In such a crowded season, I am trying to finish up Fallout 3 and Web of Shadows before tackling this baby. With no mutant midget monkey men appearing (the late game freakshow that amounted to a WTF moment in the original Far Cry), Far Cry 2 seems like it is everything that made the original game great and more.

In the space of a few short minutes, Ubisoft’s Far Cry 2 elevated itself in our eyes from entertaining open-world first-person shooter to guaranteed Game of the Year contender. After running multiple missions with Josip Idromeno, the first Buddy we encountered in Africa, he fell during a particularly heated firefight. After the frantic post-battle rush to save the aging merc ended in failure, our own chosen gun-for-hire extended his hand over Josip’s eyes and slid them shut. It was a quiet, deeply affecting moment. Mercenaries may not shed tears for fallen comrades, but our walk back to the nearest safe house seemed particularly empty that evening.

This small snippet is one of many randomly occurring events in Far Cry 2’s player-written narrative. While there is a scripted sequence of events and missions which must unfold between the beginning and end of the game, the way in which it all plays out and – perhaps more importantly – the spaces in between are where the game really comes alive. Far Cry 2 is successful in a multitude of ways, but it is most impressive for delivering one of the medium’s first truly emergent narratives.

Daigoji_Gai via gamesblog.ugo.com »