This isn’t an achievement to be proud of.

Far Cry 2 is a first-person action shooter created by Ubisoft in 2008. It is set in Africa and features militias, rust, malaria, and long driving sequences. Most people say this game isn’t that good, I’ll put my input on that later. But as far as the facts go there has been two major installments of Far Cry since this game and both of them received better ratings for their well-polished mechanics.

The supporters claim that the game is like Dark Souls and requires a large amount of skill. Their reasoning is that the game’s mechanics don’t reward the player, I agree. There really isn’t a single mechanic in the game that rewards the player, it’s more like you play as Sisyphus and your upgrades just make the boulder a pound lighter, it just technically helps. That said I don’t agree with the supporters, these mechanics aren’t tough, they are tedious.

The game feels needy, it is fully aware there is no actual content. I’ll describe each mechanic 2 ways, from the supporter and detractor side, and then explain my playthrough.

There is malaria:
Supporter – It adds immersion, the player can’t actually forget that they are sick, even in the middle of a firefight.
Detractor – It adds annoyance, the mechanic is just hitting a button every 30 minutes to take a pill.

There is no fast travel:
Supporter – It adds immersion, the player has to truck their way through the Saharan Africa and fight everything on the way.
Detractor – *PERSONAL INTERJECTION WARNING* The cars drive slowly and are made of paper. The map is massive and is filled with the same hostile enemies that keep respawning.

Weapons rust:
Supporter – It adds immersion, you have to keep making sure your weapon is alright.
Detractor – Make sure that after every mission you just grab a new gun, not hard just adds more drive time. More drive time is less fun time, more annoyance.

There is stealth:
Supporter – It adds immersion. You get to choose the time of day to attack. You get to scout out the camp. You get sneak around and stealth kill.
Detractor – Nope. The moment any of the enemies detect you, it is over. If they hear rustling in the bush they all start shooting. Enemies can see you through any sort of foliage, readily equipped with laser vision.

I don’t remember how long it took me to beat the game, but it was definitely too long. 75% of my playthrough was me in transit. Not experiencing action filled camp raids. Not driving fast or feeling cool about my turning capabilities. Only driving in semi-straight lines. Sometimes my car would break down too and I would walk.

Beyond this the gameplay that every considered as super hard was not even a challenge once you understand how dumb and weak the enemies are. Sure I won’t deny that if you walked into camps with a machine gun or assault rifle and tried to mow down the enemies then the game would probably be pretty challenging. This wasn’t the experience I had with the game.

I walked into every camp with a pistol, a sniper rifle, and a shotgun. The first guns that are available. I was unstoppable, the guns were all one hit kills at their respective ranges (The pistol covering all the ranges under the sniper rifle). I never experienced the good stealth mechanics of the game, just walk in, head shot everything, and walk out. It didn’t matter the time of day, it didn’t matter whether it was raining (supposedly those are both game changers).

The game was just a driving simulator where my pit stops were just ever so slightly more interesting than the driving gameplay. There was no hardcore element, there was no interesting gameplay, just driving.