Last week I was lucky enough to get a very nice demo of Far Cry 2 on a 50 inch plasma screen and boy, it looks good. Let me tell you more. The demo started with your assassin standing deep in the jungle where they showed off how lovely all the trees look. They then decided to shoot the leaves off and let it be known that they will grow back in time too. Not necessary for the gamer to know but cool none the less. They then walked into a pre-Savanna-type plane and walked into a camp, chatting to an NPC who would be on your side later in the demo. We then high tailed it out of there in a jeep. Luckily, no-one chased us and we drove to a high mountain road.
Looking through binoculars, we could see the camp we were about to invade and also an indication of wind speed. You can start fires in this game so it’s good to know which way the wind’s blowing in case you end up barbecuing yourself.
Anyway, driving into the camp we ran someone over, got out of the jeep and took cover. These enemies are clever though and flanked us, filling us with bullets. Suddenly, the dude we chatted to earlier helped us up and to cover, where he gave us a pistol to get us back on track before picking up another weapon. And they don’t always work. Twice we saw the weapon jam whilst our character tried frantically to clear the blockage whilst being shot at.
Out came the flame-thrower next and soon we were torching wooden huts with people inside and a wooden rope bridge to stop people sneaking up behind us.
Then, it was time to go hang gliding and drift over some of the massive 50 square kilometres of the map which never stops to load in the next segment.
Lastly, we saw that you can set your alarm and have a kip to change the time of day, so if you fancy invading camps at night and being stealthy, you can.
I have to say this one’s looking amazing and there’s not a sign of sci-fi anywhere. It’s a lot more real-worldly, whilst keeping with the open-ended gameplay. Finally, the Far Cry 2 release date is scheduled for the beginning of Autumn.
