Far Cry 2 [PC]

"You start the game dropped off in a fictitious African Country with the mission of killing "the jackal" an arms dealer that has been supplying weapons to both sides of a bloody civil war. Your employer or motives are not made known only that he is your target. You're being driven to a hotel by a taxi, you spend a good five to seven minutes listening to him tell you about the country and what you're heading into, it's all rather misleading of the game you're about to jump into. As soon as you reach the hotel you come down with malaria, a horrible ploy that the developers decided to use and possibly one of the more annoying things you'll have to deal with throughout the game. While sick in your bed with malaria a street fight breaks out and your saved by none other than the jackal. You fight your way through the street, you might as well not even try though, there's no way to win or get out on your own, enemies spawn infinitely and the end result is you're saved by some guy with a southern accent who asks you to go attack some out post.

Combat is horrible, I swear the AI in this game is on a level with the original doom or quake, it's honestly mind boggling how it got out of alpha testing in that state. no matter if you buy the camo suit sneak around everywhere used silenced weapons even the knife, they will notice you immediately. Unlike newer games where foliage like tall grass and bushes obstructs the AI's view and you can use it as cover, far cry 2 goes back to the old way where the AI doesn't recognize foliage sprites and can see you right through them. The AI run around like headless chickens and shoot wildly, one of their key tactics seems to be to run around behind you no matter how impossible it may be or how obvious they'll be. They also appear to be inept the to type of weapon they're holding, I've been sniped with shotguns and charged with sniper rifles. There are 'checkpoints' in the game the only way through them is to fight, you can't talk your way out you can't sneak around. Your only hope is to charge your way through guns blazing. Weapon condition deteriorates, which is cool if it didn't happen so fast, or if it also affected your enemies. The enemies also take for too many bullets for the amount of armor they wear, you can see guys running around in nothing but cargo shorts and work boots and they take two 3 round burst to their unarmored chests before going down.

The story is horrible, I've yet to encounter a single mission that make me want to keep playing the entire game I forced myself to play. None of the missions add anything about the jackal. Supposedly I'm working in exchange for information on the jackal but I've yet to receive it. You would think that at some point my character could work up the balls to charge in guns blazing like I do everywhere else in the game to one of these leaders and demand information.

Right now I'm at 50% in the main quest and it's looking like I'm never going to finish this game. And I've never not finished a game, even the bad ones. On the whole far cry 2 is repetitive, annoying and mind numbingly dull. Anyone with any interest in firearms technology or survival will find the "immersion" in this game laughable. If you actually want a good game with an open world look at the s.t.a.l.k.e.r. series, if you want good weapons look at rainbow six, if you want to waste $50 then far cry 2 is your candidate."