Far Cry 2: Smarter Than It Looks?
Shooters often suffer from what Michael Gerson so helpfully coined “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” If the skeletal story gives a nod to fascism or American political divisiveness, we feel we at least need to mention it in the review. Too easy too to read themes and ideas in a game when they aren’t actually there: spend 20+ hours at the screen and your brain is bound to wander.
So take what I’m about to write with a grain of salt. But: Far Cry 2 may not be stupid.
The first Far Cry, of course, was absolutely stupid. That’s why we liked it. A guy in a Hawaiian shirt saves the world from lethal science experiments? If the motorboats handle well, then let’s go for it. But Far Cry 2 is a far more serious game, set, as you’ve probably heard, in the bloodiest and most lifelike Africa you’ve ever blown up.
As a ruthless merc, your protagonist is definitely a Bad Man. You take missions from both sides of a civil war, and half the missions you take make the country even worse for its most innocent people. Feel like taking water, food and medicine away from starving women and children? Then wipe Darfur is Dying off your hard drive and boot this up.
But as you play, you suspect that your bad acts will be punished. And one way is your malaria. At the start of the game, you discover you’re suffering from malaria. If you don’t treat it, you die. For most of the game you have to go to great lengths Jeeping across Africa picking up medicine to stave off the symptoms. But somewhere in the second act, you get a chance to cure it.
One of the warlords who keeps hiring you throughout the game has a job for you: to go to a Dogon village and blow up a little kiln they’re running. The kiln is being used to produce a folk remedy for malaria. That’s right - a cure for malaria! Wouldn’t that be handy.
But in the event, when you go to the Dogon village, you find the kiln, and you blow it up. There are no options and no alternative. You can’t finish the mission and continue the game without destroying the only cure left in the country. And dammit, they didn’t even leave any medicine for you to snag on the way out.
In other words: a protagonist whose sole cause is self-preservation and -enrichment, commits an action that works 180 degrees against his goals. So what to make of this?
To paraphrase Spinal Tap, in gaming there’s a fine line between subtle and stupid. What could be lazy or sloppy writing, might be a subtle way to send a message to the player. The Far Cry 2 team has described the game as a descent into madness and evil. There’s plenty of Joseph Conrad in here, and they’re not subtle about it at all: one of the last regions is called the “Heart of Darkness.” That’s a neat reference, though not a smart one. “The horror … the horror” is one of the most enduring lines in junior high school-level literature. It haunts me to imagine what would happen if Conrad had published that book in today’s rapid-snark culture.
So quoting Conrad doesn’t make Far Cry 2 smart. But the malaria thing does. Here’s why: it’s a metaphor for your moral decrepitude. As a scourge on a helpless and broken land, the protagonist reaches a point where he is irredeemable. While he commits certain acts by way of reaching a greater goal - to gather intel and catch a wily and dangerous target - those acts have ruined him, as surely as the malaria.
There is no cure.
… So what do you guys think? Profound insight? Or continuity error?
26/10/2008 at 8:41 pm Permalink
You might be interested in this post that Michael Abbott shared on Twitter (in snark-language, it’s “relevant to your interests”), in which Clint Hocking himself defends the game rather eloquently in the comment thread. Terrific discussion ensues.
26/10/2008 at 8:51 pm Permalink
Brilliant and OTM! The buddies are the worst part of the game. I’ve started skipping every mission that entailed more than 2 extra km of driving. I lost my first couple buddies because I didn’t realize they could defend themselves. Then came Marty, who wanted to keep fighting after all the enemies had mysteriously vanished. I left him chasing shadows and ducking behind walls, fighting an enemy that existed only in his own broken code.
27/10/2008 at 9:34 am Permalink
Chris Dahlen’s Let’s Burn Down Africa is great piece on Africa in games, even well before it came out.
But you got it; the malaria thing is brilliant. It’s Cliff’s-Notes-level allusions, but in this industry and especially in this genre, that’s still a step forward.
27/10/2008 at 4:54 pm Permalink
Michael, ah, good clip and a nice preview - thuogh I’ve barely used the flamethrower; too hard to give up the RPG from that weapon slot. I finished two missions by perching on a cliffside and rocketing the target from 2 km away. Good laughs all around.
10/11/2008 at 7:17 am Permalink
To be quite frank, I simply couldn’t get into Far Cry 2. I had fun being creative with weapons and vehicles and setting up some dastardly traps, such as setting up a road block in a canyon, which was also littered with explosives and waiting for the convoy to arrive and then get blown to teeny tiny pieces, but after a few hours, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I was done.
Anyone, that’s off-topic, what I came here to say is that if there was a pivotal point during the game (which I never arrived at) in which the character is forced to destroy the only thing that could save him, and the player has no choice but to go ahead and do that, I’d call “bullshit”.
That sounds to me like the same sort of fatal flaw that would see me laying down the control and turning off the system, as I was inclined to do during BioShock. In fact, had I not had to review the game, I probably would never have finished BioShock. Playing Far Cry 2, however, I do have a choice and I’ve made it; I won’t be bothering to play it again.
Regarding the buddies, I made a point of executing each of the buddies I started with because I hate that sense of unestablished camaraderie. I just busted HIM from a hut and he thinks that I owe HIM?! Sorry pal, go die in a grass fire somewhere.
19/11/2008 at 11:37 pm Permalink
Well I just bought this game and am regretting it just a few hours after purchasing it. I really dont understand why you would make an “open world” game that forces you to run from each confrontation to the next because you dont feel well. Ultimately destroying the open world around you because you will die if yo venture less than two minutes outside the obvious specified path. What the HELL?!?!?
23/11/2008 at 2:55 pm Permalink
Hey Paul, are you referring to the training session at the beginning of the game? Because I have not encountered this at all and I explore everything.
26/01/2009 at 11:49 am Permalink
Paul, that is the beginning part. Do the first couple of jobs, report back to the russian and then the world will open up.
Or you know, if you have a problem, try using the magical thing we all call “Google.” I know it’s a difficult concept to grasp but it basically allows you to search anything you want, including “Far Cry 2 Walkthrough” or “far cry 2 dying of malaria beginning.”
26/01/2009 at 7:49 pm Permalink
Chris - The old “have you heard of Google” gag holds no water here. If you’re going to eviscerate another commenter, give us something better.
04/06/2009 at 2:16 am Permalink
I understand this is old, but its a good peice of insight. Considering im just getting back in to the game, I figured I would make a comment while the subject was still fresh in my mind.
Personally, I do not think this is a matter of “descending to madness and evil.” as madness does not seem to be in keeping with the character. However, I do still believe, at that same crucial point, is a symbol. I like to perceive that moment as a “Greed triumphs over self preservation” moment. A point where lust for wealth overcomes the will to live. Anyway, my (late) two cents
12/06/2009 at 8:14 am Permalink
19/09/2009 at 1:45 pm Permalink
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