Something I didn't realize until fairly recently in life is that the main reason I like video games so much is because they're such a new medium. They have such great potential for telling stories and communicating ideas in ways we're only just beginning to realize. They really can be art.
I'm sure that at some later date (when I've had much more to drink) I'll expound on that bit above, but at the moment I don't think it's really necessary. It's been done before so much better by so many other people, and to be sure I have views on the subject, but at the moment, all I want to do is tell you about this game.
I first really considered getting Far Cry 2 this summer when I bought the book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell. I loved it. The guy examined a bunch of different games and facets of video game culture trying to understand how the medium functions as an art form, and he does it without getting too high falutin or too caught up in how cool video games are. He actually approaches the subject from a rational, academic standpoint, rather than the position of "they're so awesome how could they not be art?"
One of the games he discusses is Far Cry 2, and shortly after reading that book, I came across a copy of the game for sale for $15 from this video game shop at St. Mark's Place in New York called 8 Bit and Up. (A week or so later at the same store, my best friend and I got to try our hand at Ninja Gaiden on the NES. It kicked our collective ass.)
I bought it under the general principle of "What the hell, why not" and I don't regret the decision for an instance. Far Cry 2 is actually one of my favorite shooters ever. Here's the two reasons why:
1. It's a game about war
Your average Tom Clancy game is not about war. It's about how awesome the American military is and all the cool toys they have to play with and with which they can blow people up. Call of Duty is about war in the same exhibitionist sense. If anything, one could argue that the theme for those games, starting with COD 4: Modern Warfare, is revenge with a Hollywood flavoring. War is merely a background event, an excuse to let you go crazy and blow up a tank then gun down fifty soldiers.
Far Cry 2 takes place in an unnamed, fictional Central African country, and it doesn't shy away from any (well, hardly any) of the baggage that this entails. You aren't a western agent or soldier sent in to save the day. You are one of nine mercenaries hired to kill an arms dealer, but from the second you start a new game, it's clear that this probably won't solve much. It definitely won't save the day. The fighting that's going on in the country is portrayed as systemic, as bigger than just the result of one faction or individual's actions. If there are any solutions to the situation, they aren't obvious.
2. It makes me feel like Rambo
This game is an open-world sandbox, which means very early on you are let loose on a huge expanse, populated with hundreds of people (who pretty much all want you dead, but more on that later), with tons of side missions and exploration available. It is also barely scripted. There are locations where there will be guards and they will have patrols, and certain events do happen at certain points in the story, but for the most part, everything you do and every battle you fight will unfold thanks to your actions and those of your enemies, not because the battle was predetermined to start that way. If one of your buddies dies, that's on you: it's possible (hard, but possible) to keep them all alive for the duration of the game.
How does this apply to gameplay? Here's something that actually happened on my first play through of the game: I snuck into an enemy camp in the dead of night, slipping past the guards and planting a charge on an ammo dump. I crept to the other edge of camp and then detonated the charge, resulting in the rounds in the ammo dump exploding. This drew the guards away from my target, the man I was there to kill. I made my way into the building where he was holed up, did the dirty deed, and by that time, a guard had returned to his post outside, so as I made my way out, he opened fire, and I ran back to my boat, shooting down a few guards along the way and speeding down the river, their bullets whizzing after me.
None of those moments where specifically coded into the game. I never had a guy with me telling me where to plant the charges and when to detonate them, and which paths to take to elude the guards. I planned and executed these actions entirely by myself. Far Cry 2 presents you with a fully realized world and essentially plonks you down in the middle of it. There's very little hand-holding, and the learning curve might not be as sharp as some games (especially on the lower difficulties) but it's definitely there. The awesome moments are there, but it's up to you to discover them, or in some cases make them happen.
It's more than that, though. Far Cry 2 doesn't fuck around. It is a game for MEN with a capital MEN. You don't get babied like in Call of Duty. If you want a good gun, you buy it with conflict diamonds. If not, you're left scrounging for dirty old weapons from guys you take down, and that means that sooner than you'd like, they'll start jamming. A lot. And after a while of this, they'll just break, and then you're down to your pistol, or worse, your machete. And if you want to carry more than three extra clips with you, you'll have to pony up some diamonds for that too, and even then you'll still have to be very careful with your ammo. Spraying and praying does not work. Regenerating health? Sure, but only a chunk at a time, a la Resistance for the PS3. Lose a chunk, it's gone for good unless you use a medical syrette. And if you get down to your last bit of health? Instead of temporary invulnerability or some other baby-ass type shit, you'll start bleeding out. Unless you perform first-aid, which usually involves pulling a piece of shrapnel out of your hand or wedging a bullet out of your leg with your knife, you will die. You also have malaria the whole time, so you better be stocked up on pills.
Why am I telling you all of this stuff? Because of an experiment I've decided to participate in. I realize I'm late to the bandwagon on this one, but I only just got the game and discovered this. Permanent Death: Play through Far Cry 2, but when you die, that's it. You're done. Game over. You want to keep playing the game, you start over. This is completely self-inflicted. There's no in-game option to enable this. I'm doing it. I've only played through this game once before. I'll be writing all about it here.
Oh dear.
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