Far Cry 2 Hands-on Preview

Fire In The Disco!

The part of the game we played in our hands-on was ripped straight from the current version of the full game and comprised of a single mission – to destroy a nearby radio tower being used to spout propaganda. Destroying the tower isn’t something to be taken lightly though even for hardened veterans like us, so it’s a good thing that we had some help along the way in the form of two other mercs – Warren and Barry.

One of the interesting things about Far Cry 2 is that at the start of the game you can choose one of nine characters to play as (though if each has different abilities or stats isn’t something we managed to find out). When that choice is made the other characters don’t just disappear though – they too jump in to the game as AI controlled characters. They can live, die, help and hinder you depending on your actions throughout the game.

For the purpose of the demo the relationship between Barry, Warren and ourselves had already been established and both of them were friendly towards us. Barry in fact had a proposition to make to us and phoned to arrange a meeting at a nearby safehouse. These safehouses litter the savannah and it’s here the player can save the game or rest to advance the in-game time.


The game actually has a fully realistic 24-hour day and night cycle so you can expect to make regular use of these safehouses if you want to do your murders under cover of darkness.

Barry wanted us to destroy a nearby water pipeline before we tackled the radio tower. This would serve as an excellent distraction for the later and more formidable mission of the tower itself. We signed up immediately and took Warren up on his offer of help.

Straightaway we launched into battle and, since there was a small crowd of on-lookers watching our progress, we decided to tackle the pipeline head on rather than try and stealth the suckers. We grabbed some wheels and gung-hoed on in, mowing down grunts left and right before pouncing out of the car and going crazy with the shotgun. We planted the bomb on the pipeline and started to move downriver to the tower.

The radio tower itself had a small cluster of huts around it however, each of them connected and raised off the ground on stilts. Before we launched The Big Assault though we had to heal ourselves, something which is done quite cleverly in Far Cry 2.

The health bar for players is divided into a number of different sections which represent different levels of injury. Lose the first section and no big deal, but get knocked down by two or three and you’re in trouble. Thankfully, using a medkit will heal you up some, but you can only carry three of them and using them in the middle of a battle takes valuable seconds.


We paused to heal up on the hill and grimaced as we watched our character rip a bullet out of his toe with a pair of pliers and cauterise the wound with a lit flare. From there we pushed on down through the huts on the other side of the hill and closed in on the radio tower. Here we stopped to strap a mine to the roof of a car and crashed it into the base of the tower before fleeing on a hang-glider as reinforcements flooded the area.

Beautifully choreographed, I think you’ll agree – but it turns out that there were much better ways to do it and on our second run through we got a chance to see some different paths, the most impressive of which came as a result of us stumbling across a flamethrower.

Far Cry 2 has a number of nice touches to help tactical players plan their assaults, one of which is a telescope you can use to sight enemy encampments and add them to your map. One other thing the telescope does though is tell you which direction the wind is blowing in – something which is constantly changing.

So there we were, on the crest of hill in the African outback overlooking a collection of enemy dwellings. We have a flamethrower and a rocket launcher. The wind is in our favour. As we stand there in a sea of dry, swaying reeds, a plan begins to form and as one of the developers drops a hint in our ear, we set that plan into action…