channel you along a specific route. None of them can be climbed unless a path was specifically made taking you up, and even then, it would not take you anyplace of any strategic use. So don't count on being able to reach that lovely sniper spot you see just a little ways up that mountain. Of course, on the rare occasion that you do manage to make your way up a mountainside towards that sniper spot, you will be stopped dead in your tracks by everyone's favorite game feature: the invisible wall.

The AI in Far Cry 2 was touted as being "superb" and "the best yet" and all that other crap that devs parade around in front of us; this is not the case. That's not to say that the AI is horrible, teamwork, use of cover, and flanking tactics as well as grenade and rocket placement will keep you on your toes, and for all you Rambo's out there --- good luck. Unfortunately, the AI throughout the game suffers from Clinical Eagle Eye Syndrome. There is no hiding from these guys once you let the first shot loose from your Druganov, no matter how far away or how much cover you have. This is another area in which I was very disappointed. In Crysis, if you sniped someone from across the map, the enemy would freak. They would dive for cover, scatter like little children, or even hop on a .50 cal and start spraying wildly into the jungle, why couldn't they do that here? I don't know.

As far as the story is concerned, I have not yet finished the game. I am not even close. I expect to spend upwards of 40 hours in Far Cry 2, mostly because I like to go through and do every mission, unlock every safe house, and collect every diamond. I expect that one could finish the storyline in as few as 10-20 hours if they moved quickly and only did the main story. The missions are mostly forgettable and even a bit generic at times, although I do them anyways because there's something about having an objective for me that makes it that much better. Every now and then a mission has stood out for me, but I am nowhere near done with the game, so I shall reserve judgement for later.

Overall I would give Far Cry 2 an 8/10