Double Touch

Ok, so Crysis has come and gone as well as the industry quiet period and now the release schedule is heating up. GTA 4 is so close one can almost taste the East-European gangster fun! However one title released shortly could easily be the sleeper hit of the year. Far Cry 2, the successor to Crytek's original, is coming and it’s starting to look pretty damn good. With Games Radar's recent preview now in the bag, breaking more of the secrecy that has surrounded the game, the Ubisoft Montreal team's effort seems to be growing in stature.

Based in the Serengeti, in a fictional country where the Government has fled leaving two groups of armed mercenaries fighting for power, Far Cry 2 is offering a fresh location to explore (50km of open sandbox!) as well as a fresh take on the traditional FPS. Assigned to take down an arms dealer who is supplying weapons to both of the fractured militias, your task in Far Cry 2 is to cut off the supply of guns to the state, by killing people. Lots of people.

Of course to achieve this aim you have to work with the bad guys before you can bring down the system. Obviously this entails a lot of fighting, to which unlike most FPS's, you are extremely venerable. No Crysis Nano Suit here, you are just another soldier and one of the most interesting game mechanics is how you will have to heal yourself after every conflict. Surgery is essential in keeping you alive, so expect to be digging out shrapnel and bullets, patting out flames and stitching yourself back together. On another note, while you are only one man, at the start of the game you can pick from up to 13 characters who all start in different locations around the world. A nice touch.

Other new information includes:

1. Realistic day and night cycles which make a real difference to how a mission / fight etc will play out.

2. Dynamic fire that will spread and burn realistically. Expect wooden structures to burn down with a quick blast from a flamethrower.

3. Dynamic weather systems, that create completely unscripted effects such as individual leaves and swaying trees and shrubbery.

4. Malaria. All characters in the game are infected with malaria and this provides the impetus to almost all your actions. You need medicine to stay sane, to get medicine you need money and to get money you need to kill. The interesting element however in this process is that if you see too much blood, then you start to white out and gather infamy, too much of which and you'll be banned from local villages and camps, cutting off your ability to but medicine. Balance seems to be key.

5. Vehicles. Lots of them.


With all this taken into account Far Cry 2could be excellent. However despite a few pictures and one tech demo video showing the fire and weather effects, nothing so far has been released showing off game play. This is worrying as if one casts their mind back two years one will remember a title called Boiling Point, which just as with Far Cry 2looked excellent and sounded like it would be a quality title. In the end though, when released, the actual game and game play was broken beyond belief. Broken mission threads, shambolic physics, diabolical clipping problems, random crashes and lack of direction all buried Boiling Point in the videogame graveyard. Crysis was demonstrated in-game months before its release, something which Far Cry 2 has not done. Now while this doesn't necessarily point to disaster, it would calm the nerves of many if some footage were released.

At the end of the day though only time will tell. Released on the 26th of September, Far Cry 2 could, if promises are followed through, steal not only the show but also the FPS crown.