Nice bolt action, bro. Let's Play Far Cry 2!

Let me tell you all a story.

Once upon a time, there was a game. In this game, you were some asshole with a terrible shirt that wandered around in jungles, shooting first at some bog-standard dudes, and then shooting at some bog-standard bioengeneered apes with rocket launchers and shit. There were a few terrible vehicle segments here and there, including one truly awful one involving a hang glider (which was, honestly, pretty cool when you figured out how the fuck the controls worked and where the invisible map bounds were). This game was Far Cry. Here at Let’s Play Far Cry 2, we don’t care much for Far Cry. Which is why we almost didn’t play Far Cry 2. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

And lo, it did sell pretty well. In fact, it sold so well, there were about a billion versions of it republished in every possible way underneath the sun, until the brand was diluted, not unlike the bad coffee I had at an overpriced breakfast restaurant a few weeks ago. Naturally, the only response to this was to make a sequel where the resemblance to its predecessor is as thin as possible: It has the words “far” and “cry” in its title, there are some jungles, and there’s a terrible (but mercifully optional!) hang glider segment. This game was, depending on who you are, either completely bitchin’ awesome or totally dumb and worthless. Obviously I think it’s completely bitchin’ awesome.

So, then, Let’s Play


Now, here’s the thing: A lot of people [CITATION NEEDED] think that Far Cry 2 has an astonishing! (and adaptive!) narrative, which it really does not. The game’s story is pretty boring and standard: You’re a dude. You are in Africa to kill another dude. On your quest to kill a dude, there are various obstacles and “choices” that you make which are, in true videogame fashion, not very choice-like (choice A and choice B are roughly gameplay-equivalent, or one is gameplay-superior. But we’ll talk more about the falseness of choice in this game later). Where the game really shines is in the stories that you make with it, which is what all the best games do. And that’s what this Let’s Play really is for: So that you can have the experience of playing Far Cry 2, although you may never enjoy playing the game. Also, I get to show off all the fun things you can do in it.

Now, updates are going to be done in both of your favorite Let’s Play formats: Screenshot, and video. Screenshots are to show general progress through the game, and maybe some moments that live up well in stills - but the videos are going to be the meat and potatoes, the parts where I showcase the absolutely crazy shit that can go down in the middle of a firefight (the best being when absolutely everything goes wrong).

We'll get into the mechanics and zany things that can happen in the game as they come up (and oh, will they ever come up) but first you guys get to make the game's first non-choice for me! That's right - you get to select our character. This will determine what a few missions are like and who wants to give us bro-hugs (and who doesn't).


Andre Hyppolite
HAIR: Mom cuts it
FAVORITE COLOR: Salmon


Frank Bilders
FAVORITE SPORT: Figure skating
SIGNATURE BEVERAGE: Fentiman's and water


Hakim Echebbi
CENTURY 21 EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH FOR: June-October 1994, January 1996 Believe it or not, this one fits into the actual character profile; his "experience" includes "Real estate broker"
ALLERGIC TO: Asprin, beestings, malaria


Josip Idromeno
TURN-ONS: Glasnost
TURN-OFFS: Perestrokia


Marty Alencar
HOBBIES: Building 1/18 scale models of clipper ships, cycling
FAVORITE MOVIE: COBRA


Paul Ferenc
FAVORITE WINE: Tesco Value
HIGHEST PAC-MAN SCORE: 239,330


Quarbani Singh
LIKES: Mark Levin
DISLIKES: Kids on his lawn


Warren Clyde
FAVORITE VAN AIRBRUSH PAINTING: Wizard fighting a dragon
BIGGEST FEARS: Grenades, hills, easy jokes


Xianyong Bai
FAVORITE BOARD GAME: Clue
MOST EXPENSIVE PIECE OF FURNITURE: Mahogany coffee table ($75, craigslisted)

Vote for your favorite! And, just to get you primed (and because I don’t want to post video of it myself): Here’s the intro to the game. Backstory: You are a dude. You have been sent to Africa to blow up The Jackal, another dude who sells lots of guns to people.

VIDEOS:
Intro segment

NEXT TIME: Africa is about to E-X-P-L-O-D-E!

Is it safe to assume you're an Idle Thumbs fan as well? I've never played Farcry 2 but given how much they felatiated it I'm looking forward to this.

EDIT: I got so caught up in the possibility of an awesome reference I forgot to vote! I vote either Warren (because WIZAAAAAAARRRRDDD) or Hakim, because being allergic to malaria (no matter how made up the bios are) promises to be fucking hilarious.

Sir, you are among friends here. Both Stiv and I played Weinhandler with the Idle Thumbs crew at PAX and it was awesome.


Also, you should go with Warren or Paul.

My choices for character, in a particular order:

Does Frank have an eye patch? Glass eye? Did his father abandon him at then tender age of six, leaving him without a strong male role model in his life who could teach him how to wink properly? Either way, he reminds me of my dad, minus the booze (thank goodness, because the last thing anyone needs is "the knife guy" all sloshy and with six blades and a gun on his person).

Quarbani is a close second, because I have a soft spot for men who appreciate ("appreciate") Mark Levin.

However, this is very important to my vote: did Xianyong buy his weathered furniture from the antiques section, even though the seller listed the piece as a "duncan fife" treasure?

I vote for Frank. As far as I can tell he's missing an eye, and we need more video game heroes with disabilities.

Does the character choice make a difference at all?

Not really, but your buddies throughout the game who help you on missions come out of the same pool of characters.

I've been working my way through the Idle Thumbs archives lately; this thread is of interest to me!

I vote Warren, for his rad-ass bandana.

I vote Josip, on account of his sweet moustache.

Game Over Extra Lives (god, I keep making that mistake) made me pretty curious about this one.

I vote Josip or Frank.

(Full Disclosure: Luana is bribing me to pick Frank. I'll take him over boring ass Warren, but Josip's mustache is too fantastic to ignore)

Anddddreeeee

Josip is the number one pick. Let's show these youngins how they used to hunt and kill men in the old days! (answer: uphill both ways)

- Eddie

Frank: He's a classy guy with a classy crest.

I say pick Marty or Warren, because I think I picked one of them when I played, and I got Josip as a bro, and we had some good times together. Josip is just too awesome to keep hidden behind the camera.

But if your character choice has no effect on who you can bro up with, then go with Frank. He looks kinda skeevy, and I bet his glass eye has a good story behind it. And I also bet it has something to do with liquor!

Yes, but I'm going to try and avoid the easy jokes as a result. Now that I've gotten "a grenade rolls down a hill" out of my system, I don't think I'll ever need to make another one. Although there are other hidden Idle Thumbs jokes in that post as well - can you spot them?

I believe your starting character does affect your bro - but it might actually be random. Either way, we'll be running into most (all?) of the characters that I'm not playing as - and might even do some dirty deeds for them!

CURRENT VOTE TALLY (including people who put in double votes):
Andre: 1
Warren: 4
Hakim: 1
Paul: 1
Frank: 4
Quarbani: 1
Josip: 3
Marty: 1

Frank and Warren are in a dead heat! Josip could overtake them! Who will be our bloodthirsty mercenary with a ridiculous history? You guys better decide by Friday because I want to start playing this game! Seriously, you have no idea how excited I am to sink another 100+ hours into it.

Here are some more irrelevant statistics to help you decide between our current top contenders (although you can always vote for the other guys, too):

Warren Clyde
FAVORITE PASTTIME: Arguing with teenage girls on Deviantart over the best character from Final Fantasy 7
NUMBER OF BANDANAS OWNED: Zero; this one is actually borrowed from his brother, because "it makes me look like a badass, and not like I own wall scrolls."

Frank Bilders
OPINION ON MANCHESTER UNITED? Frank is the only Irishman who is indifferent to Manchester United.
LIKES WALES? No. Nobody likes Wales.

Josip Idromeno
FIRST CAR: Josip has never owned a car; he rides mules
FAVORITE YAKKOV SMIRNOV JOKE: In Soviet Russia, bread line waits on YOU!

SUPER SPECIAL BONUS VALENTINE'S DAY UPDATE:

Warren, because I saw a lot more of him in my game than Frank.

Frank, 100%. Don't make Loki baby cry.

I fell into the totally dumb and worthless camp. Prove me wrong, Stiv! Prove me wrong!

I vote for Frank. That wink says "fun" to me. It will surely get you all the ladies in the game. I can only remember there being one or two, so you're going to be facing some stiff competition.

Congratulations, Frank lovers! You're the winners of this largely irrelevant competition. Your vote has decided... who won't be our bro, because it's completely randomized, but obviously it can't be the guy you're playing. But you have decided what some of the flavor text is going to look like.

NEXT TIME: Actual updates!

Welcome back to Let's Play Far Cry 2! Last time we left you, you'd been introduced to the glorious world of Africa. Majestic animals! Bloom effects! Fire simulation! Dudes who you will probably shoot later! And of course, a good sense of how incredibly fucking big the map is. Today's update is going to be pretty boring, since it's the tutorial "level" and you're not playing the game, so most of the information presented will be kind of useless. But there's a couple things for us to have fun with!

But first, let's meet our lucky contestant, Frank Bilders:



Frank obviously has some kind of past. But what kind, you might wonder? Obviously, the truth is simple: Frank Bilders is a total pussy and made all of that shit up to impress some asshole because he wanted to go on safari, thinking that he would get to just bag a jackal and then go back home and brag to all his friends about it. Unfortunately, the job description is a little more involved, since it involves shooting actual guys with real guns. Will Frank cry when he finally has to take another life? Can he stand up to the intense pressure of combat?

The answer, of course, is "who cares, because we're going to light shit on fire and blow up guys."

Anyway. His favorite book series is Harry Potter because he wants to be a wizard. His only experience with the IRA is hiding in an alleyway when some hooligans walked down the street towards him, and also the one time that a bomb went off next to his favorite coffee shop (Frank is the only Irishman who doesn't drink or care about football). He lost his eye due to an unfortunate accident while playing marbles as a child, and has suffered a crippling phobia of spherical objects ever since. His therapist says he could get over it by playing some pool or going bowling (thereby asserting his control over his fears) but unfortunately Frank doesn't like social interaction either, because he usually gets made fun of for having only one eye and being too poor to have an eyepatch. Also, it's very hard to play pool when you don't have any depth perception. Note that Frank's lack of depth perception will not, in fact, affect his ability to shoot thousands of guys and also have good peripheral vision. Were he to get an elephant gun, or other device which would be loaded with buckshot, perhaps he could overcome his fear after all. We'll just have to see if our African safari turns into a real safari at some point, instead of one with boy soldiers and rusted out AK-47s. PROTIP: There are no boy soldiers, even though the game makes frequent reference to them; do you really think the ESRB would allow that?

Anyway. Frank steps off a plane... wait a minute. You've seen all this before. Let's pick it up at a point where you don't know what's going to happen, but with a couple stops along the way:



Looks like Frank won't be getting out of the country and back to the safety of the beanbag chair in his mom's basement anytime soon.



Beer: The only currency still accepted in Africa. Well, at least by South African mercenaries. What mystifies me is that here, in war-torn Africa Mystery Nation, there is still a place where beer can be bought. This will seem even more unlikely once we explore the last remaining cease-fire zone. Maybe there's a 7-11 under some decimated buildings or something.

Then Frank has a Malaria attack, his supposed safari target could kill him but doesn't (for reasons unknown!) and then we're unleashed upon a tutorial that teaches you what 'wasd' does.

This is where I apologize for my first Let's Play hiccup, in that I didn't make absolutely certain that my video recording was set up correctly before going into the game's beginning firefight. Instead, it will be presented in a vignette of screenshots, as there's very little to say about it: You're expected to die here.







Frank valiantly puts his dinky pistol to good use by shooting at some guys, and even capping a couple of them in the head, but unfortunately he's no match for the much larger and meaner guns of the mercenaries who are actually prepared for the massive firefight that's broken out in town. Also, now would be an excellent time to tell me if the screenshots are too small for you to see hot shooting action.

After passing out, Frank wakes up in a strange place, with this guy staring at him:



Instead of yelling out "Stranger danger!" as he usually does, Frank decides that it might be best to not get shot at again, since he was probably saved by this dude in the first place. It pays off, because Mystery Guy here (who speaks in a hilarious vaguely Eastern European accent, by the way) tells him that it would be an excellent idea to reset his broken arm.



Welcome to what is probably my favorite Far Cry 2 mechanic: when you're at below one bar of health, you can press the catch-all heal button (h) to do something incredibly gross to yourself to bring your life bar back up. I'll try and showcase them all in glorious video, but suffice to say that this one involves Frank re-breaking his arm and straightening it, complete with appropriately great sound effects. He doesn't even cry! Africa must be changing him already. Before you know it, he'll be a cold-blooded murderer. In fact...



Said weapons are a pretty boring SMG... and a flamethrower. You might have noticed in the intro video from the first post that fire features prominently in the game, and hence, flamethrowers are completely fucking rad but this is the only one you're going to get for a while - so it's best used sparingly. Frank was always told not to play with fire, so this means that in order to survive in Africa, he might just need to get over that hangup as well! It looks like our hero has a ways to go before he can grow from being a Man-Child to being simply... a Man.

Frank also grabs some syrettes from a medkit (the game's only healing item, although you do regenerate bars of health one at a time - very slowly. When you're above one bar of health you can restore yourself to full by using one) and, with a tear in his eye, injects the contents into his arm. But then he feels awesome, so no more tears!

HISTORY TIME! Syrettes are like syringes, except that they have a closed flexible tube instead of a hard plastic casing and piston. This makes them idea for field usage in the millitary as a device for delivering medication and painkillers, and are easy to self-administer - in fact, army field manuals all contain instructions on how to use syrettes (although they may have generally fallen out of use by now). However, they're traditionally used to administer morphine. As well, in combat, morphine's use as a painkiller is sometimes a little nontraditional: In the early 20th century (especially the occupation of the Phillipines and the Spanish-American war) it was common for soldiers to dope up before going into combat so that they could withstand sustained hits and not drop. After the Civil War, morphine addiction also became known as "soldier's disease" so this use as a combat-enhancing drug might go back even further than I thought.

THEMING TIME: This means that Far Cry 2's health bar makes tons more sense than most games' do, if you don't think of it as "health" but as "point at which your dude is going to pass out from exhaustion, pain, and blood loss." Near-exhaustion, you're actually forced to take action to prevent stress to the body or excessive blood loss (such as bandaging, removing shrapnel or bullets, or resetting broken bones), and otherwise, you dope and keep going.

ANYWAY. You guys don't care about stuff like the history of combat. You're here to see grenades blow up ammo depots, right? RIGHT????

But before we can do any of that fun stuff, Kankarss has a fun job for Frank!

The last time Frank took so much verbal abuse was when he failed out of secondary school. Fortunately, he knows how to fix a car!

But first, timeout!



I'm not going to retype that entire sidebar, but this can provide some valuable information to us during missions, and also reputation is kind of great - the less the forces of war-torn Africa know about you, the less cautious they'll be and the more likely the are to pursue you. As your reputation goes up, their incidental dialogue changes and also they start being less stupid, since Frank will ultimately become some kind of killing machine that does nothing but mow down soldiers.

It also, if you pay attention to it, will tell you how close you're getting to having a malaria attack (although some of them are scripted). This can be extremely important when you're planning an assault or doing recon.

Hey, wait! Another timeout!



Welcome to Africa... motherfucker. Yes, that's the entire area we're going to be traipsing around in. The map also comes with a handy GPS unit that allows you to get some good bearings about where you're headed, and also whether or not you're going to run into a handy-dandy diamond case. Because like all good games, Far Cry 2 has lots of collectibles! We'll get into them later in the update. Instead:



Frank busts out his trusty torque wrench and goes to town on the engine block. Guess it was a good thing that he flunked out of secondary school and took a job working at an auto shop. A few quick twists of the wrist, and the car is like new! This causes him to receive a cell phone call from Kankarss, who must be fucking psychic or something based on how fast he knows that Frank is completing his menial tasks.

There's only one thing that Frank can do in response: Follow the bidding of his new master. And he does that by driving.

VIDEO: In which we learn that Frank has probably never driven a car before in his life.

Frank will spend a lot of time driving. And I mean a lot. So this is the only video of it you're going to see unless something truly hilarious happens which, honestly, it probably will. Such is the way of Far Cry 2, which I almost mistyped as "Car Cry 2" there. Some people would argue that's a more appropriate name for the game.

So, Frank arrives at his destination...



... Scouts his position...

... Lines up his sights...



... And despite his lack of depth perception, lands a perfect headshot that drops some unsuspecting doofus guarding an unimportant map point. This unlocks a "safe house," a location that Frank will be using as a weapon cache, ammo depot, morphine repository, and to catch some nappy-time, even though he left his favorite teddy bear (nickname: "Smoochy") and blanket at home.

IN FACT:



Frank uses the watch that his dearly departed grandmother gave him to set an alarm, and gets some shut-eye. This causes a cool time-lapse effect.



Looks like that's a short jaunt away.



Frank decides that it might be a good idea to plunder those creepy dead bodies for weapons and ammo. Did he really shoot a man? Can he be that cold-blooded? Also, that pistol looks like a piece of shit. It's all rusted out and, for all Frank knows, could explode in his hand at any moment or something. SPOILERS: Weapons do not explode in your hand in Far Cry 2, but that would be awesome.



Coming up to the heavily-patrolled compound where ruthless mercenaries protect their prize chickens, Frank decides to go off the beaten path and follow some helpful tutorial text that points out maybe he should perform some recon. Since he doesn't have stereoscopic vision, despite all evidence to the contrary, Frank only brought a monocular along to Africa.

Anyway, the compound looks pretty lightly-patrolled.



There's also some morphine hanging around, just in case he needs to restock...



... and an ammo depot. Ammo depots actually refill all your ammo for every weapon you're currently carrying (in true modern FPS fashion you're limited to four; machete, sidearm, primary, and special) and you can also light them on fire for fun and profit.



Frank maneuvers into position to stage his assault - he's slightly northeast of the compound, in a gulch, where the soldiers can't see him. A perfect position to sneak around the back, avoiding conflict, and break in to do whatever nefarious thing this euro guy wants him to do. I actually forgot to screencap it, but he tells you that there's another foreigner trapped inside the compound, and you should save him.

VIDEO: Frank attacks!

Some narrative to go along with your video viewing pleasure, so watch first to avoid spoilers! Frank's movement into the compound goes swimmingly, until he comes across his first dude; at this point he decides that it would be brilliant to run in and just cut him down from behind, without much consideration for if the guy has backup. It turns out he does, and this leads to a panic! Frank breaks down and lights a bunch of shit on fire because that makes a lot of sense, due to his fear and paranoia. Running up to the shack where his target is, he scouts out a bit, and takes a few potshots at some guys before finally blowing a dude away. Out of ammo, he picks up the guy's discarded rusty shotgun, charges into the center of the compound, and tries to shoot a guy in the face - but the weapon immediately jams and so, in a panic, he has to first shoot him with a bunch of pistol rounds, and then finally machete the guy to death.

WHEW.

So anyway - weapons jam. The rustier a weapon is, the more likely it is to fuck up on you. Despite The Jackal dumping tons of quality arms into the nation, every single soldier is furnished with a subpar weapon which never seems to lock up on them, but which will completely fuck you every single time you try and use it. But don't worry! Weapon degradation actually makes this game more fun (I know, right?) and it will become much, much less of a concern as the game progresses, because Frank will have his own source for quality arms.



ANYWAY. Entering the compound, Frank comes across a door bolted on the outside, which seems modestly impractical. I mean, unless you're trying to keep something in, like the monster that lives in the closet, or underneath the stairs.



HOLY SHIT AN OLD RUSSIAN MAN. Well, Josip-lovers, you got part of your wish, because Josip is going to be our best buddy. Best Buddy helps you out by offering alternative objectives to most of the story missions which will give you awesome rewards, so there's never any reason to not do them. However, he won't come and save your bacon - that's somebody else's job.



After thanking us for saving him, and directing us to a mysterious location known as "Mike's Bar," Josip proceeds to be confused by his cell phone. Maybe he doesn't get reception here? Maybe he should've gone with Verizon? Who the fuck knows but obviously Frank isn't afflicted with Cell Phone Disease, even if he is inflicted with malaria, because...


Hey, Frank already knows this is wrong - I mean, there's still beer, right? Maybe there was a firefight back in town that blew up the super-secret hidden beer depot. Maybe that's what caused the firefight. Maybe the beer ran out and suddenly everyone went mad with desire for frothy, foaming, delicious beverages. So cold, so beautiful.

Frank can't understand this. Why would anyone want to drink? Users are losers, and alcohol is a drug!

Frank idly wonders why, if HIS compass has a tracker in it, this asshole doesn't have one himself.

Sounds great to me! Frank also swaps out his rusty and unreliable shotgun for a brand-new SMG from the slaughterhouse countertop, because for now, it's going to be pretty hard to get new (and reliable) weapons. He should take everything he can!



A short jaunt later, Frank finds the diamond case. You will notice there are 221 of them. I am not nearly autistic enough to compel our Irish hero to find every single one of them because that would be insane. However, we will pick up a number of them, because any money is good money. You, the viewing public, will also be spared the process of finding most of them, because it can get rather aggravating.



Appropos of nothing, I find this set of mission details to be hilarious.



With Frank's car pretty much out of commission because he's incapable of driving it into anything except for trees and rocks, he decides to check out this swank-looking jeep. It even has a machine gun mounted on it! That might come in handy, because he's getting used to the idea of shooting people. Maybe... too used to the idea.

Like all good drivers, Frank doesn't keep his eyes on the road. But he will have to pass through Pala in order to get to this mysterious "Mike's Bar" - it sounds like maybe he should check out the town when it's not full of people who are trying to kill each other over the availability of frosty ones.



Frank pulls into town... and a curious urge overtakes him. Looking at all the people saying horrible things to each other, he decides that there's only one way to use his newfound abilities of shooting people without caring: He has to cleanse them. He has to remove this scum from the very face of the earth. He has to...

VIDEO: FIRE HIS MACHINE GUN INTO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.

(No description for this one; just watch and enjoy.)



... But this turns out to be a mistake. People start shooting back at him, and all of those old fears take hold of Frank once more! What if the bullets aren't bullet-shaped but are... spherical? Before his crippling fears can fully take hold of him, he jumps in his jeep and takes off like O.J. Simpson. Eventually, he loses his pursuers, who will also conveniently develop immediate amnesia about the very distinctive-looking one-eyed Irishman who just blew away a bunch of people in the middle of town. Selective memory loss is a glorious thing.



What a curious building. Frank decides that it's worth investigating.



Looks like there's enough ordinance here to light up the dark side of the moon... so that you could blow up the moon and then cause the other half of the moon to crash into the earth and then the earth would blow up! Frank idly muses about what a great movie this would make, but only if it were to be directed by Michael Bay.



Spotting a lone computer in the room, Frank decides that it might be worthwhile to check his email. Maybe his nana has sent him more pictures of kittens.



But this is no ordinary computer. This computer wants him to buy weapons. Frank hesitates, but then realizes one important thing: He wants to kill more dudes. It's time to take revenge. Revenge for all the times he was made fun of. For all the times that he was spit on. For all the times that he was told that no, he couldn't come back to the library after what he was looking at on the public terminals. Schoolchildren saw that.



And so, Frank uses his newfound blood money to buy an assault rifle and a pistol. But no, he doesn't just buy one of them - he buys an unlimited supply of them. Maybe The Jackal isn't so bad after all.

There's a warehouse next door, which obviously contains the purchased goodies. Inside, Frank finds his new pistol and assault weapon waiting for him, but instead his eyes are drawn to a nearby crate...



A shortbarrel shotgun? A silenced shotgun? A crossbow? Why, it's just like Christmas day in here! This must be a special gift for his first purchase of ordinance, and so Frank decides that it might be worth picking up that shortbarrel as a sidearm. This is exactly what happens, because honestly silenced shotguns are totally worthless and while the crossbow is great (it's silent and long-ranged) there's more chance for mayhem with the flamethrower. Frank is finding that he just might like mayhem. A little bit.

He also finds that Frank's bar is next door. Entering it...

VIDEO: You're my new best friend!



And what's more, he spies this asshole across the room. That's right, Warren fans: Warren is our second-best buddy. Your second best buddy is somebody who you're going to see a lot of, because they're the one in charge of saving your bacon, and meet up with you in safe houses for when you need to bro-fistbump and shit like that.

Wait a minute - saving your bacon? Well, what happens in Far Cry 2 is that in between completing certain objectives and meeting with your buddy at safehouses, if you lose all your health, they'll come and pull you out of the fire - once. This has led to a playstyle of the game that encourages permadeath, because the game is fairly forgiving of mistakes (or helping you out when things go really, really wrong and get out of your control). Lots of people do it!

No, I'm not going to. Fuck that, I'm done with permadeath for a while.

Anyway.

VIDEO:Far Cry 2: Winner of Most Hilarious Voice Acting. (seriously, at least listen to this one - this alone is reason enough for why I didn't want Warren to win, even though I wasn't sure he'd end up being our bro.)

ANYWAY. Frank was told to get meds from some guy across the room who is pointedly not Warren. In fact, it's this guy:



Frank decides to chat him up, just in case he might have, you know, meds. At first he mistakes Frank for being somebody who's had a chance to focus their newfound violent urges towards a singular purpose, but as we all know, our friendly Irishman is just beginning to understand what it means to be able to engage in consequence-free murder. Hence, this dialog ensues:



Sounds like the tape is important. Frank better take it, because this guy tells him to do that.

So then why the fuck do you hang around in the bar with all the mercenaries who do their dirty work, idiot? Anyway, Frank decides that it might be worth listening to the tape, and the dulcet tones of The Jackal emanate from it.

By the way guys, I promise you, this is going to be the most story-heavy update for, like, a year. I don't like people talking in my shooty bang-bang games either.




We also learn a thing or two about Frank's new pals. Ignore the third name on that list, Frank hasn't met her yet.



Frank also hacks through the wall of a barn just across the way from the bar to get at another briefcase, and takes his piddly reward. Two diamonds? That's barely even enough to buy a stack of unlimited bullets here!

Well, I guess this will get Frank a little closer to that goal. This suitcase is found on the road between the bar and Pala.



Frank will not be picking up this suitcase yet, however. Even though Pala is a cease-fire zone, there are still places within it which are considered territory of the warring factions, and jumping into one of those spots is an awesome way to get killed unless you're extremely prepared. Frank is pointedly not extremely prepared, and so this is going to have to wait for a while while he gets medication.

... You know what? I don't feel like screencaps and recaps. You guys can just watch this video, which will close out the update.

VIDEO: Let's go talk to a priest!

So. Frank's had a big first day in Africa! I wonder what's next for him?



Well. That sounds simple enough. Right?

DECISION TIME: Far Cry 2 is a huge game. You saw how big that map was. There are no shortage of options available to Frank right now, but I'm going to let you, the Reader's Republic of Let's Play, decide what happens next. Should Frank find out more about these warring factions, and get a job? Should he run around and scout the area some more, hoping to find more safehouses and gathering information about which roadblocks are best to hit for supplies? Maybe he should go on a diamond hunt, or go for a fun swim in the river. Or he could go on a real safari and hunt down some animals to shoot with his piddly weapons. And, of course, there are other odd jobs that he can pick up from the weapon shop, from our buddies, or... other sources. There is only one rule: I won't do anything that will purposefully get Frank killed.

VOTING ENDS ON WEDNESDAY EVENING. I'll be taking whatever top three vote-getters there are and playing through them for the next string of updates (I want to keep playing this game without waiting for you guys to tell me what to do, after all) and will keep a revolving queue of your African Adventure Requests going, getting a new objective or two in advance where it's relevant. Also, this is probably the last update for a while that's going to be so huge. I'm thankful for that.

NEXT TIME: You decide, we report?

Do whatever will get you more malaria meds. Can you eventually cure it altogether?

Alternatively, safari times.

Do some story missions and get some diamonds to unlock better guns ASAP. The starting guns are horrible and I hate them.

I thought the weapons shop missions unlocked new toys, while pursuing story missions opened up more weapon shop missions. Regardless, I agree, get more weapons for setting brushfires.

Yes. Weapon shop missions unlocks weapons, which you can then purchase with diamonds acquired from other missions (story or otherwise) or hidden in the world.

Josip! Bro! I am even more excited for this LP now.

I haven't got a chance to watch the videos yet, I'm gonna have to second getting some malaria meds first if you haven't got them yet. Then do some missions for the weapon shop and/or your bro.

He got malaria meds at the end of this update, and I'm pretty sure you run out as a result of main game progress rather than actually using the pills up, so he doesn't need to get more now. No, you can't cure it.

I say you should go looking for diamonds and supplies and stuff.

You guys are no fun. Safari times are where it's at, and they'd also make for the funnier LP. Isn't that a win/win for everyone?