Far Cry® 2

a ton of bugs npcs are bouncing everywhere the first part the npcs/the game told me to grab ammo meds and save the game i did that but then the game wouldnt load and the npcs would glitch, i tried a couple times to retry but still didnt work and so i couldnt even get to see the map or any mission or anything atall the game had to offer and everyone is saying its hard and annoying so i dont recomend getting it. i already have every other farcry game except 6 and thats good for me

Great game, although it suffers with compatibility issues.

For it's time, it was an immersive first person shooter with an interesting story. However, the game design of this title is very dated. The gun fights are still very intense, but it's an empty sandbox map with little story.

Game is glitched to hell. NPC's are bouncing meters into the air. The game soft-locks me after I manually save for the first time in the beginning. I delete the game, and it just launches the game. It took a lot of effort to completely erase this game off of my PC, lol.

Best Far Cry game. Period. The gritty realism elements mixed with an incredibly eye-catching and underutilized setting makes for an authentically unique game, not just for the franchise, but over the entire industry. Still not many games like it, closest thing I can think of being S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Not to mention Marc Canham's epic ethnic music really sets the tone and mood.

despite being antiquated in terms of features, this is by far the most atmospheric in the series, also the weapon jam/breaking is fun as well as wildfire spread mechanics unlike any other game.

I enjoy the old piss/doodoo filter that was needlessly added, tells me this game's hella dated.
The little collectible tapes are pretty fuckin rad too.

FC 1, 2 and 3 remain the best. Especially the gritty atmosphere in FC 2 is very enjoyable.

Fast travel killed Far Cry immersion imo.
In this game (especially at max difficulty) you always scramble for your life, for next little bit of ammo, for a way to avoid road blocks and road patrols you need to plan your route ahead, radar wont show you enemies so you need to listen to footsteps and their conversations if you want to sneak effectively (even tho sometimes its bugged and they know exactly where you are) also your aim need to be on point while sneaking, at night you can hide easier but at day there is almost no chance to not be spotted it feels very realistic, only thing missing for sneak is melee takedowns, you can kill enemies with melee, sneak behind them, but more often then not you agro everyone else.
It feels much more of a survival game and the fact that it doesnt handheld you, you need to prepare before every mission even choose right time of a day and collectibles isnt just showing on the map is very immersive also. Everytime I found some locations I felt much more accomplished than any other FC game.
I admit that respawning road blocks are little bit annoying, but it is immersive because it makes sense that militia would replace those men guarding the road block and also you can avoid every single road block with carefully planing your route as I said before. I used boats and rivers much more often than other FC games. Only thing about those road block that need a little bit of polish is that they need some kind of cooldown because it happened to me that I parked my car too far away to avoid detections killed everyone silently and then as I reclaimed my car those patrolmen were already respawned like few seconds later.
Story and characters feel weaker than other FC games.

I used to play this game on PS3. Re-spawning checkpoints, No quick-saves, and long travel distances to fast travel points made it very frustrating. Probably completed less than 10% of the game. 15 or so years later FC2 came up for sale on Steam and I thought I'd give it another go. I'm glad I did. Graphics are better, you can save at any point, and the game just seems somewhat easier (possibly from hours of S.T.A.L.K.E.R). Still play with a controller using Steam input, which works well. This game still holds up, and I would recommend this PC version, on sale or not.

OH BOY how do you sum up far cry 2 other than an absolute bleak,disease riddled.rust covered roller coaster.

Best in the franchise hands down back when game devs took pride in their work.

It is goddamn embarassing when a game needs a bunch of fan-made auxiliary programs to even launch, only to run at 5 frames per second.

even tho its years...its such a wonderful game! give it a try, the graphics are nice, the story is interesting, i loved it!

One of the most immersive singleplayer FPS shooters of all time. For being made in 2008 the level of detail was way ahead of its time; just watch any YouTube video on it and you'll see why. Ubisoft sent some of their devs to Kenya for ambience & art references and it shows. Fantastic story & gameplay, especially challenging with the Realism+ Redux mod with shaders & difficulty tweaks. You can play like Rambo or like Agent 47 it's so good

No other game has the soul of this one. It sears moments into your memory. Your grenade will roll down a hill.

There are no good guys or main quest. You're a merc working for the highest bidder, buying military hardware with blood diamonds to burn down the rainforest.

Still the best far cry. The perfect formula of collecting diamonds through assassination gigs to buy better guns. No handholding, you're dropped in the desert to survive. We need a remaster with modern graphics! Here's the ratings: Far cry 2>3>4>5>6>1

I adore this game but heavily dislike UBISOFT. Bring Malaria back! Bring intelligent but vulnerable rescue buddies back! Bring raging forest fires back! Bring fun back! Make the company private or sell the IP UBISOFT!

Far Cry 2, this debt with my past is finally paid.

Incredibly, this is the most technically advanced game Ubisoft has released, and honestly, one of the most advanced games ever made. The physics, the graphics, the FIRE (MY GOD THE FIRE), the gunplay, the animations, the foliage, wind, it's just superb and it aged like fine wine, does not feel dated at all. Far Cry 3 and 4 albeit more fun games, are way less impressive than Far Cry 2 was and still is to this day.

It's not all flowers and sunshine tho, FC2 can be a boring videogame at times, especially if you consider where the series went in the future. Far Cry 2 is more akin to Far Cry 1, less story, less talking, more gameplay, more immersive, it makes you feel like you are a mercenary working for both sides of an ugly conflict and profiting for it while Afrika's people bleeds, and while the writing is very confusing and the motivation of MC less clear than petroleum, I still had a lot of fun with it.

In the end Far Cry 2 did not became my favorite in the series, that still is Far Cry 4, but I really wish the devs took the technology further instead of castrating it in future iterations. It's a good game, impressive technical aspects and good shooting, but it will not change your life that much, still WAAAY better than Far Cry 5 and New Dawn that's for sure.



P.S: I played this game using the mod "Vanilla + (Tom's Mod)" from Nexus Mods. It removes the ugly filters and has some quintessential balance changes, QoL and fixes, also, it's heavily customizable for your own liking. Definitely download this mod, it will make your life much better without ruining the original experience.

Far Cry 2 is not bad but it is also not great.
This game is somewhere between having fun and being absolutely broken.
Maybe when it released it was an great game, then again maybe not.
The game looks stunning for it's time and I enjoyed all the small details but far cry 2 does not play fair at all.
Enemies spawn in out of nowhere and always knows where you are and have 100% accuracy.
The upgrade system for your weapons is great if actually works as you spend your hard earned diamonds making your arsenal better only to have it not do the damage you think it should and constantly breaking down.
Who knows where your bullets go when you hip fire or aim down the sight.
I have enjoyed my time in war torn Africa and I will not be returning.

6/10

Great Story, Great gameplay, the downside is the ending quite confusing, i dont like open-ending thing, sooo..

7/10!!

The game refused to run on a pc with a ryzen 7950x and rx 7900 xtx but does run on a ryzen 5500 and rx 6600. The only reason im giving it a positive review is because i ran past a NPC and he called me a motherfucker in a African accent.

Far Cry 2 is like Far Cry 3, but way worse.

Lots of interesting mechanics and attention to detail in this game.
I was genuinely surprised when the backblast from firing a rocket launcher caused the grass I was stood in to go up in flames. Just fire alone is very detailed, and can cause so much chaos and destruction when it gets out of control.
Even the enemies have a lot of dynamic behaviors in their AI like carrying injured comrades to safety, or limping to cover on their own after being shot.

Sadly the majority of the game's missions (outside of a few major story missions) are incredibly repetitive, mainly boiling down to "go here, kill/steal/destroy something, mission complete", with hardly any variety, besides location. Buddy missions sometimes mix things up a bit, but not by much.
Combined with very lengthy driving, rapidly respawning enemies and forgettable story, the game quickly turns into a painfully boring slog.

Playing this game on Infamous is an experience at least everyone should try, it really makes you hate africa.

On another note this game's difficulty is in how much it crashes. Yeah I played through the game on Infamous but the crashing was 10 times more painful than any mission available and I'd rather not play through the game when every step I take in an african warlord's office could lead to my game completely cucking me back to my steam library.

Africa Driving Simulator
Re-spawn check points + spawning scripted trucks with machine gun + no convenient fast travel points = 75% of the game time wasted being miserable going from point a to point b.

While the immersive no HUD gun game play is nice, it does not justify the outdated game design with zero to no story.

Had trouble with some glitches and drops but a good game otherwise.

game is so bad its kinda funny. There is no story at all. the main quests look like side missions and every single mission works the same way: Drive for 30 min with the weirdest map Design possible btw. Then kill 15 enemies and drive back for another 30 min.

Unplayable. NPCs bouncing around like they have moon gravity. player glitches thru invisible walls sometimes in cutscenes causing a sequence break that will soft lock you. mouse sensitivity setting does nothing it constantly stays extremely high. refresh rate option does nothing (locked my game to 60hz and was still getting over 1500 fps) the mission to get medication from the doctor is bugged so you cant progress the story. the physics engine is on skyrim levels of busted where objects fly all over the place just from entering a room. it is not worth the $10

Far Cry 2 is an absolutely miserable experience, and not in a good way.

So many glitches that you can't even play it. Been stuck in one scene in the beginning with the doctor giving you a tape and you can't get past that due to invisible wall and everything looping . Most NPC can get these weird random glitches jumping all around. Tried all the solutions on google, nothng worked.

Too bad, the game looked great if it's not for the glitches that prevented me from progressing. You have car and weapons to upgrade, and something like open world map. Maybe if it was GOG version it wouldn't be glitchy but Steam yet again shows they can't fix glitchy games.

I really wanted to like this game. I know it's pretty old now but the gameplay was not fun for me at all. The outposts enemies which are so frequent always respawn and the enemies always spot you and there is no stealth option. AI is very relentless and it feels like it's the same all the way through. There are some side quests like collecting the diamonds and upgrading weapons but it's the same outpost enemy fights which gets old and boring really quickly. Its also not a great experience on the steam deck mainly due to the controls which don't feel quite right (I know they can be optimized) the map is really big though and the world does look pretty good though and I like the map system but overall there game is just too flawed for my liking

Enjoyed driving various vehicles and river boats.

Everything respawns, and its very frustrating. Clear out a base and it fills right back up, destroying any sense of progress.

During the annual Far Cry binge, I felt it necessary to try one of the only games I hadn't played. This was a mistake. This game is bad, and not in a "newer games" elitist sorta way. It's just a bad game.

To put it simply, there's a reason Far Cry 3 was considered such a massive leap for the franchise. I'm just going to list out my grievances, in no particular order:

- There are no animals to hunt (in Africa!), which means no crafting. That was the most fun for me in FC3 and 4.
- There are no skill trees. Nothing to add a bit more oomph to the combat.
- The guns you do have can't have accessories. Or at least I didn't get far enough. You can upgrade your weapons, but I have no idea what that entails.
- The outposts are pitiful. They are literally just a hut with two dudes to kill and a save station.
- The game is ugly, even by old game standards. A victim of the late 2000s desaturation trend. Words I would describe this game would be desaturated, dehydrated, and desolate.
- Stealth seems to be not an option. Killed a guy point blank with a silenced shotty and the entire guard station knew exactly where I was.
- The HUD is basically non-existant. There's hardly anything to let you know you just got a new objective, or that your old one changed. The only way you can tell is by listening to dialogue...
- ...which, btw, is probably some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard. It's like Ubisoft hired random people off the streets and got them for one session to read off a teleprompter as quickly as they could. It's like they've never heard of a comma. No upward or downward inflections in the voices, no pausing for a breath, just rippity dippity rippity dippity. Awful dialogue. At least when games are dated they still can have funny characters or AI like an Oblivion or something. Far Cry 2 was released in 2008... it's downright sad.

TL;DR if you're someone like me who played all of the "main" FC games and wanted to give the older ones a fair shot, don't waste your time. If a game looks like poo, sounds like poo, and feels like poo to play, you're probably playing with a turd.

Despite my low Steam hours I have played this game foe years. Bloody love it. The attention to small details and life the game breaths leaves much to be desired from the new Far Cry games (I love Far Cry 5 for how much fun I can have) but this is just something else that very few games can hook me into deeply. My only comparable game to being immersed like this is the STALKER games.

One of my favourite far cry games. It has a way of keeping me coming back. Very awesome game, worth playing.

Great game. Really makes you feel like you are a real gun for hire in a poor African country somewhere. If you like shooting people then you will love this.

Once you get this game working on new hardware, it's a great game

That game was so innovative for it's time and stuffed to the brim with little details and mechanics, I wish some of it's features would make a comeback in future entries.
Of course, as Ubisoft was experimenting with the formula, some of these features are half-baked, redundant and clunky, but don't worry, since Far Cry 3 onward, UbiSoft made sure to sand down the formula so even your friendly neighboorhood braindamaged hillbilly can play it with only one hand and they promise they will never ever try to experiment and innovate anymore.
Gee, that was close....

I'm glad this old game doesn't require Uplay.
If you are familiar with STALKER, you will have an easier time adapting to this game. The game is quite fun but it is also an acquired taste.
Also, I think both weapon jamming and malaria are not that annoying as long as you regularly replace used, old guns with new one and bother to do the Underground quests as soon as you can pick them up (Underground quest is only available when you are low on malaria medicine). What's more annoying is the enemy checkpoint, which refills its hostile NPCs as soon as you leave the checkpoint for a short distance.

Awesome game in every way! Some people didn't like the high gamma in the game. And I really liked it, as the dark graphics really describe the state of the Nameless African country: dirty water and drought. Good plot, the antagonist is really engaging as a person. Jackal tapes are a separate treat.
Disadvantages: the game has a lot of bugs. As well as the spawn of fighters in roadblocks.

Overall: Beautiful, Boring, Blay Far Cry 3 instead.

Story: All the videos that talk about this game being "deep" are full of shit. This is so boring and repetitive, with a shallow interpretation of it's subject matter "African Warlords", that it legit, has NO interest in exploring. Jackel compares the people perpetuating the violence as "germs" to dehumanise them yet he's portrayed as sympathetic/wise to the "true nature" of the conflict. While another character straight up calls the conflict "Idiotic" within the context of starting it up again. Yah, you "technically" end the war half way through, no one cares or is effected by this. One faction was protecting the deposed King and the game does nothing with this concept except an assassination mission, the reward was a cute idea though, I liked how impractical it was (Maybe the best mission in the game, honestly). The malaria pills never run out, and the quest to "get more" is the exact same delivery quest, with the exact same dialogue (Assassination missions too). In fact the dialogue (Especially from the warlords) is so hard to hear and can be cut off very easily. Oh! and you'll straight up be given fake choices during the linear story. I flat out don't care to finish this game, I am half way through and was always a hairs length away from hard dropping this.

Gameplay: You will fight the exact same enemies, the exact same way, in the exact same location, over, and over and over! I'd finish one mission and the next mission sent me back to the exact same location, who's enemies all respawned. The enemies are weird actually? Sometimes they'll flank me or wait me out behind cover and other times they'll all march into the same kill zone all their friends got shot in. I hope you like getting in your car, driving until an enemy car drives into you, killing them with your turret, stealing their car, and driving until an enemy car drives into you, again and again and A-FUCKING-GAIN!!! Clearing out the exact same bases (You get it)... The hidden diamonds are also a bad, now that I think about it, because they facilitate this "stop and go" cycle for exploration, where I'm not paying attention to the gorgeous world, but my GPS because I'm combing everywhere for those diamonds. The limited inventory also hurts the game for me because I'd want to play with something like the flamethrower, but I'd be putting myself at a disadvantage without my dart rifle/rpg, I'd prefer to have any 3 weapons I want, rather than have them segregated into 3 categories. You will have experienced everything in this game within the first 5 hours, just do one of each side quest, because they're all the same. Trust me, there's nothing else you'll miss out on.

Far Cry 2 is a much more realistic take on the series. The setting, an African civil war, is portrayed with a seriousness that most game companies usually avoid. This is the only game where you experience malaria firsthand, with constant reminders to complete side missions just to get your medication. Add in regular weapon jamming and the daily routine of pulling shrapnel from your arm with pliers, and you’ve got a game that feels more like gritty survival than a typical shooter. It’s just you, your unreliable gun, and your trusty map in this unforgiving world.

That said, the game isn’t without its flaws. There are bugs, and certain features—like outposts magically refilling with enemies right after you clear them—can get repetitive. But with the right mods, the game truly shines. I recommend Realism+Redux, a total overhaul that combines Realism+ and Redux to give you the ultimate Far Cry 2 experience.

10/10 WOULD GET MALARIA AGAIN.

Far Cry 2 is a compelling open-world first-person shooter that stands out for its immersive game-play and richly detailed environment. Set in a fictional African country ravaged by civil war, the game offers players a vast, dynamic landscape filled with diverse ecosystems, day-night cycles, and unpredictable weather, enhancing the realism and immersion.

One of its standout features is the game's approach to realism. Players must manage resources like ammunition and health while dealing with the contamination that can affect weapons. The dynamic AI enhances the experience, with mercenaries that adapt to player actions, creating a sense of unpredictability in encounters.

The story, while simple, effectively draws players into a world of conflict and moral ambiguity as they navigate allegiances and undertake missions that often require strategic planning and improvisation. The co-op multiplayer mode, although less prominent, adds another layer of replay-ability.

Overall, "Far Cry 2" is lauded for its ambition and depth, offering players a gritty and authentic experience that differentiates it from more straightforward shooters, making it a memorable entry in the franchise.

wtf is this! , Graphics good , game overall meh

Really like the stealth gameplay of assaulting, hiding in bushes, killing from behind,... or just holding a bazooka and nuking the enemies from afar, truly a great game.

The perfect version of Far Cry 2 is still out there for someone to make, but it's highly unique gameplay systems and oppressive world will stick with you for some time. 10 dollars is an easy ask for this game.

Far Cry 2 is NOT Far Cry 3 nor is like any version Far Cry 1. Far Cry 3 does take some clear inspiration from 2 but works a little too hard to soften the difficulty.

Pick one of several special operatives to play as, each with a similar hardened background of warfare, private military, or espionage as they are tasked to kill The Jackal, and international arms dealer who supplies third world conflicts. The ones whom you don't pick will populate the world as special buddy characters who will assist you when downed or give alternate objectives during missions.

As you enter the country, you immediately succumb to malaria, and The Jackal finds you out, leaving you alive to deal with your new disease. To progress your objective of finding the Jackal, you'll take jobs for both sides of this armed conflict, taking out corrupt officials, blowing up motorcades or supplies, etc. they will play you in raw diamonds to use to outfit yourself with additional weapons and upgrades. Unlocking more options there will have you doing similar jobs for arms retailers, and getting more medicine will require you to do jobs for the local priest.

The contentious parts (good if not great ideas, but badly done):
-Malaria can and will strike at any time. When you have pills its not a big deal, but when you don't it almost means failure, and theres no way to tell exactly how many doses you have remaining. Without any way of just buying some, getting more pills is also always "yet another errand".
-You dont officially fight for any side, so everyone hates you--checkpoints open fire on site and so do patrolling vehicles. There are no disguises or travel passes or anything so getting around them is annoying as all hell.
-Stealth is overdeveloped and underdefined, leading to a buggy feeling and it often feel useless. Enemies are less aware in the heat of daylight and more vigilant at night, sounds play too big a part in detection, and enemy awareness propagates too fast. Add on a strict weapon slot system, a general lack of silent weapons, and awkward takedown system, and you get a game thats most fun to play fast and loud.
-Too oppressive. Checkpoints not only open fire on site but also respawn practically as soon as you turn the corner. Even will end game gear, you will always feel as though you are against impossible odds. In a lot of ways, the games good ending is realizing you shouldn't be involved and not playing haha.

game is literally unplayable you need a multi fixer to play it lmao

I played this game once initially for like a few minutes noticed it was broken and didn't fix it and just played the other Far Cry's instead since I was lazy so this review would already be negative since I had to waste time troubleshooting and modding to play the damn game.

It's not very good, the AI is terribly made and stealth is not viable despite being encouraged. You also can't navigate most of the map so most objectives are railroaded instead of letting you approach from a lot of different spots. The story is also completely nonsensical but this is a gameplay focused game so whatever.

There's a lot more that's smaller but a good way to summarize it is despite being praised as having a lot of realism past graphics, this game is only realistic in the absolute worst ways possible.

A nihilistic nightmare is probably what I would describe this game as. While it may not be as great of a game as the sequels, and not have as engaging of a story/villain either, as a piece of art it absolutely excels. Everything in the game serves the narrative of you being in an absolute hellhole with no good guys as far as the eye can see, just trying to survive and make a buck at the same time, which makes for quite an incredible and unique experience. There kind of is nothing like it out there, especially from a AAA developer. Would love to see more "experimental" games like this more often (in the AAA space that is) and I totally recommend trying this one out if you are intrigued.