The issue was that the game used a blank slate protagonist to let the player insert themselves into the story, but the story wasn’t about the player, it was about this specific mercenary that is never introduced to us, and that we never learn anything about the motivations of.

So we have me, inserted into this war-torn country, made emotionally involved with it by the opening sequence, and then forced to make decisions that I strongly opposed.

But I’m not even proposing a solution at this point, because the only way to solve this issue while preserving the immersion and emotional investment that created it that I can see would be to expand the game to include the choices I wanted to make.

Whereas the more common approach would be to simply have the character speak, explain their motivation in cutscenes, and generally make the game into a generic game with an average videogame’s crappy story that I would probably have felt nothing for, and certainly not have been inspired to write about.

What there is of Far Cry 2 is still infinitely better than the way the majority of games handle this stuff.

What i like most about Farcry 2 are the details. Ubisoft has looked into a lot of stuff to make this game very good. Windspeed and direction, everything. Only the details make up for the story (wich i have no problem with). The overall goal is still killing the Jackal, wich is a good act. No more weapons in the country, and the war there is over. I duno how to exactly say this in Engilsh (im Dutch), but the final goal makes up for the bad actions troughhout the game.

The guy I hate most in the game is that fat guy Mbuwante(?) (leader of the UFLL) cuz he’s a real psychopath. Voorhees is actually one of my favorite characters in the game… he’s cool. What I find most bad is that you must kill everyone in the end. Buddies, faction guys… everyone.

But I digress, my point is simply that I found a kinship there with the way you enjoy allowing a game to play itself, and open your eyes to the stories that unfold when you let them.

And here I’m conflicted, as I found FarCry 2 to be one of the least immersive or enjoyable experiences in mainstream gaming for some years.

I’m afraid I never managed to grasp much of the storyline – my six-ten hour play afforded me no gains but an increasing irritation with poor gameplay mechanics and inhuman, ghostly AI.. And then a sense of utter sickness and mounting emotional discomfort as I found the missions to be little more than the slow and methodical slaughter of Afrikaaner, Australian and American men hiding in shacks.

After that many hours spent either crushed under a truck watching a repetition of cinematic ‘rescue sequences’, or creeping around a shanty town shooting mercenaries like myself in the legs for some diamonds that grant me no tangible reward I consider valuable, I never touched the game again.

It was emotionally effective in all the worst ways, while not allowing me the freedom to act as I wished, without a good reason for not being able to.

So sate my curiosity, roBurky – What did you find in this game, that I missed?

I have two characters in Fallout 3, one good, one evil. Though, evil? Isn’t she just doing anything to survive?

Far Cry 2 put me off eventually because it’s plain repetitive. Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over and over again the same things. It bored me. Morality? It’s a game. It’s for entertainment, not for teaching moral principles (which will, one day, be rendered obsolete anyway.) I can butcher and kill in Fallout 3 without any reprisals. The only thing is that eventually the “law” will come after me. Which isn’t really a difference from the “good” path, because there the Talon mercs will come after you.