Let's start off with the basics, Far Cry 2 is a huge game, it's massive, and there is a lot to explore. You can spend hours just roaming around, admiring the intricate details on a map that stretches about 50 Square Kilometers, for the curious souls, it is bigger than the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and even bigger than GTA: San Andreas. But the game just doesn't offer you a big world; it offers you a big world full of adventure, a game that is so immersive, and hours will pass by without you taking notice.

The game may be called Far Cry 2, but it is nothing like the original. There is no Jack Carver, there are no mutants or mutant powers, and most importantly, goodbye beautiful-exotic-island. The game is based in a fictional area in Africa, an area engulfed in the flames of a cold war between two major factions, the UFLL and APR, both sides fighting it out to control the area.

Every war needs a "Uri Orlov" (Nick Cage/Lord of War), a weapons dealer with no soul, a war profiteer, Far Cry 2 has the Jackal. The Jackal, a strong contender for the worst-character-name-in-an-awesome-video-game award, is the reason you travel to Africa; you are a mercenary on a mission to assassinate the jackal. You start the game with choosing one of nine available characters, including Qurbani Singh, yea I choose him.

A long in-game intro sequence shows explains to you the high amount of tension in the area, it also does an excellent job of showing off the various visual splendors that the game offers. The intro ends with you falling unconscious and later realizing that you are infected with malaria. The Jackal finds out about you somehow and gives you a very unkind welcome as you come to your senses. He knows the reason behind your visit but completely ignores your presence as he feels you won't survive the malaria. Your first objective is to escape the area and find some medication, which turns out to be quite a challenge.

A few minutes into the game you meet a faction leader, who gives you a simple mission. This mission will explain to you the basic structure of the game, which includes completing missions for the factions and earning rough diamonds in return. The diamonds can be used to buy new weapons and better upgrades via the various weapons dealers throughout the area. You eventually find some malaria medicine, which gives you temporary relief, whenever you need a refill; you have to complete a mission aka do a favor for the priest, who hands out the medicine. The malaria medicine is necessary otherwise, the malaria has a tendency to kick in at all the wrong times. This is the basic plot, you complete a few missions for the various factions, earn some diamonds, use them to buy better weapons, better upgrades and finally kill the jackal. The plot is no Oscar winner or even Bafta for that matter but it oes it part to hold the missions together.

Far Cry 2 is very open-ended, you can go wherever you want, whenever you want. There are various safe houses scattered around the area, you can infiltrate them, kill the guards and own it. A safe house is very useful, you can store weapons, heal and even save your game. The process of resting is similar to Oblivion, you rest and set a time when you want to get up, which in turns leads to a dynamic display of the day-night cycle in the game. Depending on the time of the day you choose to get up, the day-night cycle continues changing the environment accordingly. The dynamic cycle is really impressive and completely changes how you approach the game, nighttime is hard for navigation and combat, but good for a stealthy approach, while day is good for sniping and traveling long distance.

There is quite a bit of traveling involved in the game, and although there are a few fast travel options like Buses, they are hardly used. You will end up doing most of the traveling yourself using the map, which can get a little troublesome after sometime. As I mentioned before, the objective is to get complete missions for the factions and there are tons of missions to complete. As you roam around, you will come across small establishments, which can be raided for health or ammo. These are often guarded by enemies, so there is a fair bit of killing or grinding involved to raid and capture all of them.

There is a buddy system that is essential for survival in the wild, your buddies are basically other mercenaries you rescue from the enemy. They wait for you at the nearest safe house, and in case you are mortally wounded they come to your rescue, they are moving checkpoints, who makes sure you don't have to repeat an entire mission, just because you got shot in the head. The buddy will come rescue you and help you out for a bit. The buddy system works well, although one can abuse it and make the game pretty easy.

Let's come down to the flaws in the game, and there are quite a few. The AI can feel very weak at times, rushing towards you aimlessly, making an easy target. Another thing I noticed was that many times, the enemy will point the gun in a different direction, but the shots are fired at you, which feels rather weird. The enemy is also very hard to kill at times, taking up to 4 shots on the body, which is problem since there are times when you have to fight up to 8 at a time. There are times when you will gravely injure yourself, and Far Cry 2's answer to that is pulling out bullets while in battle. This unreal system was a bit of a low point for me, it feels kinda weird when you are pulling out bullets from your body, while the enemy shoots at you from behind cover.

Far Cry 2 is a great looking game; it rivals some of the best in the market. Firstly, let me end an argument before it begins, it does not look better than Crysis. The savannah setting, the day and night cycle, the large open-ended world is way different from Crysis and it looks really good. The engine is called Dunia and it boasts of the most impressive day-night cycle ever, the world really changes from mission to mission, giving the generic genre a fresh feel. Driving around the world in Far Cry 2 is a adventure in its own right, gazing at the wild life as you cross bridges and watch towers, with the sun burning the back of your neck, it feels very real.

My final verdict is that you have to buy this game, the single player stretches over 30 hours of gameplay, there is a decent multiplayer pack with the standard game modes, a bundled Map editor that is very easy to use and it boasts of superb visuals with not so high demands. I played the game on maxed out settings on a high resolution of 1400 X 900 and was able to achieve a stable 33-38 FPS, listed below are my rig details:

E8400 Core 2 Duo ( 3.0 GHz)
4GB Ram
ATI 4850

The game offers you a tense and intense single player campaign; you never know when the enemy will attack or when the malaria will kick in (it does right in the middle of battle), and there are times in the game when you just want to keep driving, watching the beautiful landscape. A must buy on any platform.