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Beginner’s Guide to Far Cry 2

November 11th, 2008 at 3:00 pm · 11 Comments

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Editor’s note: This is yet another in a long list of kick ass Sarcastic Gamer Survival Guides. If you want to check out the other ones in the series, click here for our list of guides for games like GTA IV, Call of Duty 4, Battlefield Bad Company and Burnout Paradise, among others.

Far Cry 2 can be a very intimidating experience to many gamers, myself included.  It’s not so much Ubisoft’s fault, as that of the developers of every shooter and sandbox game that came before.

There’s a decent chance you’ve missed this game, as it came out just ahead of an avalanche of heavily funded ad campaigns for epic franchises.  I am here to tell you that if you did indeed pass on FC2, you passed on one of the most innovative single player experiences to come along in a while.   While the destructible vegetation, environment flammability, and the incredible weather effects are all quite stunning, most of the credit goes for the game’s engaging experience goes to the AI department (could there actually be such a thing) at Ubisoft.

The AI in Far Cry 2 are unlike anything I have ever seen.

Because of the advances in that area, you’re gonna need to rethink the way you play this shooter. Here are some NON-spoiling tips to make your transition from regular shooters to this new way of creating video games a LOT smoother.

Here’s a beginner’s guide to understanding and fully enjoying Far Cry 2′s immense single player game.

The AI in FC2 are the closest thing I have ever seen to truly intelligent and truly fallible adversaries.  They innovate, they empathize, they make good and bad choices.  They can be tricked and they will attempt to trick you.

Unlike other shooters, there doesn’t seem to be any invisible lines in Far Cry 2 that, when crossed, cause the enemy AI to become magically aware of your presence and exact location.  If they don’t see or hear you, they don’t know you’re there.  This drastically changes the dynamic of the game, as you progress through the single player campaign.

At first, you may find even the simplest checkpoints to be enormously challenging to cope with.  That’s because simply running in and shooting up the place can get you killed in the game, just as it likely would if you were a real mercenary taking on 3-5 adversaries in an unfamiliar environment.  It takes quite a while, without proper instruction, for you to realize that you aren’t going to enjoy much success in the game by simply blasting everything that moves.

Don’t get me wrong, Far Cry 2 is a shooter at its core, but a shooter that relies heavily on your creativity and the element of surprise.  Often your own creative approaches to the game will decide whether you succeed or fail at a mission

Mostly, it’s all about your interaction with the AI.

Take for instance a mission I completed in ACT 1.  I was sent to a truck depot to destroy some compressors.  I looked at the map, which showed me that there really wasn’t a way to approach in the daylight.  The depot was surrounded by rolling grassy hills with an occasional plant here and there.  Further scouting revealed that there were tons of enemy AI roaming the grounds.  There was no way a head to head fight was going to yield anything but a tombstone for me.

So, I devised a plan.

I decided that I would sneak in and plant explosives at one end of the depot on a propane tank, then sneak around to the other end, closer to the objective, and then detonate the explosives, HOPEFULLY drawing the panicked AI towards the commotion and easing my escape.  As I set this in place I used a watch tower to scout the whole situation and take inventory of exactly how many baddies I was up against.

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Categories: PC · PlayStation 3 · Xbox 360

  • Flamefox

    Probably the most useful guide so far doc as for most of the others i did not find the game nearly as challenging

    Farcry 2 is one of the hardest games I have ever played on normal difficulty and especially the hardest shooter. Halo legendary mode? pssh try farcry hardest difficulty by yourself. The thing that makes this game difficult is the sandbox mode of the game it is not linear so although it is easier to sneak up on enemies it is not a straight forward game go here kill those guys and capture that base try and play the game this way is a surefire way to lose your temper then only the birds will be able to use your 360 or ps3

  • balaamsafe

    Great guide, very useful, i will try to distrcat the ai more with explosions. A few thing i will add:

    Try to take routes off road. It avoids constant guard posts, looses pursuers, finds lots of diamond cases and in my opinion is far more interesting and varied (nothing beats crusing across the plains, with a zebra galloping playfully by your side).

    Buy the weapons crates as soon as you can, they allow you to effectivley have another class avaidable at every safe house. I tend to have a sniper/stealth class with sniper and silenced pistol, and a more general class, with my personal favourite the auto shotty.

    Oh and go to mikes bar whenever you want to branch out the mission paths with more side missions etc, because there is always some character there, giving missions, aiding you or just giving useful info.

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Doc

    Yeah I blew it on act one. Nver went back to Mike’s. Now in Act 2…. not an option.

  • http://myspace.com/dontvoteforbrooks sogard

    The buddies in the game are a great help. they give you “subversive” missions when you take a story mission. Completing those sub missions unlocks supplies for your safe houses. also you can have a buddy wait at your safe house to revive you if need be.

    The most interesting dynamic that I’ve found with buddies, however, is that once they die they’re gone forever. You can try to heal them when they get injured but one time i had a guy who i couldn’t save. And i actually felt attached to these characters, unlike GTA4. Because you actually have to earn these relationships by doing missions, they actually gave you good benefits, didn’t call you consistently, and if they died that was it. all their help was lost. right now all my friends have died except for one.

    Doc you need to play through again with buddies unlocked in Far Cry, cause if you had to actually think about killing some one in GTA4 this will really get you going.

  • Benton

    This is a great guide for beginners. The final points are all things that I’ve come to learn in the couple weeks I’ve been playing this. I use silenced weapons, always attack at night, and my goal for every mission is to not let the enemy fire a shot (only happened a couple times, but it’s immensely rewarding when it does).

    One more thing I would have put on that list is to get your ass to a safehouse right before you go on a mission so your buddy can be on Rescue Ready.

  • Benton

    Also, in agreement with sogard, “Good Night, Sweet Prince” is the most heartbreaking achievement ever. And the fight at Mike’s Bar was really sad too. I’ve never felt such a sense of failure while playing a video game.

  • Apex8

    i have to play through again because i realised everything id missed to late

  • http://www.surpashoespro.com supra skytop

    i would like to have a try later.

  • AfricanWarhead

    another tip: try to fire in short burst to avoid recoil, your aim improves greatly. 2 to 3 bursts with the PKM or the Saw takes em out at a respectable range.

  • Nick

    Hello, there is a ,ore simple way of finishing act 1, just shout a flare trought the window, so you dont even have to go on the terrian..

  • Andy

    My buddy Paul Ferenc died, I got mad and started shooting everything that moved… NOT a smart idea… That was the first time I’ve died in FC2