Last May, I finally got around to finishing the original Mass Effect. This was mostly so I could do a write-up on the game for WingDamage.

Boy, am I ever glad I did. As I mentioned in that review, I was very interested to see how things were going to shake out in the sequel. Bioware had mentioned that you would be able to transfer your save file from the original game into Mass Effect 2. What I thought that meant was that your character would look the same and maybe a few key decisions would carry over. The reality blew my mind.

In Mass Effect 2, you once again take on the roll of Commander (Insert Name Here) Shepard. Only this time, he/she is not just some random space adventurer trying to save the galaxy. This time, if you brought over your character from the original, it is your Shepard.

"Coletrain Shepard"

I don’t want to get too much into the story, as fans of these types of science fiction are the kind that will burn you at the stake for giving away spoilers. I will say that even minor story events from the first game will be referenced in either small ways or with major consequences in this one; much more so than I was expecting. It will also lead directly into the third game. They even handled your character being returned to level one in an interesting way.

It seems that every gripe I heard about the first game was resolved. The Mako, your ground vehicle with spotty controls, is gone. You now take a shuttle directly to your destination. The massive piles of gear with a disorganized inventory system has been removed. You now find a few upgradable weapons. The upgrades work across all the guns in a category for all characters. Special bullet types are now powers that you gain through leveling up.

Another huge improvement over the original is the combat. Rather than having your accuracy based on a dice roll, your third-person shooting skills will be put to the test. Leveling your character will add powers and increase your health. This aspect of the RPG elements have been minimized quite a bit. Each character only has a few categories to spend your points on, rather than the original’s ten-ish.

Some have argued that the changes have made Mass Effect 2 less of an RPG than it’s predecessor. I say this is just a different kind of role playing. Rather than being stat driven, it is story driven. You play the roll of a space marine that can save the galaxy by doing whatever it takes, or by taking the moral high ground. All roads may lead to the same place, but each of them tells an interesting story.

What makes Mass Effect 2 really shine are the characters. Like any modern media, critics will nitpick what aspects of the character and story are “borrowed” from other sources. It all comes down to using those elements in fun and interesting ways, which Bioware has done exceptionally well. Even characters that I hated at the beginning of the game became vital members of the crew by the end. The addition of each party member’s personal quest helped a lot with this. It really allowed them to flesh out each of the characters. Near the end, when you have to make the difficult choices and characters can permanently die, you will find yourself thinking hard about each decision.

I normally don’t spend a lot of time going on about graphics, but in this case it should be mentioned how much better Mass Effect 2 looks than the original. The texture popping, which was horrible in the first game, is almost completely gone. Everything from the textures to the lighting effects have been revamped in amazing ways. This is one of the prettiest games I have ever played.

If you haven’t played the first Mass Effect, you will probably be a little lost in the sequel’s story. I recommend tracking down a copy and playing through it first if you want the full experience. If you really hated the first one and just want to skip to the much improved sequel, I suggest tracking down the key scenes in the first game on YouTube. Either way, play this game.

Are you too embarrassed to go to the counter of your game retailer of choice and ask for a game called Wet while dozens of onlookers show faces of disgust and parents cover their children’s ears?

Fortunately, WingDamage has your creepy back covered! Enter our contest and you could have a free copy sent right to your door step! To enter a chance to win a fun, but dumb action game, simply follow the rules below and tell us your favorite equally fun, equally dumb action movie.

Contest Rules:

1. Leave a comment below and tell us what your favorite dumb action movie is
2. Limit one entry per person
3. All entries must be made by legal U.S. residents
4. Entries must be accepted by 5:00pm PST on Friday, December 11th. We will then randomly select one winner

Good luck! And don’t forget to check out our review!

The airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 is the single most upsetting moment I have ever experienced while playing a videogame. Infinity Ward realized that the level might be too much for some people, so before the game starts a message pops up asking you if you want to experience this controversial level or skip it with no penalty. If you don’t want the level spoiled for you I suggest skipping this article with no penalty, until you have played it for yourself.

You are an undercover CIA operative working to infiltrate a very bad organization. The level starts with you and a group of heavily armed men strolling into an airport. Very quickly the men begin firing into the crowd.

My jaw dropped, as I realized what was happening. As they started to mow down innocent people, my first reaction was to turn and shoot the bad guys, but the game restarted the level telling me not to shoot them because it would blow my cover. I was forced to walk along with them as they murdered countless people. Some of them begged for their lives, others that had been wounded tried to crawl away, only to be gunned down.

I am no gamer saint. I have gleefully mowed down civilians in GTA and giggled as blood spewed out of the heads of pedestrians. I don’t usually think twice about killing little digital representations of people, but this was different. This didn’t feel like anything I have ever experienced in a game.

I didn’t feel bad. I felt wretched.

It was like a punch to the gut as it dawned on me that I couldn’t stop this. The level doesn’t feel like it was included for shock value or to create controversy. It felt like the developers wanted the player to feel powerless as they witness this atrocity.

I will leave it for another time to debate the question of whether or not a video game can be art. But I will say that there are very few works, in any medium, that have had the sort of impact that the Airport had on me. I was outraged, shocked, pissed off, and powerless all in the same moment.

Maybe it was a question of timing. The nation is still reeling from the tragedy at Fort Hood, and a level where you kill innocent people as they scramble to run and crawl away feels a little too real. I can understand why they included the option to skip the level entirely. I can imagine that for some people, the level might be more than they can handle.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is one of the big Playstation exclusives this holiday season and as such has received all kinds of hype. Even my mom, who doesn’t follow games at all has seen enough commercials to ask me about it. Sony and developer Naughty Dog have high hopes for Uncharted 2. The game even made WingDamage.com’s distinguish list of anticipated games.

Let’s get the gushing out of the way. Uncharted is a roller coaster thrill ride. It feels like an awesome Hollywood blockbuster movie. The game moves from awesome set piece to awesome set piece, pausing just long enough to get you to laugh before throwing another huge action sequence at you.

If you consider yourself a gamer you need to see and experience the train level. Drake makes his way over, through and around a speeding train while an attack chopper tries to murder him. This is just one of several moments throughout Uncharted 2 that distinguish it from other games.

One of the main reasons the game works so well is the protagonist Nathan Drake. He is genuinely likable and funny without feeling like Naughty Dog was trying too hard. Even when he is acting a little shady you find yourself pulling for him. The other characters also work well and add little touches of humor to the proceedings. The story takes you from Turkey to Tibet to mythical locales, and each one is gorgeously rendered.

The game is beautiful, and I don’t just mean in a ‘wow that game has a really high poly count or super nifty textures’ sort of way. Uncharted 2 is beautiful in the way a sunset is beautiful. The game takes you to all sorts of exotic locales and the views are simply stunning. This is one of, if not the best looking game I have ever seen. What really sets the game apart is the animation. Drake braces himself against walls, he slips, he stumbles, he moves more realistically than just about any other game character out there. There are a few moments when you’ll see the game take a little skip to make sure you grab the ledge but these are more for gameplay purposes.

Uncharted 2 can best be summed up as Tomb Raider meets Gears of War meets Metal Gear Solid meets Steven Spielberg circa 1981 (the year Raiders came out). I know that’s a lot of meets, but it really does blend together all these disparate styles. You want to sneak around and take out guards silently? The game lets you do that. You want to go all guns a-blazing? The game let’s you do that too. Unlike a lot of games that try to cram different style of gameplay together, Uncharted 2 executes each style to perfection.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune seemed to be broken up into platforming parts, then shooting parts, then some more platforming. Uncharted 2 does a better job of integrating the two segments together. At one point I was hanging off the side of a billboard trying to shoot hordes of machine gun toting bad guys.

My only complaint is that sometimes it is tough to figure out what Drake can grab onto versus what is background textures. I plummeted to my death a couple of times because what looked to me like a handhold was actually just a path to doom. It is frustrating when you are in the platforming zone, then suddenly plummet to your death because the game decides that you can’t hold those particular bricks.

The biggest surprise was the multiplayer. Matches were fast and fun. They play out like a faster paced Gears of War match with players lobbing grenades, taking cover and rolling around trying to shoot. The biggest difference is in the games verticality. Characters can jump up on ledges and shimmy to new locations which changes up strategies when you have to think in three dimensions. My favorite match type was Survival, where your team tries to survive wave after wave of steadily tougher enemies.

There is some talk circulating out amongst the interwebs that the Uncharted franchise is going to be made into a Hollywood blockbuster. I seriously doubt that any movie could really capture the intensity and fun of this game. When you play this game you will understand. This is my number one contender for game of the year right now. This is more than just a game, this is an experience. If you own a PS3 you need to play this game.

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

Ratchet and Clank is a series that is known for it’s charming characters, odd-ball sense of humor, and over the top weapons. While I was aware of all this going in, I had never experienced it for myself. I think I had always confused them for those other two similarly named mascots, Jak and Daxter (a decent series in it’s own right).

On Dave‘s recommendation, I decided to finally give the series a chance. When I recently finished Uncharted, I realized Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction was the other PS3 exclusive that I was near the end of, but had not yet finished.

The fact that I was able to pick up right back where I had left off several months ago says a lot about how easy this game is to pick up and play. Right out of the gate, you get a good feeling of who these characters are and how visually interesting their world is. I’ve heard the game described as a Pixar film you play and I can’t say that description is far off.

When it comes to storytelling and humor in games, I am a stickler. Most of the time, games that attempt humor fall flat. Not only is the writing in Tools quick witted and genuinely funny in the old Warner Brothers cartoon sort of way, but the voice acting is top notch. To have humor in your dialog work, it’s all about the timing. This is one of the few games to pull that off.

It is also graphically stunning; part two of the Pixar comparison people like to make. Insomniac really used the cartoony style of the series to highlight just how vibrant and imaginative you can be with your games on Sony’s hardware.

Tools of Destruction is a platformer/shooter hybrid which has you exploring strange alien worlds. You, as Ratchet, are trying to discover clues as to what befell his race, the Lombaxes. This is another area where the performances shined through, making the strange alien creatures of the Ratchet and Clank universe come to life in a believable way.

While the platforming is competent, the fall speed on the normal jumps seemed a little faster than I was anticipating. It took a little time for me to get used to, but the jumps were made easy enough that it wasn’t a source of frustration. The game’s main focus is on combat and the platforming works well enough that you can focus on the enemies in front of you. There are no pixel perfect jump requirements here.

Throughout the course of your adventure, you collect an arsenal composed of a wide variety of strange weapons and gadgets that help you defeat your enemies. These range from a simple energy pistol to the much more elaborate nano-swarm (a swarm of nano-robots that attack enemies within a certain radius).

You can purchase upgrades for all your weapons giving them more ammo, higher amounts of damage against enemies, and even increase the radius of attack. They also level up through use, which encourages you to not stick with only one or two of the ridiculously large assortment of firearms. This really made me think differently about which weapons I was using in each situation. I normally play pretty conservatively with my ammo in shooters, but Tools does a great job of rewarding you for breaking out of that shell.

There are also a lot of gadgets that are fun to play around with like the Disco Ball, which makes all the enemies dance (even bosses), and Mr. Zurkon, an ornery robot companion that fights alongside you for a limited time.

There are also a few segments where you use the SIXAXIS to control Ratchet as he freefalls, or Clank as he glides. These worked pretty well and are less offensive that most games’ use of the PS3 motion control scheme. Other gameplay elements include controlling a rocket bike called the “Gyro-cycle” and a space combat rail shooter.

As the story unfolds, you also take control of Clank in special sections of the game designed just for him. Here he is assisted by the Zoni, a mysterious alien race that seems to know a little too much about Clank. These sections focus on the game’s platforming elements and also involve solving puzzles. While I do prefer the regular gameplay, these alternative sections were not completely horrible like they are in many 3D platformers that feel the need to “mix it up”.

The main storyline has you play a few rounds in the Arena, but there are many optional challenges in that section of the game. Completion of the main game also unlocks a special challenge mode. This is a “new game plus” situation where you get to keep all your upgrades and play through again against harder foes. On the second play-through, there is an added combo system so you can earn more bolts (the games currency) and finish maxing out your weapons.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is an easy recommendation for any PS3 owner. It is fast paced, funny, and all ages can enjoy the goofy characters and stunning animation.

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

Back in August, I wrote a piece on Piles of Shame, and had our readers vote on which game I should play through to completion and review. “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune” won with 48% of the votes. There is much love for this game and, while it isn’t perfect, it is easy to see why.

Everything about Drake’s Fortune is designed to give the feeling of a big summer blockbuster movie. The plot revolves around ancient lost treasure, the odds are stacked overwhelmingly against you, it is full of exotic locations, and there are lots of explosions. Oh, and don’t forget the sassy female sidekick.

The game is broken up into two very distinct sections. By that I mean there are the exploration sections and the gunplay sections. While the exploration and gunplay flow seamlessly into one another, they do feel like two very distinct chunks that the game flips back and forth between.

The exploration sections were my personal favorite. While a little more linear than I would have liked, they give you a chance to stop and appreciate how gorgeous this game is. If you need a graphical showcase for the PS3, look no further.

Drake is guided by where the next safe hand-hold is, which is fairly obvious most of the time. Occasionally, these sections would have camera problems when they were in tight quarters, but the ones that took place outdoors made good use of dramatic angles to further the summer blockbuster look and feel.

This is the part of the game that adds the “Tomb Raider” part of the equation when people describe this game as “Tomb Raider” meets “Gears of War”. It does feel very reminiscent of Lara Croft’s adventures, but with tighter controls and way less tigers and dinosaurs.

Gunplay is something that many third-person action games fail at. It can be the aiming, a broken cover system, or a host of other problems that can ruin the game. Uncharted’s firefights were a mixed bag for me. While the cover system was fun and forced your to use the terrain to your advantage, I would occasionally have trouble getting Drake to hide where I wanted him to.

My biggest gripe with Drake’s Fortune is that enemies take too many shots to kill. Maybe it just expected a level of precision not easily achieved on a PS3 controller, but sometimes enemies would take three head-shots to take out. I also should not have to unload half a clip from an automatic rifle into a regular human’s torso to kill him. It’s a small complaint, but it did make a few sections drag on more than I would have liked.

"FAL-CONE PUNCH!"

There is also some basic melee combat. If you run up behind a guy, you can take him out in one very well animated move. You can also just run up and start punching guys in the face. There is a combo system, but it didn’t seem very responsive. I generally ended up just button mashing my way through these confrontations.

One of the design goals with Uncharted was to make Drake feel like a regular guy. While most regular guys I know could not scale walls, heal in a few seconds, or shoot a gun nearly as well as Drake, they did do a good job of making him feel vulnerable and mostly ordinary. You can’t jump ten feet into the air like Mario or run at super-sonic speeds like a certain blue hedgehog. When Drake pulls himself up to a higher ledge, you hear him straining. When you barely make a jump, he reacts. When you fall from too far, he clearly sounds like he is hurting (or dies instantly).

By all accounts, “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune” is a great game. This is why the flaws that are there stand out as much as they do. There were a few parts I found very frustrating, but they weren’t enough to kill my overall enjoyment. While the last few sections lost some of the magic set up by the first 3/4 of the game, I still recommend this to anyone looking for a great action title for the Playstation 3.

“Wet” is the story of Rubi Malone a dual pistol and sword carrying, leather clad sexy bad ass gun-for-hire, who is trying to retrieve a wealthy man’s son. In typical action movie cliche style, she gets caught up in a double cross and is out for revenge.

Bethesda would love it if Rubi could join the ranks of Dante, Kratos, and Lara Croft as an action game icon. Read on to see if her game has what it takes to raise her up to the level of these gaming icons.

From the first moment of firing up Wet it is obvious that the developers are going for a cool retro 70′s style. The game looks like it was inspired by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s recent Grindhouse double feature. There are little old time commercials that break up the action.The game even has little scratches, cigarette burns, and a filter to make it look like an old grindhouse action movie.  I found the filter annoying, it made the screen flicker so much that it gave me a headache. I was very grateful there is an option to turn the effect off.

The best part of the game was the 70′s style music. I am not a music expert by any means but to me it feels like a blend of funk, surf, Spanish guitar, and retro rock. Very cool. It fits every scene perfectly and instantly gets you pumped up and ready for some acrobatic face shooting. Brian Lebarton composed the music and he has done such a phenomenal job I want him to compose the soundtrack to my life. Even mundane activities like getting the mail and grocery shopping would become a spectacle.

As for the gameplay it seems like a mash up of Total Overdose (which no one played so don’t worry if you don’t remember it), Max Payne, Tony Hawk, and Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado which is then shoved into John Woo’s blender. You are constantly diving, sliding, or running on a wall, all while trying to shoot people in slow motion. You score style points for each kill and if you manage to string enough kills together you can get up to a 5x multiplier. These style points are then used to upgrade your moves, health, and abilities.

Some of the moves you unlock are pretty sweet. One of my favorites has you using the enemy as a springboard for a slow motion dive. You basically treat the guy like a launchpad and then shoot him in the face, which is probably not the most dignified way to die. This reliance on slo-mo action might wear thin for some over time, but you there were just enough new moves that I stayed interested.

I can just imagine the development team queuing up every Hong Kong action flick and 70′s action movie on Netflix then sitting down for a 40 hour Red Bull fueled movie marathon. It is clear they are trying for ludicrously over the top action. This is probably best exemplified by the car chase level where Rubi leaps from car to car as explosions car crashes surround her. It is like Bad Boys 2 on overdrive, so far over the top and ridiculous you can’t help but smile as she leaps in slo-mo from car to car barely dodging rolling semi trucks.

To break up the action further, at occasional points in the game Rubi will shoot a guy and end up covered in blood. This causes her to go into an over the top Rage Mode, which makes everything literally go red. Rubi then proceeds to kick even more ass than usual.

My main issue with all this over the top action comes down to the fact the bullets don’t have nearly enough impact. I emptied entire clips into people and they just staggered a bit and then tried to whack me in the head. I constantly felt like my bullets were not doing any damage. Whenever I play a shooter I like to shoot things like televisions or computer monitors to see if they explode.

The televisions in the game don’t explode, shatter, or crack. It is a small thing but speaks to a larger issue with the game, namely that you aren’t really able to effect the environment. For all the bullets that fly, they don’t seem to do much. With the thousands of bullets that are flying around their should be smoke and debris flying all over the place. It is not the end of the world but it does remove you, that little bit, from being fully immersed in the game.

For all the emphasis on gun-play I actually found the samurai sword to be surprisingly useful. You quickly unlock a slide to a uppercut slice that just decimates guys. The sword attacks are simplistic but very, very satisfying. I would often put my guns away and rely on the slide-to-slash move.

In the end the game feels like the kid who is trying a little too hard to fit in and hang with the popular kids. You know the kid who listened to all the popular bands, liked all the popular shows, and shopped at the popular stores but was never really anywhere close to being as cool as he thought he was.

Wet is just not as cool as it thinks it is. The combat, for all the crazy acrobatics, is just not as satisfying as it should be. I hope that the game sells well enough for a sequel, where they can give your bullets a little more heft and impact. I also hope they expand on the very satisfying sword combat. The combination is there for an amazing series but there needs to be a couple of relatively simple tweaks before I can give it my full recommendation. As it is, the best I can recommend is to tell you to give it a rental, to at least check out the amazing soundtrack.

This review is based on the Playstation 3 version of Wet provided to us by Bethesda.

When I was given the assignment of playing “Super Empire Strikes Back”, I was elated. I have always considered the Super NES run of action/platformers to be second only to the Knights of the Old Republic on my internal ranking of awesome Star Wars games and Empire (just like its cinematic counterpart) was the best of the three.

I remember throwing this game in from time to time and running through it in an afternoon. Apparently between the last time I played the game and today I have lost a step or two, because this game killed me in the face.

The first thing you notice when you fire up the game is the sweet Super NES version of the classic Star Wars theme. Even in this limited form it is enough to stir up the Star Wars geek inside me. The cutscenes show their age, but still hold a certain amount of charm. You’ll travel to just about every locale from the movie, starting at Hoth and working your way to Dagobah, and finally ending with the Darth Vader fight on Bespin.

The game plays almost exactly like “Super Star Wars“, but the double jump has received an upgrade and you can no longer choose your character. Much like its brothers, the most impressive part of the game is the number of  styles the game attempts. For an old school game, there is a lot of variety. The game includes everything from side scrolling platforming to sweet Mode 7 flying.

However, there was one level that my brain had hidden from my memory banks. Immediately after  you get done toppling some giant AT-AT’s with your snowspeeder (in one of the game’s coolest moments), it switches to the worst 2-D shooter ever. Your snowspeeder takes up about a quarter of the screen, and you are trying to dodge enemies that can fly off the side of the screen and shoot you in the back. This section is so terrible that it would not surprise me at all if George Lucas didn’t have some kind of hand in its creation.

Finally you get to change characters and rock out as Han Solo. Han has quite possibly the most awesome somersault roll dodge in history. The move is so over-the-top that I found myself rolling back and forth giggling like the crazy cat lady down the street. Most people would roll one or two times and call it a day. “Super Empire Strikes Back” Han Solo is no quitter. When he rolls, he means it. Han’s roll is so awesome that it invents, and then wins, the World Somersaulting Competition.

The game really distinguishes itself when you get to Dagobah and start getting your force powers. Using Jedi Levitation to become a flying pinwheel of lightsaber death is still pretty awesome.

In the end, the game did not quite live up to my memories.

It is fun and worth a playthrough, but some of the sections are downright painful to play (cough, cough terrible side scrolling snowspeeder section).

On Normal, the game is extremely tough. On Jedi difficulty it is virtually impossible. The game just doesn’t have tight enough controls for some of the platforming sections, and shrapnel from defeated enemies hurting you is just about the meanest thing ever. The game has slipped in my internal rankings of Star Wars games, but it’s only $8 for the Wii Virtual Console, so I say give it a shot.

You’ve spent more cash on a late night run to Taco Bell for Chalupas.

"Extreme Crotch Punch!"

Most of us that have been around video games for a long time can tell you: avoid almost any licensed or celebrity tie-in game (sports sometimes excluded) at all costs. So why would I throw down with the Xbox 360 shooter “50 Cent: Blood on the Sand” when I know it has a huge likelyhood of being a cash grab?

Two reasons.

First, I rented it instead of buying it.

Second, I heard it was actually pretty good.

Did it live up to the “actually pretty good” hype that I was promised? Read on to find out.

“50 cent: Blood on the Sand” is third person shooter developed by Swordfish and published by THQ. The plot involves a crystal skull, that was given in payment for a show, being stolen and now 50 and G-unit have to get it back… guns a’blazin!

You control 50 and, with either an AI or actual friend as a member of G-unit, make your way through a fictional middle-eastern country killing anyone who gets in your way. The gunplay and cover system are straight out of Gears of War and work really well here as well. If you get in close, you can trigger an instant kill quick time event where 50 puts the beat down on his opponent. You can also push in the Left Stick to hurl insults at your adversaries.

The game is very reminiscent of an arcade game in it’s point system. While most modern games have ditched points as an in-game reward, BotS embraces them. You get points for nearly everything, from getting kills in rapid succession to jumping over exploding ramps in the games driving sequences. There are even little mini games that will pop up during the action like “take out the heavy weapons guy” which will give you even more bonus points. Each level keeps track of a high score and has bronze, silver and gold awards to go with various ranks.

You also collect money throughout which can be spent at payphones to buy new weapons, new up close kills, and new insults. The upgraded guns were fun to play around with, but the other two sections don’t really seem to affect the overall game and are just there for the fun of it.

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this game. It is over the top in it’s characters and story and has the most swearing of any game I’ve ever played. It is constantly playing 50′s songs in the background, which also have a lot of language not suitable for a younger audience. It is definitely rated M for a reason.

I have read several of the interviews people have taken with 50 about his game and, when it comes down to it, he is a gamer that wanted to make a game that is, above all else, fun to play. In this, he has succeded.

"Beautiful, Despite the Malaria"

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

You are dropped into Far Cry 2′s fictional African country at the height of a civil war with a very clear objective: eliminate the Jackal, the notorious arms dealer that sold weapons to both sides, igniting the conflict.

The African Savannah captured in Far Cry 2 is the perfect example of an open world done right. Dotted with unlockable safe houses and guard posts, the living, breathing world of Far Cry 2 is so expertly crafted that it becomes a character itself.

It can be as brutal and merciless as any of your AI enemies, and can be a more powerful ally that any of your NPC companions. Knowing how to use the deadly African landscape against your enemies is the key to success in Far Cry 2.

For example, starting a grass fire on a windy day can be dangerous if you don’t take time to think. Starting a fire in just the right place so that it burns through an enemy camp, efficiently killing your enemies inside can be very rewarding. In that same way, starting a fire that gets prematurely snuffed out by rain, or blown in a different direction by the wind, revealing your presence to any enemies in the area can be an extremely intense, frightening experience, and these are the kind of moments that make the game memorable.

At the beginning of the game, the player selects one of a handful of various mercenaries. All of the mercenaries available (other than the one that the player selects) are used as NPC “buddies” in the game. One of the first missions you are given will have you rescuing one of these mercenaries who, in turn, becomes your first buddy. You will always have a best buddy and a second best buddy (in the game. I can’t speak to your personal life -The Editor).

Your best buddy will provide you with optional objectives to subvert faction-given missions, provided he doesn’t get shot in the process. When subverting a faction mission with a buddy, it generally doubles the time spent on the mission, but some of the coolest moments in the game are during these special missions. Your second best buddy is there to rescue you whenever your health is depleted, which is something that happens quite a bit.

Although your ultimate goal is to kill the Jackal, most of the missions are given to you by one of the two waring factions; the UFLL, and the APR. You soon learn that neither faction is just in their actions, and that the ongoing conflict is hurting the country. There are no good guys or bad guys in Far Cry 2, there are just people. People with their own agendas and motives who won’t think twice about screwing you over. And believe me, they will.

There are a lot of interesting missions that can be given by factions. Although the basic mission objective is generally to either destroy thing “A” or kill person “B”, you never run out of ways to get the job done.

The game never discourages the use of any tactic during a mission. If you want to storm the legion fort with a shotgun and rocket launcher, go ahead. If you think the best way to kill the target is by shelling him from a mile away with a mortar, feel free. Just be ready for his troops to follow the smoke from the shell and hunt you down. I never once got bored with the mission structure. There is a certain pride that I felt as I watched my carefully planned attack unfold perfectly.

The combat, like the rest of the game, is very open ended. There is never a “right” or “wrong” way to enter a battle.  I had the most fun sneaking into an enemy camp with a silenced MP5 assault rifle, a dart rifle, and a silenced pistol. Wiping out an enemy camp before anyone knew i was there was really rewarding. The straightforward approach can be just as fun, though. Using the flare pistol to start a grass fire, and  waiting until the fire hits an ammo pile, sending bullets every which way, taking out a majority of the enemies, then, when the fire dies down, mopping up the stragglers with a shotgun. Those are just two of the hundreds of different ways to approach a combat scenario.

Your weapon load out consists of a primary, secondary and special weapon slot, as well as a machete. There is a lot of variety in those three categories. Primary weapons consist of mid-sized weapons such as sniper rifles, assault rifles, and shotguns. Secondary weapons are anything that will fit in a holster, such as pistols, SMG’s and I.E.D.’s. Special weapons are the largest of the three categories, and consist of rocket launchers, light machine guns and the infamous flamethrower.

The weapons are unlocked at arms dealers located in various areas on the map. To unlock a weapon for purchase, the player needs to complete a mission for the arms dealer. These missions always have the same objective; hunt down and destroy a supply truck somewhere on the map. These missions unlock 2-4 of the available weapons at a time. As fun as it is blowing up a truck with an I.E.D (improvised explosive device) or sniping the driver from long range, After two or three times, this structure starts to feel stale and repetitive.

Once a weapon is unlocked and purchased, upgrades for that weapon are unlocked as well. These upgrades only come in two forms: accuracy and reliability. This is where i feel the weapon system needed a lot more depth. Sure, an accuracy upgrade would be great for my AK47, and the reliability upgrade is nice to keep my weapon from jamming, but what about an upgrade to lower the recoil on a light machine gun?

The player can also purchase bandoleers and med kits to upgrade the amount of ammo or first aid that can be carried, but they have no effect on the performance of a weapon. Having only a few upgrade options seemed surprisingly lazy for a game with an otherwise large amount of depth.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the constant malaria that the player has to deal with.  Throughout the entirety of the game, you will suffer malaria outbreaks every 40-60 minutes of real time. As long as you keep a supply of malaria pills on hand, it won’t be a problem. Once you run out of pills, you need to find a contact in the countries large underground movement to supply you with more of the medication.

There is online multiplayer, but it is nothing special. It has classes similar to Call of Duty 4, with the ability to gain experience and level up, getting new weapons, gear, Etc. The multiplayer map editor is a cool addition to the online aspect of the game. It lets you create custom multiplayer maps and gives you access to a crazy amount of items to set in the map. For me, the map editor controls were really unwieldy on the 360 controller, so I didn’t spend much time with the editor. An imaginative person with a lot of spare time could probably make something really cool.

Far Cry 2 adds up to about 25 hours or so, and is worth playing for every second. I’ve never had a game make me feel like such a terrible person, and at it’s climax, make me feel more human. That’s the only way I can describe how the game ends. I’ve never been so emotionally invested in the outcome of fictional people. With most games, the ending is the culmination of everything you’ve done throughout the game, in Far Cry 2, the ending is your chance for redemption.

I cannot recommend this game highly enough. Its few flaws are outweighed by the vast amount of things the game does so incredibly well. It’s worth a purchase, and at the very least a rental. Trust me, it’s an experience that you won’t soon forget.

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