Far Cry 2 for the PS3

Finally managed to get around to starting FarCry 2 which I'd bought cheap from Woolies. Oh my does it like it's initial loading - loading for the intro credits, loading for the menu, then finally a load for the game; however once that's done it's pretty smooth sailing from then on.

The start of the game is pretty non-interactive, I suppose it's to get you in the mood for the country you'll be playing in as you bounce around in the back of a taxi passing armed checkpoints and watchig the locals have 'fun' burning down shacks; however it does smack a little of 'hey look at how pretty our graphics are'. As per usual no manual reading is required, the tutorial will nag you into doing things and, again, as per usual won't tell you why you're doing this. Press X to jump ah that'll be over that board, and O to duck - um why oh I see I have to climb up here and duck under the gap; now press L1 to aim and R1 to fire; um at what - nothing.

You get a simple mission to start with to liberate a safe house, rescue a buddy, find some diamonds, head to the weapons dealer and buy something. Realism seems to be a key point here. You can only carry four weapons one of each of a set type which are mapped to your d-pad; you've got a five bar health system that'll only regenerate up to a partially filled bar when you're out of direct fire, but if you head into critical will keep going down until you yank out the bullet or heal yourself with a syringe of which you carry five.

Again realism; you've limited ammo, you can die really easily (although if you've found a buddy they can come in and rescue you provided they haven't died) and enemies don't glow in the dark or come with arrows pointing out where they are. Although a red splat on the screen will give an indication of where you're being shot from you can still end up spinning around trying to find out exactly who's shooting at you and I spent a good time sprinting like hell for the cover of some rocks to recuperate and play spot the bad guy. Oh and boy do they not like you, unless you're in a no-shooting zone everyone will shoot first and not bother with questions later; this makes life really fun when the missions are so spread out around the map and enemy sites respawn on the roads; you end up just putting your foot down and driving through them as fast as possible; or, in a seriously weird moment, catch the bus.

Yep forget that there's a war going on the buses must run and even better those drivers must be some seriously hard-arsed dudes because the guards won't bother with them and you can metaphorically thumb your nose at them as you drive past the five checkpoints and six random patrols to get to your mission. Sure it's not stylish, but you're alive.

As for your missions well no floating compass or pointing arrows here, driving along the road markers will be coloured to indicate the quickest route, but that's not always the safest; and of course you have your clever map that will show where you are some of the important features around you. Oh but the game doesn't pause when you're reading it and you can't use a weapon at the same time and although every car comes with it's own GPS system It doesn't give you a big view. Best shock of the game was driving along and pulling out my map to check my position and finding that you not only lay it on your lap but you have to look down to read it which means not looking at the road so I would find myself automatically slowing down, looking down, then back up to accelerate, before checking it again, before putting it away.

The weapon limitation actually works, do you ditch the flame-thrower (best weapon ever), that'll set the grass alight around things and flush out the enemy, and rely on Molotov's so as to be able to carry the Missile Launcher which has a lot less ammo, but packs a serious whallop; decisions decisions. However one small thing does bug me in that weapons aren't named for pickup. Kill an enemy and stand next to the weapon they've dropped and you'll be prompted to change one silhouetted outline for another, unless you've memorised what each and every weapon looks like or are a gun nut it's a blind guess and no they don't appear in the manual either; okay some are obvious, but AK47 or GL39 (?) can make a difference.

Finally saving - we've been spolit by the ability to save when and where you like - heading into danger, or just turning a corner in a corridor; save. Nope not here, you can only save at certain special points or when you've just completed a mission and a lot of the time you can only have got to said points by clearing out a bunch of enemies first.

Okay so far it's been fun, I can see why they've done what they've done and can't negatively criticise the majority of it. In my mind I'm comparing it to Fallout3 with the mission structure set-up, but they've ditched the fiddly stats and the inventory shuffling and it's actually quite exhilarating for everything (okay bar the main menu) to have no pausing. Even the saving, though at first frustrating, works; you play the game and not the system. One mission I snuck in and took out the objective, on another I drove straight in on the back of a jeep, switched to the weapon mount and blew everyone away because that was the best option from where I was and what I had.

[Update 9/3 - from more play a couple more niggles appear. The first is graphical and real only shows up when you're speeding along the river in a boat - pop-up. It's a lot more noticeable on the long stretches you get on the water when you travel at speed. It's a blink and you miss it affair, but it does make you blink when a set of trees suddenly populate a bank as you round a corner.

The second is that dread of all 'sandbox' games - invisible walls. Liberating one of the Underground's bases set on a small inlet with rock cliffs on either side I decided to sneak around. I pulled up at a sandbank close to a cliff and hopped over the rocks to a flat one that led to a gentle grass slope that would give me a commanding view over the base when bop I hit a wall. Now I don't object overly to the 'too steep to climb' slopes but this was a flat rock leading to a gentle slope and I couldn't even get to the join. I could actually follow this wall around and it went all around the cliff and prevented me from reaching areas that I should have game mechanic-wise been able to access. Very annoying, I ended up going around the whole cliff to the land-side, which proved fortuitous when I stopped off at a weapon dealer to save the game.]

The game not only works and merits long-term play, but due to the open system has high replayablilty.