(FYI, for the moment I won't be taking screencaps because I don't have any way of really doing that on my 360. I'll just paint a beautiful picture with my wofgkl;jdf sorry kinda just threw up a bit okay here we go)
At the beginning of Far Cry 2, you choose two things: first is the difficulty. I picked normal, which is what I played on for the first time through, so I picked it again here, because I want to keep this going for at least a little while.
The second thing you pick is a mercenary, one of nine. This doesn't affect gameplay other than determining which one you won't eventually find among your buddies. Last time I was Paul, the Hungarian born but Israeli nationalized guy. This time I'm Josip Idromeno, a middle-aged man from the Balkans. With that, we're off.
The opening sequence is a cab ride from the airfield where you landed in the country to a hotel in the first major town of the game, Pala. It's a good way to set the mood, featuring such memorable moments as a tense stop at a checkpoint and a row of huts being burnt to the ground by a bunch of angry looking dudes. All you can do really is look around and listen to the cab driver yak away. He's very chatty, because clearly I'm not going to say anything. I'm the protagonist in a first person shooter, for crying out loud. Ever since Half-Life, I'm expected to just shut up and shoot people.
As soon as we pull into town, my vision goes yellow around the edges and my breathing becomes labored and shaky. As we stop in front of the hotel, the cab driver turns and remarks how I don't look so good. I'm barely able to mutter "No shit, Sherlock" before I pass out on the seat in front of me.
When I next wake up, I'm on a bed in the hotel, and some jackass is going through my stuff. He finds my orders to terminate a local arms dealer called the Jackal who's apparently a destabilizing force in the region and gets pissed. Because it turns out, he's the Jackal, but the malaria I've apparently got is keeping me from doing anything about that at the moment.
He stabs a machete into the wall next to my head, waves a gun in my face, and quotes some Nietzsche at me. Then he just drops the gun on my nightstand and walks off with just a "see you later". Very chill. Like he does this all the time. "What, you're here to kill me too? Whatever, dude." Also, how the hell did I get malaria that fast? Is it some super-rare, super-effective strain that starts in on the symptoms three minutes after the mosquito bite? Anyway, I pass out again, because it worked out so well for me the first time.
I wake up, and there's quite a commotion going on outside. "Wow. They sound really excited. Maybe Foreigner's playing a concert in town!" I think. Then an RPG slams into the ceiling and gives my room a brand new skylight. "Okay, I don't think it's Foreigner," I conclude as I collect my cell phone and the Jackal's machete and gun.
So it turns out the town's been plunged into battle somehow, and now control is given to the player, with the only objective being to get the hell out of there. I stumble over some wreckage and out of my room to find myself on the second floor of the hotel's central courtyard, the sounds of fighting still raging from outside. I briefly consider going out the front entrance, but I recall the last time I tried that on my first playthrough I didn't even make it past the patch of dirt out front that passes as a parking lot. I go to the room on the other side of the hotel to find a machine gun on the ground and an open window.
I hop out onto a thatched roof. A soldier runs below and past me down the tiny alleyway, so I decide to head in the other direction. I drop down and start to make my way to the road only to find my way blocked by a burning tree and patch of grass. That's the other thing about Far Cry 2: in this game, fire spreads. Quickly. So I'm not going that way. I try a flight of stairs around the side of the hotel only to find they lead to a roof of a building on the main street, where most of the fighting is. So not that way either.
I edge my way back down the alley in the direction I saw the soldier running to find it empty, and the edge of town in sight. I run past a deserted machine gun position and start heading out of town. I get to a bridge spanning a river and almost make it all the way across before my malaria gets the best of me. As my consciousness slips away, I can hear a car pull up and at least a couple guys hop out, and my last delirious thought before I pass out is "Why the hell is the lead singer of Foreigner speaking Swahili or some shit?"
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