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

But the poor animals

I don't suppose you can scavenge a camera and just shoot the animals that way?


Man, for a game as generally pretty as this one, the shadows on that dude's clothes are so butt-ugly. I mean, I know enough about computer graphics to see exactly what's happening there and why, but the result is so terrible I'd almost say they should just turn the effect off entirely for up-close encounters. Or at least tweak the algorithm to blur the hell out of the shadow edges.

Animals > people. Got it.

Also, I'm hoping that some rhino chases down Frank's jeep and gores him, but that's neither here nor there.

Unfortunately, the answer is 'no'. I can only totally shoot them with guns and stuff. Also, even if Frank goes on a safari adventure, there are some weapons he might want to pick up first for maximum animal-murdering power (although it will be great to charge animals with a pistol, too).

This is an unfortunate side-effect of me playing a computer which barely meets minimum specs to run the game at around 30fps. The shaders and shadowing are actually fairly complex and well-done (in this case, they're being caused by the portable light sources in the room). I might be upgrading my hardware sometime during the LP, and I sure hope I do, because there is some really beautiful stuff on the map.

They are when literally every person wants to shoot you in the face.

But what happens when the animals begin taking up arms? You should preemptively strike before they get any crazy ideas.

Whoah hey did I say Wednesday earlier in this thread? I did. What I really meant was "I had a long weekend so my schedule is all fucked up" and by that I mean voting ends Thursday evening. That should give you guys some time to debate the relative merits of shooting man vs. animal.

I still think you should shoot guys. They're asking for it.

Kill animals.

Kill both. Grandma Bilders raised Frank to be a god fearing catholic, so he knows he shouldn't try and pass judgement on what should or shouldn't be killed. He should just try and kill everything he sees, and it's up to god whether they live or die.

Do what I do and run down every animal you see with your Jeep. Better yet, find a dune buggy and run down every animal you see with that. I'm usually a limp-wristed Hippy in every game I play, but this game really brings out the murderous bastard in you (as we can see with Frank.) I also recommend doing this with people, but it's harder because they can shoot your car until it explodes.

After that gets boring, do missions for the arms dealer. Unlock the rocket launcher as quickly as possible. Then do MORE missions for the arms dealer with the rocket launcher, since it essentially makes them trivial.

Welcome back to Let's Play Far Cry 2, true believers. This update is brought to you by my homemade macaroni and cheese and also the fact that my brother called and prevented me from leaving the house this evening. Did you know that he didn't know if Robocop was "a good movie"? I thought people were born knowing that it kicked ass. I'm pretty sure my first words after my mom popped me out were, "Bitches, leave." (SORRY FOR THE MENTAL IMAGE THERE.) Clarence does indeed have a posse.

ANYWAY.

I didn't intend for this update to take so long, but I've been busy with that other LP and also things like doing my job and taking care of taxes and other boring adult shit. That means less time for the wacky madcap adventures of Frank Bilders, Milsquetoast Irishman.

Speaking of Frank, you might be wondering what you guys decided he was going to do after the last update. Well, dear friends, you overwhelmingly decided that he would be going on safari and getting swank new weapons. In fact, you voted for everything except story missions! I like that about you, readers. You know what Far Cry 2 is about: Ignoring story missions in order to go run over a zebra with a dune buggy and then shoot rockets at birds. SPOILERS: None of that happens in this update, sorry. But maybe - just maybe - if you're good, I'll do it later!

Well, let's get right down to business!

When we last joined him, Frank had successfully gotten malaria, met some shady Russian guy, fixed a car, shot some dudes, saved some other dudes, and gotten medication to manage his hilarious and inconvenient disease. You'd think that he could just go knock back a few gin and tonics and it would have the same effect, but I suppose that this is The Future, and he needs equivalently futuristic medicines. Also, in his case, it would probably be more like tonic and tonics.

First thing's first: Frank was promised a safari by his mysterious employers, or at least, that's what he thought he was being promised. He'd always wanted to shoot an animal, or at least hold a gun and make "bang bang" noises while somebody else shot it, but now that he's hunted The Most Dangerous Game (that's man, by the way) he's ready for something a little more pedestrian. Something that also won't shoot him back. There's only one answer: To unleash the fury of his automatic weapons and high-powered explosives on some zebras.



That's a lot of space to cover! Where's the best possible place to go and murder some innocent (and delicious) animals? Well, Frank has watched a lot of nature documentaries, and knows that this means animals tend to congreate around water. And it's hard to get more watery-looking water than that big blue blob in the southwest corner of the map, unless you're looking at actual water, and not map-water. But that's a hell of a long way to travel by foot, and also it would probably suck to drive there, since more guys might shoot at him. What's a pasty-skinned one-eyed Irishman to do?



Well, it just so happens that in War-Torn Africa, mass transit is king! The country might not be producing power, goods, clean water, food, or pretty much anything other than dead bodies, but they will absolutely not let the busses stop running. Frank has a lot of experience riding the bus, because he did it all day to hide the fact that he lost his job in accounts payable from his unattractive wife. Then she divorced him so that she could date a woman who had a star tattoo on the side of her neck. But that's another story.



But it turns out that Frank is going to have to get over the uncomfortable memories that riding the bus brings, because there's a route that heads directly from the cease-fire zone to the part of the map that's most likely to hide murderable creatures.






Well, it turns out that the bus system might still be working, but busses don't run on demand, even though Frank is apparently the only passenger. This means that by the time Frank reaches his destination it's already nighttime, and he's going to have to operate under the cover of darkness. All the better to hide from animals in!

Unfortunately, right outside the station is a safehouse, and that means that Frank is morally compelled to liberate it from its oppressors so that he can sleep on a cot whenever he's in the area.

VIDEO: Thrilling shooting guys adventure!



Unfortunately, blowing up the transportation of Nebulously Bad Dudes caused a raging inferno, preventing Frank from being able to get some beauty sleep. That's okay though, he still has work to do, right? I mean, he hasn't seen a single animal yet, probably because he had to go murder guys immediately after getting off the bus. It looks like it's going to be another rough day in Africa.

Before heading northwards, towards the lake-shaped blue coloring on his map, Frank decides that it might be a good idea to check out the desert south of the bus station, though. You know, just to make sure that there aren't any gophers or meerkats or whatever out there where he could toss a grenade down a hole and blow up a bunch of critters.

VIDEO: Frank explores the desert!

None the worse for the wear from his adventure, Frank decides that he'll respect the desert henceforth and instead start heading for his intended game reserve.

MECHANICS! What just happened is the game's way of enforcing its rather arbitrary-seeming borders for the map area. There are definitely worse ways that it could do it (huge fences, invisible borders, sniper towers filled with dudes that shoot you, error dialogs, crashing, forcing you to play Bejeweled, etc.) but this does really bother me: Your dude runs partway into the desert and then faints, and immediately wakes up back at a 'safe' point on the border. For a game that seems to pride itself on its "realism" this is pretty immersion-breaking, but I honestly can't think of some better way to handle it.



This nearby cache of diamonds, however, makes it a little less rough. But now it's time to get down to hunting animals for serious; Frank has dilly-dallied about enough. There was an ATV outside the bus station (that I conveniently forgot to get any screenshots of), so Frank hops on it and starts driving around the savanah. That's when he spots his first prey: A lonely antelope, or gazelle, or whatever the fuck they are. Here's what you need to know: It has four legs and Frank's going to shoot the hell out of it.

VIDEO: Frank's safari adventure, part 1!



Unfortunately, Frank's zealous effort to start up a barbeque so that he could eat some grilled herbivore is stymied by the fact that his makeshift pit is pretty much an entire field. But that means that he'll just have to try again, by finding more animals to blow up! Say, that was kind of fun. Much more fun than blowing up innocent dudes who are simply doing their jobs of being miserable human beings. Frank momentarily feels a pang of Irish Catholic guilt, but figures that he'll take care of it at his next confession. After all, this time he'll be able to admit to a sin besides "double dipping" a crisp into the sour cream and onion dip at a party.

(Actually that last part was a lie; Frank wasn't at a party, he was watching youtube videos in his basement with his sock monkey collection.)




On his way to the lake, Frank finds some more guys to shoot (because they shot at him first; he's not going to instigate today, he has better things to do!) and collects a few more diamonds for his troubles.





Outpost spotted, dudes summarily murdered, and Frank finds the diamonds that they were hiding on their... roof? This is going to be a theme this update, actually. All of the firefights were pretty unremarkable, and also it turns out that makeshift roofs made of steel siding are popular places to put suitcases full of diamonds in War-Torn Africa.



Finally! Frank spots his next real target and lines up his sights!

IF YOU THINK ANIMALS ARE DELICIOUS, TURN TO PAGE 168
IF YOU'RE SOME KIND OF HIPPIE WHO THINKS ANIMALS SHOULD BE ABLE TO VOTE, TURN TO PAGE 45

Wow, that was exciting! Reader participation in action. Unfortunately that outcome doesn't affect the next part of our story.

Frank finally makes it to the lake, but it looks like there's more dudes in his way. Obviously he can't be seen in his quest to bag more animals, so that means he's going to have to be a little proactive about this one.

VIDEO: Frank kills dudes! (WARNING: BORING)



His reward is more diamonds on a rooftop! Exciting! Can you taste the excitement? I can!



And, finally, Frank is at the lake. But there are no animals to be seen anywhere... could his adventure have been a little premature? Could it be that there are no animals congregating around this massive body of water? The answer might surprise you, because the answer is YES. What a gyp.

In retalliation for there being no animals, Frank takes out the frustrations of no longer being elligible for the dole on a bunch of innocent(?) people standing around a house.

VIDEO: Frank shoots some dudes... from a boat!



Oh, yes, Frank also takes a moment to look at the moon, or as it's known in the future, "The location of Bioshock 5." It's not particularly stunning or anything tonight, though, which is kind of a shame. Maybe he should've looked at the sky out in the middle of the desert.



He also decides that it's time to grab a couple hours of shut-eye. 4AM should be early enough that there'll still be some darkness left for safari, and maybe there will be more game out at that hour instead of the middle of the night!

Meanwhile, Frank dreams. He dreams of heavier ordinance, of weapons that will make shooting animals (and men) more efficient and fun. He dreams of explosives, sturdy pistols, automatic weapons that don't kick up against his shoulder and slap him in the chin. He also dreams about being naked and forgetting his Chemistry final, but that didn't really happen, because as we established last time, Frank was kicked out of secondary school. But did you know that he was kicked out of secondary school for not getting into fights? I think that's part of the Irish cirriculum, anyway. "Intro to bar brawls."



Anyway, the point of this is that he decides to change course and head for the weapon shop, helpfully denoted on his map by the gun icon (and even more helpfully, it shows that a mission is available there, via the little ! symbol). Maybe there'll be new goodies for him to purchase with all of that sweet loot he's been purloining from rooftops. He'd almost feel like Batman, if he wasn't so culturally ignorant that he didn't even know who Batman was. (Frank, like my brother, is unaware that Robocop is "a good movie." He thinks that it's a brand of brass polisher.)



On his way there, though, Frank spots this tasty-looking little number, and...

VIDEO:Frank chases the world's most spritely gazelle!



Looks like that was a wash. Aside from these diamonds that were found next to the nearby pond!

Although...



Hey, there's the little bastard!



Frank caps him and this time, deprived of a vehicile to blow up on top of it, thinks better of making barbeque. Besides, he can eat its disease-ridden bretheren any day! He has more important things to think about right now, like getting more swank guns!



Entering the weapons shop, we're treated to a little preview of the bounty to come if we follow the directions of the mysterious, swarthy, indistinguishably-accented fellow behind the counter. Speaking of:

VIDEO:Would you like to blow some shit up so that you can blow it up even better?

Frank, of course, can't say no.



What the hell! That's all the way on the other side of the map! But it looks like there's a bus depot there, which means that Frank can hop on the local route and daydream about the hum of the overhead flourescent lights at his old job. "Old" here meaning "was fired from 15 years ago."



There's a brief detour to pick up a missed diamond case that shows up as a blip on the GPS, though. Why yes, you are going to see a lot of these!



There's this other building nearby that hasn't been explored yet, though... maybe it's housing more thugs and diamonds. Looks like Frank needs to check it out!

VIDEO: Frank doesn't murder some dudes!

Well, that was a pleasant surprise!

Oh, look! That advertisement lasted the whole bus ride to the other side of the map! Stellar!



And, of course, sitting right behind the station by a bench is a briefcase full of diamonds. Frank idly wonders if anyone other than him rides the bus. Maybe it's some kind of trap, designed to keep him from stealing a bunch of rad cars and taking them off incredibly sweet jumps.

Nah. Besides, what reason could he possibly have for taking rad cars off sweet jumps?

On his tredge to the location of this mysterious arms convoy, Frank gets into a bit of trouble, though, when he tries to pass through a checkpoint on the road.

VIDEO:Warren, you are a true bro!

That's right; because Frank made the novice mistake of thinking that he could completely blow away a bunch of dudes with a mounted machine gun, he nearly got whacked and had to rely on his buddy with the hilarious accent to come and bail his dumb ass out.

Also, apparently he blows shit up real good. But that's irrelevant, because Frank is on a mission!



Getting into the appropriate position is very important when you're planning to ambush a heavily-protected convoy of arms!

VIDEO:Frank blows up a truck real good!

Better stop in the (conveniently nearby) Vaguely Accented Guy's Weapons Mart and see if there's anything new to pick up!



Oh, hey, rocket launcher! That sounds like it could be fun, and also it was requested by one of you, darling readers. That means that Frank needs to take another job to blow up some dudes in a truck real good.



But before that, Frank purchases some new firepower. Looks like the weapons list that we got for what would become unlocked after that first mission wasn't quite complete, because this sweet rifle wasn't available before!



Frank checks the map to see where the next convoy is, and, well, looks like it's going to be another bus trip. But in the meantime...


NEXT TIME:... Actually, everything else that you guys wanted was completely tied up and I haven't played the next segment yet! That means you get to put in some more votes, but in the meantime, I'm going to just screw around and have a time (if I get the chance). Let's say that the voting deadline is Saturday because that's a pretty good day. It's the day after Friday. I'm not going to link to the soul-destroying Kidz Bop that you're probably thinking of now. YOU ARE WELCOME.

Not me. I'm thinking about wizards.

I don't know if I want to play this game or not! It seems like it's got some great ideas, and some major ass pains.

ROCKET JUMPING

Assassinate a dude

Stuff like this is what I loved about this game.

But stuff like this just makes me want co-op for this game so bad.
The awkward struggle of going back and forth between controlling the boat and the mounted machine gun would be gone. I guess I can hope they include it in Far Cry 3.

Loving the LP so far. I know I'm past the voting deadline, but I'd have just voted for more weapon missions and killing dudes, which is what would have happened anyway.

Yeah, the boats are so obviously built for co-op. Also they're stupid, and I hate them.

Welcome back, my little chickadees. This week's update is brought to you by the fact that my Tuesday boardgaming group canceled on me for the 5th week in a row, meaning that I was able to stay home and play Far Cry 2. And also drink a beer. And also write this update. Actually I'm going to grab a second beer while I'm writing this update. Always remember to live large, America. IMPORTANT UPDATE! This update is actually being brought to you by the fact that I have to work over the weekend, and therefore, canceled all non-sleep plans for Saturday and Sunday. But I was able to take a break for a few hours, just for you, my favorite listeners.

Speaking of America, what's the latest haps with our depth perception-challenged Irishman?



Having completed his awesome mission of blowing up a truck and taken the mission to blow up another truck, Frank does the only sensible thing: He decides to go and scope out a new safehouse, so that he can get a couple hours of sweet, sweet dreamin' before tackling his next big task.



Dudes are sumarily dispatched, with the sweet rifle. More on how sweet the rifle is later, but suffice to say: It's sweet. The best part is that Frank can now stay long distances away from all of those guys who want to kill him, and then pretend like they're just dying of heart attacks instead of his bullets. Heart attacks that sometimes cause their heads to explode in a shower of blood. The guilt of murdering tens of guys catches up to you, you know.

Frank decides to catch a nap until around early afternoon (it's late morning now) and settles in on his cot, and proceeds to dream...


Wh... what was that? Symbolism? Foreshadowing? Who knows. SPOILERS: Actually it's just because I really like Vice: Project Doom.



Oh. It's just our best buddy Warren! Well, a friendly face is always a good thing, and Frank strikes up a brief conversation with his chum, although he has doubts about "cracking skulls." He does, however, enjoy cracking walnuts (although he has a hard time with it) and this prompts Warren to say that "[he's] the guy" to go to for all your walnut-crushing needs. He also makes fun of Frank for admitting that sometimes, he has a hard time using those metal cracker things.



He then proceeds to start a rigorous aerobic workout, as if Frank isn't standing there staring at him. Kinda rude, Warren.

Mechanics time! After your buddy saves you, he's not going to save your ass again - until you meet up with him after a certain amount of in-game time and then let him know that yes, it's okay to come and save you. This is the reason why I had Frank take a nap, because the northern edge of the map is pretty unforgiving, and the truck route that we're about to ambush doesn't afford very good opportunities for cover. So, there will probably be a near-death experience in there somewhere.



Alright, time to get back on track. It's probably time to snag another bus, this time taking more or less a direct beeline from our current position to the bus station (passing through the small lake there) to hitch a ride up to the northwesternmost bus outpost. Right now the convoy is closer to the northeast one, but judging from Frank's intel, the convoy is traveling in a circle around that mountainous terrain in the north.

Curiously, these convoys keep passing right by weapons shops. Why doesn't the owner just blow the hell out of them himself? He's got a boatload of guns.



However, by the lake on his way to the bus station, Frank gets distracted by some overhead birds. Since he's now carrying some high-powered, long-range weaponry... why not take a few potshots? Nothing could go wrong, right?

VIDEO: Frank (attempts) to cap some birds in the ass!

Looks like his afternoon is off to a pretty bad start.

Frank hijacks the Jeep that those kind gentlemen he shot left behind, and goes for a little ride around the lake, since his GPS thing is all blinky and indicating that there's probably a diamond case nearby.



That guy was dead when Frank got there. Honest. For his troubles, Frank collects two more blood diamonds from this case, his 11th. That's right, I'm not going to be showing screenshots of the diamond cases anymore unless there's something relevant to them, because otherwise you're going to just swim in screenshots of them forever. YOU ARE WELCOME.

Frank makes it to the bus station, hops on, and decides to catch another nap. This time, he dreams about a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies, as opposed to the horrifying nightmare of earlier. This also makes it easier on me, because I don't have to prepare an entire dream sequence.



This sweet bad boy meets Frank outside the bus depot. Why do people just park their cars and leave their keys in them in War-Torn Africa? Especially outside bus depots? Frank decides not to question it, and in the fine tradition of games that are not nearly as good or interesting, commits a little GTA.

Dune buggies, by the way, are completely awesome because they're fast, and also everyone loves dune buggies. They explode pretty easily, though.

Driving his completely sweet dune buggy down some of the roads, Frank spies something off to his right, and...



Too tempting to resist!

VIDEO: Frank's impromptu safari!

Success! What fun!



Alright, let's get serious. This map shows where the convoy is headed, via the red line. The blue dot is where Frank is going to position himself to try and ambush them - there's got to be a rocky outcropping or some scrub there or something that he can hide in.

He hops back in his (completely rad - even a milquetoast gentleman of age such as Frank appreciates them) dune buggy and takes off driving.

VIDEO: Frank's dune buggy... attacked!

Alright, so things don't exactly go as planned. Frank gets spotted either by the soldiers manning the outpost that he drove past, or by an unlucky encounter with some dudes who were just driving around - judging by the absolutely massive shitstorm that's about to follow, it's a combination of both.

This forces him to head into the gorge where the convoy will be trucking through shortly. That's not really a particularly good sign, so Frank backs out and starts heading towards his planned ambush point, and...

Oops.

VIDEO:Frank, saved by a jackass!

Fortunately, Warren shows up and says some cusses and drags Frank off so that he can heal up. Frank shoots a few guys along with Warren, and when the coast looks clear, heads for his ambush point.



Setting up position where he can get in a good snipe on anybody driving the truck, Frank notices something weird - the convoy has stopped moving altogether. That's not necessarily a good sign, but it's not really a bad one, either. Because it could mean that something incredibly dumb has happened, and the truck is stalled out.

VIDEO:Frank investigates the truck situation!

Well. That was, in fact, pretty dumb.

Heading back out of the gorge, Frank hears some pathetic whining from over where Warren was, and decides that it might be a smart idea to investigate. After all, his buddy could be in dire straits!

VIDEO:Frank saves Warren!

There's a moment where Frank's resolve wavers. What if he didn't save Warren? Warren's kind of a dick and was pretty mean to Frank back in the safehouse. But while shooting guys is something that Frank is learning to deal with (he has to do it to stay alive), he could never handle casually sentencing his friend to death.

Warren, predictably, doesn't even thank Frank, and is kind of a dick about it.

Mechanics time! That's right, you're responsible for your buddy, just like they're responsible for you. The huge plume of blue smoke is what tells you where your downed bro is, but you suddenly develop superhuman hearing whenever they're even remotely close to you and hurting, and can hear their HELP ME dialog. There are very few times in the game where you'll have to save them when they haven't already pulled you out of the fire, but this is one of those places where you're presented with a non-choice in the game: Shoot your buddy, or save them. Obviously, you're going to want to save their dumb ass unless you're out of syrettes, in which case you have no option other than hardcore gangsta executions.

What an exhausting afternoon! Frank feels like taking another nap, and the only thing separating him from a nice, hard cot in a nearby occupied safehouse is the dudes guarding it. They're summarily executed, when Frank hears more pathetic whining in the distance.



Frank begins to wonder why the guy who wears a bandanna and keeps talking about how tough he is has managed to get iced twice in about five minutes, while he, a middle-aged former accountant who lives in his nana's basement, is fairly competent at murdering guys. Maybe there's more to Warren than meets the eye.



Anyway, Frank saves his dumb ass again, and after mopping up the rest of the visible soldiers to spare himself another trip to rescue Warren, hits the sack until late evening. Traveling to the weapons shop will be a little easier under the cover of darkness.

This time, Frank dreams about the time he accidentally tasted a beer. It was something called "Bass" and was kind of like drinking dog piss. [AUTHOR'S NOTE: I in no way endorse the hatred of Bass. It's better than Guiness.] Of course, Frank doesn't know what dog piss tastes like... except in his dreams. Don't ask.



Waking up, Frank is startled to see that Warren is nowhere to be found. Guess that means he's going to have to go this leg of his journey alone.

More mechanics?!? This one's pretty quick. Like I said before, your buddy's ability to save you is on an in-game(?) timer, and it's too soon for Warren to come back and bro up with Frank again. But I'd figured he'd be back since his ass was saved, and had to actually check the handy dossier that lists whether or not the characters you've met are still alive, or dead. Thankfully, Warren did not get shot again while Frank was busy heading towards nappy-time.



On his way to the arms store, though, Frank hears an unfamiliar voice calling for help.

VIDEO: Frank saves Flora!

Looks like he's been pretty busy with the whole "saving people" thing today. Unlike shooting men, but like shooting animals, it makes Frank feel good. He's doing some good deeds, making the world a better place, and also making it more likely that other people will shoot all these soldiers that are after him because... well, that's actually a good question. Why are they after him? Why don't they ever fight each other? These, and other thoughts, occupy Frank for a moment, but no longer.



Looks like Flora knows a thing or two about guns. How Frank determined this from a brief conversational snippet about how she needed a doctor, nobody really knows. Frank himself isn't exactly sure.



Another opportunity to catch some shut-eye presents itself along the path to the weapons shop. Looks like Frank is going to have to shoot at least two more guys. Guess that Flora and Warren can't take care of them all, right?

Frank does so, and goes ahead to catch a couple more hours of rest. This time, he dreams about being stuck in Africa and having malaria. Except that he's also naked and missed his final exams.



Fortunately, Frank isn't actually naked (although he did miss many exams in his past) when he wakes up, because Warren is back and just as big of a fucking douchebag as ever. He demands a high-five in exchange for his services, and although Frank is more of a :"friendly pat on the shoulder" kind of guy, he obliges, and notices that Warren high-fives like a little girl. Flora probably gives better high-fives. Hell, that journalist dude probably gives better high-fives.

With Warren's promise to once again save his ass, Frank continues his trek towards his just reward for blowing up stuff and also getting shot a whole bunch. Along the way he collects 2 more diamonds from a case (his 12th) bringing his total of fat loot to 4 diamonds. Back in Ireland, he'd be rolling in it.



Frank makes it to the weapon shop, but stops for a moment to marvel at nature's beauty in the dusk. Nobody can use the word 'twilight' to describe this time of day anymore, after all. Fuck you, Stephanie Meyer.



A brief look around also reveals a case holding two more diamonds (the 13th) in a nearby cave.

Frank steps into the weapon shop, and is promised even more guns (this time a combat shotgun, a silenced SMG, and a flamethrower) if he blows up more trucks. He politely declines for the time being, figuring that he's pretty good to go for right now. Back in the weapons warehouse, though, he does pick up a crossbow (special), flare gun (sidearm) and replaces his rifle with a shiny new one.

Weapons time! No, I'm not going to force you guys to read stuff about weapon construction or the history of rifling or anything (although that stuff is totally sweet). Instead I'm going to talk about why Far Cry 2's frankly enormous weapon selection is almost worthless.

There's a pretty good selection of general weapon types in the game: Short range, long range, silenced, automatic, incindiary, and explosive. Some weapons (the best ones) are more than one of these. And that's where the problems with the game come in (and the weapons added to the game by some of the DLC, which Steam thoughtfully gave everyone for free by mistake, are all awesome - the crossbow is one of them). Some weapons are just so vastly superior to everything else in their class that you'll never get rid of them, or swap them out very rarely. Two of these weapons I've already gotten, near the very beginning of the game: The flare gun and the bolt action.

The flare gun is, frankly, hilarious. It's difficult to hit guys directly with the rounds, but as soon as they hit ground and pop, everything around them is immediately engulfed in fire (and if you are lucky enough to hit a guy with a round, as soon as he crumples to the ground, everything around HIM is on fire). Without an ammo belt upgrade, it carries a positively insane 12 rounds: There's no way you're going to use all those up between ammo pickups. We'll only ever be swapping it out for IEDs (which we don't have yet, but are hilarious to play around with) and silenced handguns in the rare situations where those will be useful. Oh yeah, and for whatever shitty handgun Warren hands out in the event Frank is downed.

The bolt action will never be leaving Frank's hands except in an emergency. Part of this is because nearly every enemy in the game will be carrying weapons that are only really effective at close range. The rifle itself is positively insane: It does the highest damage of any non-explosive, it's long-range, there's a large ammo capacity, and it's fun. Most of the primary weapons in Far Cry 2 are not fun, and this includes the ostensible "upgrade" rifle, the only improvement of which is you don't have to manually clear the breech - after every shot on the bolt action you have to pull back from the scope and go through the clearing animation, which makes firing time very slow, the weapon's one weak point. In fact, it's this very aspect of the weapon that makes it so appealing to me; it introduces a very good risk/reward structure to its use (use it right, or you're going to get spotted and completely killed). This same risk/reward structure is why I find grabbing enemy weapons to be fun as well; there's a very strong risk component to using them because they're very likely to jam.

Plus, frankly, I find the foley work on the weapon to be great; both the crack of the rifle and the sound of clearing the breech are intensely satisfying to me. Whether or not this is because my favorite weapons to shoot are manual-breech rifles is up for debate.

Special weapons are a little more flexible, but protip: You eventually get a silenced tranq rifle (think bolt action, but with limited ammo, and silenced). Guess what stays in your third slot once that's available. The best thing about it is that it frees up your primary slot for the occasional non-rifle weapon if you really, absolutely need one (the silenced SMG that's up in the next round of weapon unlocks is usually the best choice).



Anyway, Frank decides to survey the local territory to find out what's going on around him. Seeing the satellite dish nearby (which denotes a cell tower) makes him realize that he hasn't called nana yet to let her know that he's okay, and he'd promised to do that as soon as he landed in Africa! Sounds like it might be time for a short trek.

Reaching the cell tower, Frank opens up a pannel on it and starts goofing off in order to try and get reception on his network. They don't have AT&T in Africa. This also raises the question of how he was getting calls from that Russian guy earlier.

VIDEO:Frank's mysterious phone call!

Well... that was unexpected. Definitely not his nana. But now Frank has a mission for a "target of opportuntiy." Could it be... The Jackal?



Well, whoever it is, he's chillin' in the middle of Pala. Sounds like Frank's going to have to catch another bus.

VIDEO:Flare gun antics!

On the way there, Frank makes a brief pit stop at a guard post to light some things, which do not include a guy, on fire. I only caught part of this on video because I already thought I was recording it - also, those sounds of rounds going off in the background, and the sparks visible in the upper-right of the video for a portion, are exploding ammo caches. Yes, sometimes it's a good idea to lob a molotov directly onto a stack of ammo and run (or even better, to shoot a flare into them).

This time, Frank stays awake for his bus ride, and takes a quick trip into a dark alleyway in town where this mysterious "target" is waiting for him.



Well... alright, he's in the middle of the cease-fire zone (being in Pala, and all) and also doesn't look particularly threatening. Frank figures it'll be okay to just fire a flare at his feet to put the fear of god into him. That's kind of like an assassination, right?

Well, he's wrong, because for the first time ever, Frank manages to land a flare round square in the middle of the guy's chest. Having no idea that this was going to happen, I didn't get screenshots or video (also, because as soon as your gun goes off in the cease-fire zone, you need to start running). And run is what Frank does, for two reasons: First, he just killed a totally innocent guy, and second, he's being shot at.

Also, he gets 10 diamonds for blowing the guy up. Assassination missions are the easiest way to make bank in the game, and there's also a lot of them.



Frank manages to elude the citizens who apparently don't even recognize him as being the guy who perpetrated a mass-murder on the peaceful(?) soldiers inhabiting the town not two days earlier, and ends up at this point on the map, wondering exactly what he should do next.

NEXT TIME: What will the future bring? We've seen all the mission types except those given to Frank by bros (and hos) and the story missions. Should we do some of those next? Sweet dune buggy jumps? Seek out a terrible hang glider vehicle segment? Try and shoot more birds? Take a swan dive off a bridge? The choice is yours, dear readers.

YOU ARE WELCOME

Wow, I don't think I ever even tried the flare gun, OR the bolt action rifle. Anyway, buggy jump into a river!

I have a question: is the end point of this LP finishing the story? If it is, it's probably about time you make something resembling progress towards that with a regular mission. If not, you should do whatever is at the bar. I don't even remember what that is.

Possibly. There's actually some really great stuff at the end of the game, but there's also nothing wrong with just screwing around in the sandbox forever (although the game is very nice and, at the midway point, gives you a slightly different sandbox).

I don't remember what the bro missions are either, though! We'll both be surprised.

I vote sweet dune buggy jumping into some missions. This is a sandbox game, it's all about doing stuff in style!

Also, I never had any idea how cool the flaregun is. I'm going to have to pick this game up again after the LP is over and see if it's more entertaining when you know what the fun weapons are.

Yea, me either. I think I just stuck to some sort of assault rifle (AK-47 maybe?) and some sort of pistol for my secondary. Maybe one of those machine guns that had a giant ammo capacity too.

As for voting, I vote for some storyline or bro missions.

Hey guys!

So this weekend I actually played the next several updates' worth of content. You're going to get bro missions, a story mission, blowing up more trucks than you can handle, and shooting another man in a suit with the flare gun. I know you're excited! So am I.

I would predict the first of these massive updates to come this weekend! Wow!

Holy shit, this LP is awesome. I haven't laughed this hard at an Irish dude shooting guys since...well, ever. Can't wait (patiently, at least) for the next update.

re: Weapons

I love the hell out of the Silenced MP5. It works well enough over long distance that you can use it as a makeshift sniper rifle, but it gives you the full auto capability you need to go hog wild on an outpost of dudes. Plus I love some stealth action, and picking off dudes with close-up headshots is too much fun.

Usually, my loadoat is the MAC-10, Silenced MP5 and some sort of rocket launcher.

Welcome back, close friends and relatives, to Let's Play Far Cry 2. This update is brought to you buy the fact that I felt like writing it today. Sorry that it didn't happen last weekend, but you know what they say about Sunday (WARNING: After watching that, you might want to watch this (WARNING: Okay, after that, you might want to watch this)). You might recall from last update that our hero(?) Frank had just blown up a man with a flare gun round and ran out of the only non-murder zone in all of War-Torn Africa while screaming like a girl. Okay, so maybe not the screaming part, because I didn't write about that. Also, I got to play some Vice: Project Doom and that made me pretty happy. I really like that game.


Sorry, I guess I should write the update now. Anyway, after all of that running, Frank gets the idea that he might want a nice, refreshing glass of Fentiman's. (WARNING: Viewing that website may take you through a timewarp singularity to Geocities, circa 1999)



Naturally, the only place to go in the area for a "cool one" is the local bar. After all, the rest of the country's beer supply was presumably destroyed back in our first update. Well, second update. Whichever one it was that involved Frank narrowly escaping murder only to be kidnaped by some crazy unspecified Eastern Euro fucker. Wonder if we'll ever see him again?



Flora is at the door to greet Frank, and despite his social awkwardness, he says "hello" to her. This, for whatever reason, prompts him to get an earful about how bad guns are, despite the fact that they're the only thing keeping him alive right now. Well, besides the malaria medicine.

Sure, why not!

Sure, whatever you say, Flora. It's not like Frank is going to take the weapons instead of destroying them or something. I guess that all you have to do in order to get somebody to trust you implicitly in this country is have them shoot you full of morphine while your own medkit is within arms' reach.

MECHANICS! Frank has just accepted his first "bro mission". There's an extremely limited supply of these in the game (only 12!) and all they do is increase your rep and standing with the person who you perform them for. However, how much you want your bros to like you... well, that's up for debate. But usually you want them to like you.



Looks like we might have a ways to go. However, it's a nice night out, and Frank hasn't really been around the country except by bus so far - so why not take a little riverboat trip, huh, guys? Except that this riverboat trip is fucking boring because absolutely nothing interesting happens on it, aside from Frank discovering another suitcase of diamonds (14th, 1 diamond) along the way.




Frank ditches the boat a little early and hoofs it along a road to just southeast of a bridge, which has a guard post at the other end of it. Inconvenient. Seems like it might be time to do a little shooting.

VIDEO: Guys are shot! But be sure to stick around until the end for a hilarious surprise!

So. That was a little bit of a surprise. Frank does find another suitcase (15th, 1 diamond) underneath the bridge, however, which is what that obnoxious WOOB WOOB WOOB sound was. The obnoxious noise that sounded like a giraffe was being ground alive through a series of gears, however, was a car somewhere. Where? Who knows.



... Apparently here, further up the road, and it's abandoned. Guess the guys got out to shoot at Frank and met a messy end in that fire he started. Well, that just means that it's ripe for the taking, right? In particular, for the driving around the ridge to get to the safehouse on the other side where, presumably, Warren will be waiting. Since, you know, he just somehow managed to un-break Frank's legs or something.

Maybe there's more to Warren than we will ever know.

Regardless, more diamonds (16th, 2 diamonds) are found on the road, guys are summarily shot without incident, and Frank catchces some more sack time. Once again, Warren is there to perform a meet-and-greet, and honor his blood pact with Frank for them to save each other when the stakes are down.



Frank is greeted by a rather beautiful-looking day.



In fact, with such good weather, how could a day like this possibly ever go wrong?




Frank scopes out where the arms are located, and what kinds of patrols to expect near the house, and plots a plan of action. He'll get close to where the blue dot is; the red dot is the guy who he's spotted patrolling the place. So far, there's nobody else he's been able to spot - with that kind of luck, Frank might be able to get into position, machete the guy in the back without anyone noticing, deal with the weapons, and get out. No problem!

The first problem is that when reaching to hit the 'record video' key, I accidentally bump the left mouse button while the rifle is still equipped. This brings down righteous fury and anger. Let's have this make narrative sense by saying that Frank fumbled his rifle while thinking about Rustlers. (AUTHOR'S NOTE: At the time of writing this, that particular website encourages users to "win a trip to Detroit", which is how you know that nobody in America eats Rustlers.)

VIDEO: We now join our clusterfuck, in progress.

So. Frank managed to get away from some dudes who are still shooting at him, takes a peek out, and...



Frank gets shot in the back of the head by a sniper. Yeah, we all know what that grainy filter means right now.



Warren at least had the good sense to drag Frank somewhere safe this time, at least. This is the waterfall that must be the source of the river that we traveled up (most of the way) to get here.

Anyway, Frank's vengeance re: guys who shot him while he was moving out of cover is swift, and fairly uninteresting. You guys have seen the good stuff for this particular firefight, it looks like!



The "weapons" Frank has been instructed to blow up look suspiciously like a side of beef and a blanket. Maybe the APR is planning to colonize America, circa the 18th century. Either that, or Flora was just fucking with him.

Either way, Frank blows that shit up and gets out of dodge. On his way out of dodge, he finds another suitcase (17th, 1 diamond) and also spies this lovely geographic feature:



This geographic feature in the middle of the lake. It looks beautiful, but judging from all the BOOP BOOP BOOP sound effects coming from whenever Frank swims around it, there must be a diamond case somewhere... right? Like on top of the rock.

Guess how we get there. Not now, but later. SPOILERS: Terrible hangglider vehicle segment!

Anyway. Frank makes a brief pit-stop to high-five Warren (who then proceeds to do more pushups in front of him - way uncool, Warren, stop that fucking shit) and heads to the nearest bus station. Which just happens to be where the most easily available dune buggy is.

Frank is suddenly, and with no reason, overcome with the urge to take it off of some quote-unquote "sweet jumps".

VIDEO: Sweet dune buggy jumps! Kinda!

Well, that was... fun? Anyway, bus to Pala, walk to bar, blah blah blah blah PUNCHLINE



BAM! Bet you didn't see that fucker coming!

So, the APR doesn't have any guns anymore, because Frank blew up a blanket and a dead cow inside of a house. This sounds like a dire situation - Frank, after all, has been growing accustomed to this mayhem. To this insanity. To this feeling that he's finally doing something more worthwhile than watching clips of Brass Eye. Frank, for the record, thinks that Brass Eye is real.

Anyway. There's only one thing for Frank to do: Go to the APR and tell them that he's going to get them some guns.

NEXT TIME: Frank goes to the APR to get them some guns! Surprise!