More Far Cry 2

This game is absolutely amazing. There are so many ways to approach taking out enemies. One of my favorites is to hurl a Molotov cocktail at a hut, which ignites everything around it, causing a massive brush fire. As everything that can burn does (including trees), I simply wait for the bad guys to come flying out of the hut in a panic and pick them off with my sniper rifle. This tactic reminds me of an old classic PC game, XCOM: UFO Defense. I used to use incendiary ammo to flush out the aliens and take them out as they fled. Wow, XCOM. That's one of the top 5 games I ever played.

A couple of other cool things happened as I played today. The AI seems to get better and harder as you advance through the game. I raided an outpost today and drove off the guards. One of them ran off into some rocks about 50 yards from the outpost. I was walking through the camp, looking for goodies to loot when I heard the hiding guard start taking shots at me from a distance. I turned to run and saw a propane tank out of the corner of my eye. As I ran by it - WHOOSH! - it blew up and everything around it (including me) caught fire. The guard had aimed for the tank and created a massive explosion. That is some damned good AI.

Later I had a mission to take out a truck convoy. I did this, hitting it and the surrounding cars with my rocket launcher. Suddenly 2 jeep patrols showed up and started firing at me. I took out 3 of the 4 guys in quick order and was lining up a shot for the last one when he turned and ran, hiding behind one of the burning cars. What did he do then? He shot off a flare gun, high into the sky. Suddenly 4 or 5 more jeep patrols came roaring in and I was under an immense amount of fire. He called for backup! I had to high tail it out of the area, running for my life. Incredible. That was the first time I had seen the enemy do that and it was such a rush.

The game features tons of weapons that you unlock by doing favors for the weapon shops owners. There is a huge variety of real weapons, from the aforementioned flare guns to assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, sub machine guns and even a flamethrower. They all function realistically and in a neat touch, wear out over time. You can pick up weapons from fallen enemies too, but you can bet they are very used and are subject to ammo jams at the worst possible times. If you use them too long they may even blow up in your hand.

There's also a great variety of vehicles you can commandeer. A good number of real Jeep vehicles are in the game, as well as generic cars and dune buggies (which are really fun to drive). There are also boats you can take as you head up river to your next destination. Make no mistake; this game mixes the best elements of FPS games and sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series.

This game is getting criminally overlooked because of all of the A++ titles being released this fall in time for the holidays. But if you want a realistic FPS that offers hours and hours of gameplay and sublime strategy, you simply must check out Far Cry 2.