Far Cry 2

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 23rd October 2008
Comments (114) Digg Stumble

That’s not all

Wow – a second page on gameplay? That’s something we only usually do for the most complex and best of games! That fact alone says a lot more about how much we like Far Cry 2 than the score itself will.

You see, Far Cry 2 is a fairly complex game and it definitely does a bit to buck the trends of the usual and somewhat staid FPS genre. Understand though that when we say ‘complex’, we don’t mean it in a bad way. One of the best things we can say about Far Cry 2 is that it takes all these amazing features and it makes them utterly accessible to the player. Soon you’ll be gouging bullets out of yourself with no problems.

And that leads us neatly onto one of our favourite features of the game – the health system.

In most FPS games there are only two ways to handle player damage. You either have a straight-up health counter that ticks down and is restored by healthpacks, or you have health as an invisible idea that you’ll only become aware of when you’re almost killed by two bullets and have to hide behind a crate for your screen to stop pulsing red.

Far Cry 2 Far Cry 2 - Gameplay II

Far Cry 2 though has got a little inventive here and actually fused the two together. Player health is therefore represented by a series of coloured bars at the bottom of the screen and these empty when you take damage.

If you only take minor damage and the segment isn’t completely depleted then it’ll slowly restore as your bruises heal – but whole segments cannot restore themselves if they’ve been totally drained. Instead, you’ll have to give yourself an injection to restore your health completely, which makes styrettes an important commodity to reserve as you can only carry so many at once.

That’s all well and good then – but it all changes if your last health segment becomes damaged. If that happens then it counts as lethal damage and your health will start draining away quickly as you bleed out. Your vision will blur, your heart will pound and you’ll be unable to move at full speed.

The only solution: battlefield surgery. By pressing H you’ll automatically address your most severe wounds and restore your last two segments, but the process can take time so it’s important to find a safe spot as fast as you can before you keel over like a duck caught in the path of skimming stone contest.

Far Cry 2 Far Cry 2 - Gameplay II

It’s also pretty gross as you’ll have to watch the surgery be performed based on the damage you’ve taken. If you’ve been shot a lot you’ll have to yank the lead out with pliers or cauterise the hole with matches. If you’ve been hit with splash damage your limbs will need relocating. If you’ve been caught in a fire then you’ll have to stop, drop and roll. All of it is disgusting and we have to keep telling ourselves that it’s just the sound of sizzling bacon or snapping celery, not crisping flesh or broken bones.

The benefit of the health system then is that it helps bring a small slice of realism to the game, while also making the tactics of a gunfight more involved and interesting. You can still charge in all guns blazing if you want – but you’ll have to have a good hiding place in mind.

Oh, and you also better hope that your gun doesn’t jam either – a feature which seems to have divided fans right down the middle ever since it was first announced. In reality though, gun-jamming can be as much or as little of an issue as you want in the game. It isn’t something to worry about unless your RPG misfires and plants the rocket at your feet.

Pick-up some rubbish gun off the ground that looks all dirty, battered and cracked? Fine, do it – but expect it to jam more than the band at The Black Cotton Club in London on a Saturday night. Just as in real life, randomly grabbing guns off the floor is a tactic you can’t always rely on. A far better option is to buy the guns you want in advance and ensure you have enough ammo. Guns don’t degrade over time, so as long as you have a quality product then reliability is assured.

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