Excuse me, could I bother you for a dasani?

For those who don’t know, Far Cry 2 has about as much to do with the original Far Cry as Halo 3 has to do with a ham sandwich. It’s an open-world first person shooter yet in spite of its nearly endless list of available weapons, this game has very little to do with guns. Far Cry 2 is about one thing and one thing only: Fire. With dynamic flame spreading and the flammability of almost everything in sight, Far Cry 2 is a pyromaniac’s dream. While the main character is a cold-blooded mercenary motivated only by his need for malaria meds and uncut diamonds, his main objective in most cases is to burn Africa to the ground, while a fierce enemy AI protests. The developers have punctuated the point by giddily placing more gasoline tanks per square foot than a Sunoco Station. There’s a good reason for that too; The fire is absolutely beautiful. During the game I found myself quite literally napping until the middle of the night, grabbing a flamethrower and watching the fire climb trees, spread across hilltops and devour entire soldier encampments. (Not to mention the glorious ignition of ammunition stockpiles in the middle of crowded barracks.)

A whole lot has been written about Far Cry 2 at this point, but very few have spent enough time with it to complete the sometimes mind-numbingly prolific single player campaign. So after what felt like a couple of hundred hours of gameplay, I completed the final mission and sent it back to the shelf. What I didn’t expect was how differently I viewed the game after having completing its admittedly repetitious storyline.

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD

As the campaign began, it was difficult to simply kill without wondering if I was doing the “right thing.” The game goes to great lengths to make the player wonder what African faction he should be supporting. After completing only a few missions the realization is clear: There are no “good guys” in Africa. You progress through the game finding new, interesting and truly magnificent ways to light things on fire while traveling clumsily between locations in half-broken down Jeep vehicles. Further into the campaign, the repetitive nature of the game starts to wear you down. The player has no choice but to stop thinking about who’s right or who’s wrong, who’s trying to kill you, who’s trying to pay you or who’s trying to betray you; All that matters is more diamonds, more medicine, and more weapons. Over time, an altruistic reporter emerges who is truly attempting to heal the unnamed African nation you’re operating in, yet he operates at a distance from the player’s storyline. The idea of the “right thing” becomes completely abstract, and being the last man standing seems to be the only goal worth achieving. Once you’re through eliminating the last few faction leaders, you’re approached by the target you’ve supposedly been searching for the whole time: an arms dealer named the Jackal. The Jackal, ironically, declares that he and you, cold-blooded mercenaries out for profit, are the problem in Africa, and must be eliminated for it to prosper. No matter what you choose in the end, you are forced to take your own life, and the African republic is left alone to heal.

Never before have I played a game with such thick sociopolitical commentary as Far Cry 2. As gleeful and truly beautiful as the fire and destruction is in this game, once played all the way through there is a sense that in the real Africa there is a cost to such terrifying beauty. In this country much like the game, nearly everything is flammable, there are ample opportunities to start a fire, and it spreads without prejudice.

Tags: Far Cry