It's been a surprisingly long time since Far Cry first made waves on the PC shooter market. Then, under Crytek's direction, it was a decent FPS: the usual Sci-fi twaddle about mutants, super-villains and crazy experiments coupled to a jaw-dropping, gizzard-poundingly stunning graphics engine. This formula was so successful that it might surprise some people to learn that, apart from the title, Far Cry 2 has nothing whatsoever to do with its prequel.

   Well, I was a bit surprised anyway. But apparently more mutant goodness was not to be: instead, Far Cry 2 pitches you into an open environment, 50 square kilometers of fictional West African republic, with a mission to kill an arms-dealer-cum-kingpin who is (shockingly!) a massive jerk. So basically you get guns, jeeps and limitless hordes of not-so-innocent mercenaries, militiamen and wildebeest (no, really) to turn into flavorful heaps of Kalashnikov Kebab. Oh wait, does this sound familiar already?

Grand Theft Africa

   There. I said it. And in many respects that seems to have been Ubisoft's aim, what with the 'safe houses' (glorified save-and-restore points made useless by the fact that PC owners can actually save from the in-game menu), the continually re-spawning bad guys, and the plethora of side missions. But underneath all the console-friendly showboating is something much harder and nastier.

   Take the opening of the game, for example. Remember the start of GTA3? You get out of prison and, as a sort of 'welcome to America' package you get first a car, then a gun. When Far Cry 2 starts, the first things you get are malaria and a machete, along with a talking-to from the arms dealer you were sent to kill. Then you have to escape from a town under attack by militia soldiers, who promptly gun you down, after which your pitiful, bullet-riddled ass is rescued by an underling for one of the local warring factions and recruited to the cause of making your corner of the continent even more unpleasant. In short, welcome to Africa, folks. It's a real party.

   There's no doubt about it, Far Cry 2 is a remarkably savage game. Unlike the GTA series, where the violence is based on Hollywood action films, Far Cry 2 is after real bloodshed. When wounded you don't heal yourself by running over big red cartoon hearts, you stab yourself with a syringe of adrenaline, or worse. Among the more delightful healing animations I can recall extracting bullets with a knife, pliers, or teeth; sticking a finger into a bullet wound to push a splinter through; pulling various bits of wood/metal out of yourself after a grenade has exploded nearby; and cauterizing wounds with a bundle of matches: Far Cry 2 is very keen for you to understand that killing is a gritty business.

African Groovy

Out of Africa

   So much for the game's problems. Annoying as they are, especially since some of them could have been circumvented with only a minimum of imagination, this review needs a lot of space for what Far Cry 2 does well. And what Far Cry 2 does really, really well is the sort of desperate, bloodthirsty combat that the sci-fi shooter brigade couldn't come up with even if you gave them a hundred years on the Planet of Persistent Inspiration, three wishes, and a conversation with the deity of their choice. Vehicles explode under RPG fire. Grass burns in scorching, blistering waves. And as the echoes of another short, brutal gun battle die away, you go through the smoldering wreckage, machete in hand, to administer the coup de grace to the groaning wounded. It's truly frightening just how routine this sort of savagery becomes, and how enjoyable it is at the same time.

   Which brings me to Far Cry 2's excellent multiplayer. It comes with four modes, mostly of the old killing-based school, these being Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamonds (that is, the flag), and Uprising (which is a mixture of capturing control points and wholesale slaughter). The last two are played rather less, but it makes for a solid set of gameplay options that should keep your copy of the game out of that ubiquitous online pawnshop, eBay, for a month or two longer.

   Another success is the graphics. Of course Ubisoft weren't going to come out with an updated Doom engine, or for that matter an 8-bit side-scrolling shoot-em-up, but even so the scenery, natural lighting, and weapons effects are quite a joy to look at, especially in DirectX10 mode. Whenever you take a nap, for example, they speed up the day-night cycle graphics to show you the sun and clouds whisking across the sky, or, at night, the stars turning overhead. In visual terms at least, Far Cry 2 revels in its own stark beauty.

Africa Bambaataa

   So what takes Far Cry 2 beyond, as it were, the call of duty? If there's anything about Far Cry 2 that has a claim to be truly cutting edge (apart from the aforementioned machete, of course) it's that it avoids the generic imbecility that fouls up much of the gaming market. It's refreshing to meet a game that isn't set in the sparkly near future, the 'futuristic' far future, World War 2, or a conflict between thinly-disguised western special forces and middle-eastern terrorists. It's nice to find a game that's unafraid to give you the news that rather than massacring mindless drones, you're actually killing people from an already benighted corner of the earth. It's good to feel that your actions in the game are unpleasant, and frightening. Because it makes Far Cry 2 feel like a game that somehow matters.

   Don't get me wrong, Far Cry 2 isn't going to have you reaching into your pocket come Christian Aid week, or writing to the president of Burkina Faso to tell him how sorry you are. It simply stands out against the backdrop of the typical narcissistic, schlock-filled shooter like a diseased Congolese child-soldier at a village Fête - kind of in the same way that Half-Life 2 did a few years back. And why? It's willing to take gamers a little beyond their comfort zones and get some extra mileage from the setting, and the plot - elements that too many other games seem to take for granted.

African Queen

   The comparison with Half-Life 2 isn't entirely spurious. At its best, Far Cry 2 has the same beauty, the same telling sense of immersion, and the same sense of fun. The graphical wizardry is well above average, and the multiplayer mode is a great bonus if you want to while away a few hours - longer if you want to unlock some of the content from the online rankings. But for all its enjoyable savagery, Far Cry isn't as good a game. The overarching mechanics of the single-player campaign aren't as slick or as imaginative as they need to be, making progress quite laborious at times. And while the dozens of weapons with their dazzling effects are a nice set of toys to play around with, they don't make up for the kind of relentless polish that made HL2 the benchmark for FPS(s) to come.

   So, at the end of it all, Far Cry 2 isn't the Prester John of all FPS that it promised to be. It's good. Very, very good. But even though it's a huge step in the right direction, it's not likely to become that perfect game you will treasure and replay. It's less an African Queen, more of a Prince Consort: good-looking, capable, but not quite the king.

       ... Meirion Jordan