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Last night I attended the launch for the high anticipated Ubisoft game Far Cry 2. This is the sequel to the super popular Far Cry, which was released back in 2004. Far Cry 2 has been in development for roughly 3 years and it shows that a lot of hard work was put into this sequel. There are a ton of new features that make this game the leader in the next-generation of first-person shooters.

Ubisoft Montreal developed a new engine called Dunia that is specifically for Far Cry 2. The Dunia engine allows for the most realistic destructible environment, non-scripted enemy A.I., storm effects, day and night cycles and much more. From watching the demo and playing a bit of it yesterday the most impressive features of the new engine has to be the destructible environment and the non-scripted enemy A.I. The destructible environment is so realistic that if you were to shoot a branch off a tree it wouldn’t just fall to the ground and lay there, it’d get blown in the direction of the wind! And if it’s a hot and dry day and you decide to burn the grass, the fire will spread extremely quick since it’s a hot day. If it were a colder and damper day the fire wouldn’t spread as quick.

Unlike other games where a certain action triggers an enemy onslaught the Dunia engine’s non-scripted enemy A.I. in Far Cry 2 places enemies at any place possible. This is because the game allows the user to attack its enemy at any direction and time. Since the creators decided that the gamer will have this much freedom it challenged the development team to come up with this great new non-scripted A.I. system that will pop-up enemies when you least suspect.

Far Cry 2 is based in a fictional region of Africa that is involved in a civil war. The game allows the you to progress at your own pace and gives you total control of how you want to play the game. In certain games you have to follow certain directions and missions whereas Far Cry 2 allows you to accept or skip the missions that are given to you. The mission of the game is to find the infamous Jackal who supports the current war by dealing weapons to both sides. Because the game is based in Africa and has environments like a jungle and a savannah it’s hard to navigate through the game, so you are almost forced to use a map and GPS system to get where you want. I know what you’re thinking ‘great it relies so much on a map that I’m going to be pausing the game every two seconds’. Well if that’s what you were thinking, you’re totally wrong. Far Cry 2 allows you to bring out your map and navigation system at anytime without pausing the game and going to the main menu. You can be driving along one of the dirt roads and bring out your map and continue driving!

Another cool feature that was shown during the demo was your buddies. Your buddies can range from someone who gives you missions to someone that will come rescue you if you are dying. The rescue buddy is a cool feature because you can continue your game from exactly where you were. During the demo we were shown how it works and the character’s buddy came and rescued him. He got up and killed off the rest of the enemies that were there. This is great no! But there’s a catch to this. Once your rescue buddy saves you, he needs to go back to the safe house by covering himself and fighting off enemies on his own. If he dies fighting off the enemies he doesn’t comeback. So it’s not like you can always call that same buddy, once he dies you’ll never see him again in the game. That is awesome!

Far Cry 2 can also be played as a multiplayer game online or over LAN. This is pretty much standard with games nowadays but what isn’t is a map creator. Far Cry 2 allows you create your own map and also allows you to upload it to Ubisoft’s community servers where fellow gamers can vote and rate your custom map. Creating your own map is extremely simple. You start off with a flat piece of land and a bunch of tools. Within 5 minutes you can create a simple map that has mountains, trees, rivers and roads.

Ubisoft were really keen on making this game realistic so they sent a team of developers to Africa to research the environment there so they can replicate it in the game. They did everything from finding out how vegetation grows, to weather patterns, to recording the sound of the wind blowing! All that research paid off because the game looks and feels amazingly real.

Far Cry 2 was released today and is available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. There is no doubt that Far Cry 2 will be a huge seller and in my mind can be put in the category of best game of the year.

Watch the trailer for the game and let me know what you think of it.

More Info:
Official Site: Far Cry 2
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: October 23, 2008
Platforms: XBOX 360, PlayStation 3
Genre: Action, First-Person Shooter
Rating: M (+17)

Posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm by Alberto and is filed under Gamers, Just For Fun.

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