Far Cry 2

I have been playing a lot of this game lately and I am really enjoying it. After playing Fable 2 and the Left 4 Dead demo, it's quite a change in both style and gameplay. Far Cry 2 is made to be a gritty, more realistic game than your average FPS. There's a lot of strategy involved if you choose to not just run 'n gun. The plot is straight out of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" as you play a mercenary caught in a battle between 2 factions and find yourself doing missions for both sides, playing them against each other.

I have a few complaints about the game: you have to deal with malaria, which can be a royal pain in the neck if you run low on medicine. It's manageable, but it seems gimicky. Also you cannot save your game anytime, anywhere. You must either complete a mission or travel to different places throughout the map to find a save point. And there is a LOT of traveling. The map is huge (which is a good thing) but getting from one place to another can take quite a while and you are constantly running into checkpoints that you must fight your way through. In addition, random patrol vehicles are also on the prowl, and if they spot you they start shooting. So in the midst of traveling to a place to do a mission, you could find yourself getting in 4 or 5 fire fights before you even arrive to your destination. You'll probably be a little low on ammo and the mission battles are pretty intense in most cases.

Despite my gripes, I am really enjoying Far Cry 2. The single player campaign alone can take up to 70 hours to complete if you are thorough. That's a lot of bang for the buck. Plus the weapons are realistic and you can upgrade to better ones by doing side missions for the arms dealers. There's a lot of incentive to dig deeper and deeper into the game and once you do it get's it's hooks in.