Trying to get a handle on Far Cry 2 is like trying to lassoo a violent and beautiful African predator. Sometimes exceptional, often frustrating and always beautiful. It’s an exotic but flawed FPS which should be remembered for delivering on the promise of it’s predecessor in being a truly open world shooter.

The original iteration of Far Cry (the PC version, of course) gave us some of the largest and lushest environments in which to shoot evildoers. There was a traditional level structure, but each level was a huge expanse of jungle within which objectives nestled in the form of enemy outposts. Here I discovered for the first time the joy of the sandbox shooter. Though I was carrying an assault rifle and a bag of grenades my greatest weapons were a map and some binoculars. In staying hidden beyond the treeline, finding elevated points to better scout enemy positions and sniping patrols I discovered the joy of making plans.

Far Cry 2 delivers this hit on a massive scale. Take this assassination mission as an example. There’s one man in the middle of a base that my employers want dead. I am on a raised cliff overlooking a small body of water between me and my target, binoculars trained on the hut within which my target resides. Enemies are everywhere.  I charge down all guns blazing, sowing grenades as I run. I take a bullet to the leg and a mid a hail of gunfire I duck behind a fence and dig it out with a pair of tweezers. A quick surette of adrenaline and I make the dash for the hut, under heavy fire I throw a molotov and dive into the water. The hut catches fire. Objective complete.

But why waste a surette? Back on the cliff I get into my car and reverse down the road. I rev the engine and accelerate towards the cliff edge. I dive out just in time to see the Estate sail gracefully into the water. Commotion, gunfire. It’s a good distraction. I am behind them now. There is a clear line between me and the door to the hut. I draw my machete. Objective complete.

After this grey corridor turkey shoots just aren’t going to cut it. Far Cry 2 has moved things on. In the wake of the sandbox shooter it’s going to be difficult for the corridor FPS we’ve known since Doom to exist as anything other than an entertaining throwback. Restrictive shooters will need extraordinary levels of polish as seen in the likes of Call of Duty 4, or to incorporate other genre elements to keep them fresh such as with Chronicles of Riddick’s stealth leanings and up-close face-shivving combat.

Of course, technology has only recently become advanced enough to properly realise an open world environment. The Dunia engine is a technical masterpiece. Far Cry 2’s Africa is seamless, free of loading screens and unfaltering in its framerate. It also handles action with ease. The fire is wonderfully unpredictable and calamitous explosions make for some dazzling and insane shootouts. With so many explosive barrels comically littering enemy outposts and software that sees fire spread realistically from one object to the next according to wind speed and direction, you have a situation in which things frequently get out of hand, with spectacular results.

So, as a shooter Far Cry 2 is undoubtedly excellent. The enemy AI is serviceable but fun to trick. (Hide in a raised position on one side of an outpost and shoot a fuel tank at the other. Watch as enemies pour out of the buildings, weapons ready, aiming at the bushes near the explosion. With their positions revealed and backs exposed you suddenly have the upper hand.) And the weapons deserve a nod of approval, particularly the all-powerful flamethrower. Just remember, fire has no loyalty.

In spite of all of this, behind the critical acclaim many gamers have found themselves disappointed by the experience, expressing frustration at the hostility of the gameworld, wanting more time to breathe and soak up the gorgeous landscape. The gameworld is indeed perilous. Guard posts are everywhere and roaming patrols will attack you on sight. The moment you think you’re safe and you start exploring the bullets start flying. There are issues with the game’s design, but some of the problems stem from a mismanaged sense of expectation on the part of the player.

Regular gamers have come to anticipate a certain set of gameplay features from a particular environment. We know there’s not going to be much story content in a world of narrow corridors and big guns. Since its genesis the FPS has stuck tightly to its conventions and any movment away from its familiar tropes will see a game distanced from its genre. The feeling is, perhaps unfairly and incorrectly, that Far Cry 2 isn’t a pureblood FPS. Moving into the open world environment has evoked a different set of genre expectations from gamers, most notably those associated with Role Playing Games.

The fact is that open world games have been dominated by Role Playing Games since the original Fallout. Think RPG: think NPC’s, dialogue trees, branching quests, character advancement and story. Far Cry 2 makes nods towards many of these expectations without really succeeding in any of them. The branching missions offer a straightforward mission and a more complicated and harder version of the same mission with no extra reward. Collect diamonds, buy weapons, buy weapon upgrades but don’t expect to interact with any of the citizens hanging around in the city safe zones. In Far Cry 2 you can go anwhere and do anything so long as it involves shooting someone in the face.

In this arena, competing with the likes of Fallout 3, it starts to collapse. An overambitious attempt to have the story be as malleable as the action, with NPC friends organically swapping in and out as they die ultimately results in an untailored and impersonal relationship with your allies. With this absence of narrative and a lack of NPC interaction the savannah of Far Cry 2 is a very lonely place.  Add to this the proliferation of checkpoints at every other corner, manned by some of the most dogged and persistent guards ever to grace a game, and player frustration is understandable.

These RPG expectations get in the way of enjoying Far Cry 2 for what it is. Guard posts shouldn’t be a frustration, they are action hotspots, and in a shooter the action is the reason you play the game. Games teach us to achieve objectives as quickly as possible to advance, but Far Cry 2 unfolds at a much more sedate pace. Reaching your destination is part of the fun. Use the map and plot the route. Take this guard post and then cut across the river and head downstream to unlock this safehouse. Steal a car and burst through the second guardpost, reaching the no-fire zone in the city before your pursuers catch up. There’s a plan, time to set it in action and see how long it takes to go horribly wrong. Then get your way out of that mess with some grenades and fire, lots of fire.

Ludo out.