What the hell?!
Okay so I was fine with the open world gameplay, enamored with a plethora of weapons, thrilled at the amazing graphics and 24-hour clock. I've played about half way through the game, attempting to do all of the missions available be them side or story but I think I'm done now. I've been ambushed hundreds of times at the same checkpoints that I've reconoitered and killed everyone at. This easter-egg hunt for diamonds is just repetitive and boring. I'm plain sick and tired of being mortared ON MY WAY to a mission start (not even there yet). Being ambushed by a two-man .50 cal turreted vehicle is survivable and repetitive so it makes perfect sense that to make it less repetitive Ubisoft gave those same trucks 40mm grenade launchers and rocket launchers! Less painful when you die faster I guess. And don't get me started on repairing my vehicle and having some road raged !@#$!%$ come tearing down the countryside in his beat up car and ramming me thus killing me. I've had it. All of this on Easy setting! Even a quick save option doesn't make up for these flaws!
I play the PC version and by god it's ground-breakingly beautiful but that's about it. The guns are fun to look at but the gunplay in the game was overpolished. It feels like you're playing a cartoon. Hard to believe that Ubisofts QA department didn't catch that. I remember the original Far Cry, one of my all time favorites, the gunplay was polished but still felt rugged enough to be a realistic shooting experience. And why in the world did the ability to shoot limbs and disable enemies go? We were advertised to by one of the trailers before the game came out so why can't I disable enemies? What a gip!
You know, the original story to Far Cry, as Island of Dr. Moreau as it was... was still interesting and funny all at the same time. The relative humor that was the Mercenary taunts were a nice addition. And the game still played for at least twenty hours! The original (PC 1.0 release) was such a success! What happened to caring about the storyline? This story is flat! It's got near to no substance and is further damaged by the micro-machine speed talk that each of the other players use when talking to you.
And why does nearly every crappy old vehicle do 0-60 in 2.2 seconds? Something else out of place I guess. It seems as if Ubisoft had to completely redesign the driving controls from the other Crytek games. It feels clunky and overresponsive. It just doesn't fit.
Do yourself a favor, get Dead Space instead, or just wait for Fallout 3 in a few days. Far Cry 2 is a perfect example of a development studio focusing on graphics instead of gameplay. What a loss! I'm suprised Gamespot gave it above a seven. Well, on to the next game.