For anyone who played the original Far Cry or the enhanced versions on the xbox, Far Cry 2 will not feel like the same game. For one thing the protagonist is no longer Jack Carver but a choice of a few male and female characters to play as. Gone are the tropical palm trees and islands surrounded by water. You're in the Savannah where there is nothing but mountains, grassy plains and sand. There is no sci-fi twists where you change into a viscious predator. This time you play as a mercenary sent into a fictionous African nation to hunt down one target. He calls himself the Jackal, arming both factions at war, the APR and the UFLL and it's up to you to hunt him down and put an end to these mercenary wars.
Far Cry 2 is best desribed as an open world FPS where the story is more mission based. You accept missions from either faction and go to a certain point on your map to complete it. Most of the times the mission will be assassinating a target or retrieving documents or blowing up something to aid the faction. Along the way you meet up with buddies that will call as soon as you receive a mission and ask you to go to a different point on the map which may actually aid you on the mission. Personally the story is not the strongest element of the game and the missions can get a bit repetitive. The story doesn't progress fast enough to keep you till the end and it seems the Jackal is the only one consistent story element.
As a far as the shooting elements go this is a great shooter. There are a tonne of guns that you can either pickup from fallen enemies or buy from your local merchant as long as you unlocked them. Enemy guns are much weaker than store guns, they jam easily, will break and definately have a rusted look to them. Driving through the Savannah can be cool as long as you have the patience because the map size is atleast 50 square kilometres. It's quite incredible really that the Dunia engine can seamlessly load all that terrain and the engine is also well optimized for mid-range PCs.
This would definately have to be one of the most visially stunning games to hit the PC and consoles. Character models look good, the environment looks great with the HDR lighting and the jungle looks great too with the shadows of the tree tops. Sound is of course great with gunfights and explosions coming out of your 5.1 sound system. Voice acting is top notch especially for characters like the Jackal and also the South African accents are very well pulled off. And what would a Far Cry game be like without map editior. If you loved creating maps for the other games of the series than you will love it again as it's great to create a map, customize as much of it as you want and then share it.
This is definately a title you should consider adding to your collection. The full price can only be justified by how much you loved the map editing and the multiplayer but other than that a price drop should definately have you consider this a purchase. Curious where the next Far Cry location will be set, perhaps middle east?