Far Cry 2

Farcry 2, spiritual successor to Crytek's FarCry. There is no relation in terms of storyline between the two games. Crytek wasn't even involved in the production of FarCry 2.

Surprisingly, I find that a good thing. Why? Because then they wouldn't have decided to use their power hungry Cryengine on Farcry2. The DUNIA engine used in Farcry2 is way more efficient and optimized, graphics-wise. As far as I can tell at least.

The realism in the environment is very immersive even on my weak Asus G1s lappie. I had to play at 1024x728 resolution though. You could actually feel the heat in the hot desert and actually feel like standing under the shade of a tree when it is high noon and blazing hot. And you can pretend you're a real hunter too. DIE ZEBRA!

The engine also has very good fire effects, fire spreads to whereever there is grass. And the engine seems to take consideration what kind of grass as well. If you're in a swampy area, the fire won't spread as horrifyingly as in the hot wide open plains.

Animation is also a fine point in the game. Everything the player does is in first person view, which is effective at making it feel like you're directly controlling the player. However, the lack of legs can sometimes make you question your existence.

Character models and animation are done very well too. I say this in comparison to Fallout 3.

Driving in Farcry 2 is quite frustrating as the cars feel too light and steering is too snappy. But maybe that is just limited to the PC version.

The explosion and action effects are pretty awesome, guns feel powerful and all that, one mentionable is that ammo crates light up like firecrackers when fired upon.

Then theres the quests.

I think playing Fallout 3 alongside Farcry2 has clouded my judgement over the quality of quests in Farcry 2 but hear me out.

I do enjoy the open world in Farcry2 but it just doesn't feel open enough, to get to point A to point B, there is often only a single most effecient road to get there. This is comparable to driving to work on the same road every flipping day.

Not only that, if this road has an enemy checkpoint, you HAVE to stop and take care of them before moving on. Or you'll die in the explosion of your car. This for me disrupts the flow in the game. I just want to get to Point B with no interruptions please.

It's different in Fallout 3 because the enemies are in random places all the time. In Farcry2 it's like, "Augh, not THIS checkpoint again. I just leveled the place 5 minutes ago!"

That is one of the major turnoffs in Farcry 2 for me. Repetition. Graphic-wise, awesome. If you'd like to explore Africa in the comfort of your own home, this is a nice visual simulation of it.