I'm going to cut right to the point with this rant. If you were wondering which of the recent holiday season games to spend some money (Fallout 3, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2), save yourself the trouble and don't bother with Far Cry 2. In fact, you'll be doing yourself a favor if you wait until it's in the bargain bin for $15 or $20. I usually will at least give the game the benefit of the doubt and play it all the way through--even if it's ending up on my shit list--but this fucking turd had me so bored out of my skull and pissed at the mind numbing game play that I couldn't even make it through a full ten hours. I was seriously speechless at the shear stupidity that went into what could have been a potentially huge game. Simply put: It just sucks, and HARD.

At least when you go in thinking that the game is going to blow, you're somewhat ready for it. With no name developers and obscure titles, a shit game doesn't really bother you much. Even STALKER: Clear Sky, which was bugged to no end and somewhat of a let down, at least kept me entertained until the end of the game. But this massive failure couldn't even do that with it's tedious game play and ridiculous unending repetitiveness. Fuck. Where do I even begin? This blunt and totally accurate review over at videogamessuck.com sums up the issues in more detail than I really want to get into, but I'll point out some of the major flaws that really had me questioning all these 10/10 reviews I keep seeing.

Speaking of which, what the fuck is up with game reviews lately? Seriously. Sure, we've always had biased web sites out there, but it seems like it's becoming more and more obvious that major developers like EA own the top game rags like PC Gamer. Some how Far Cry 2, a cheesy and boring FPS gets a 94%, higher than almost every site and not far behind epic games like Half-Life 2. Yet Fallout 3, probably the game of the year in my opinion, gets a 91%. Something is seriously wrong here. They bash the shit out of fan favorites like Dead Space which are seriously fun and hype big production titles that end up blowing chunks. Simply because if they don't the production companies won't throw a big fat wad of cash at them anymore. Don't believe me? Let me refresh your memory about the Gamestop editor that got shit canned for giving an honest opinion of the turd that was Kane and Lynch. But I digress...

So what makes this game so bad? Well, for starters, calling it "Far Cry 2" has to be the worst misnomer in the history of gaming. The only way they could have fucked that up more would be if they called it Star Wars: Little Miss Muffet Adventures when the game was really about Captain Picard and anal beads. This is a sequel that is completely void of anything to do with the original game. Seriously. It has nothing to do with it. Whether it be game play, story, or even characters, Ubisoft completely designed a new game and slapped the Far Cry title on there for sales. Actually, there is one thing that is similar. This wonderful new engine apparently is an update and rework of the original engine, which is probably why the graphics didn't impress me... but more on that in a bit.

Ok, so the title is dumb. Right. But so is the game play, the missions, the story, the voice acting, and the never fucking ending driving. Where the hell do I even start? Instead of sticking to a classic shoot em' up FPS, like the original, we have a game that tries to reinvent the wheel and be something it's not. You're given a sandbox world that is yours to roam around and explore, except unlike Fallout 3 or Oblivion, there's nothing to see and do! Each "mission" that you can get at anytime from any number of places somehow always ends up being the same bullshit that proves to be useless. Go kill this guy, destroy this convoy, and then go kill this guy, and then destroy this convoy.

Oh and did I mention that you spend twenty fucking minutes of driving to get there only to spend two seconds shooting someone? But they make it worse. Every vehicle in the game is identical, has horrible handling, and breaks down the second you hit something. You're constantly fixing it by magically tightening a random radiator bolt which suddenly fixes everything. Bring on the boredom! That's not bad enough though. Random other vehicles with enemies come out of nowhere and start ramming you every chance they get. There are also checkpoints of unnamed random factions at every damn intersection that you end up clearing out over and over and over, because as soon as you turn around they respawn! For fucks sake. I ended up just driving as much as possible and stopped even trying to clear the checkpoints out because it became pointless. ...and you will do a shitload of driving. It never fails. Every single god damn time you get a mission the objective is on the exact opposite side of the map from where you are. It's flawless in screwing you every single time. This game is 75% driving, 10% shooting, and the rest just sucking. Any advertised game play is completely bloated with useless travel time that means nothing other than to pad out an already stupid game.

We also once again have super telepathic enemies that always know where you are even in the pitch dark a mile off the road. Somehow it's impossible to get across from mission to the next without constantly being shot at for no reason. In the beginning of the game you're shown driving with a cab driver through the heart of the country with no problem, but the whole rest of the game you can't go five fucking feet without constantly being shot at from every direction. Wow. Great immersion there guys!

The story is absolute horseshit too. You're essentially dumped in Africa as a mercenary looking for a guy named Jackal that you're supposed to kill.... and that's about as involved as it gets. You do pointless missions over and over again that have nothing to do with the story with the occasional "yeah I think Jackal was seen over here". The original game had more story and that's saying something.

There's so many other things busted too. Fighting is boring, the weapon system of buying and upgrading is useless, and the money system of rough diamonds is such a joke. You have a little indicator that tells you when you're near a suitcase that just happens to be scattered randomly across the world.... because, you know, briefcases with diamonds are always just laying out in the fucking Sahara desert behind stumps. Dumb. *sigh*

Finally, the graphics and world design. Ok, I realize a lot of people that hate the game still say it looks great, but I disagree. It *does* look great by two or three year old standards, but it's a joke compared to Crysis and Fallout 3. Sure, Crysis is quite the game to live up to when it comes to art direction, but come on. This is the same company! Probably the major flaw is that they used a beefed up version of the old Far Cry engine instead of the new one. It's DX 10 with some niceties, but the world is cartoony and bland. Yes, I know. It's fucking grasslands, not a lush jungle. But that doesn't change the fact that they did a bland job of it with boring ass textures. The character models are shit by today's standards and most of the regular items are dull and uninteresting. Doesn't matter anyways since you spend 90% of the damn time driving and looking at your map which takes up almost the whole freaking screen.

Gah. I'm done. This game disgusts me and I'm even becoming bored of ranting about how much I can't stand it. I was hoping to make this short, but I had to get the frustration out before I break the DVD in half, keeping me from selling it off on some unsuspecting biotch. It's definitely one of the first titles I've completely dropped in a long time... and good riddance. What an awful turd.