Far Cry 2 (XBox 360)

The majority of Xbox 360 owners, mentally impaired or not, will agree that Halo 3 benefits from being only approximately six to eight hours long. The game doesn’t have a chance to imbalance the pace in this time, while players can happily enjoy the experience without spending 30 minutes looking for a car in the middle of nowhere. Enter Far Cry 2, which manages to do everything the hard way. Boasting a flabbergasting 50 hours of gameplay, Far Cry 2 dares tread where other FPS titles did not – the open world. Once you’ve traversed even a portion of the tragically dull African setting, however, you’ll realise why nobody developed an RPG-sized shooter to begin with: they’re actually very boring. Far Cry 2 is essentially a new IP from Ubisoft, masquerading under the popular franchise name to heighten commercial interest. Set in a fictional African country (though Kenya is the obvious artistic influence), the game follows your chosen character as he/she hunts down a nasty, weapons-dealing bastard known as The Jackal. This man has sent the entire region into conflict by selling weapons at desirably cheap rates, so it’s naturally your job to find him and kindly pop a few bullets in his brain. Once the prolonged tutorial concludes, Far Cry 2 states that The Jackal is out there, before leaving you entirely to your own devices. Obvious story routes become immediately apparent, but dozens of side quests are also marked on the map as the game unleashes you upon the vast environment. At this point, Far Cry 2 assumes the role of a sandbox game and allows you the freedom to pick missions at your leisure, for better or worse.
Read more: http://www.360magazine.co.uk/games/far_cry_2/far_cry_2.html