Far Cry 2 (PS3)

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When the going gets tough you can count on your buddies

One of the core features of Far Cry 2 is building up relationships with your fellow mercenaries. This is twinned to the game's Buddy system. By talking to the mercenaries, something we had the opportunity to do very early in our demo, you'll be able to build up your history rating with them, Far Cry 2's internal measure of how well you're getting on with the game's various NPCs. Get friendly enough and they'll become your buddy.

Who cares, you might ask? I'm a double hard mercenary, not some shoulder to cry on when my buddy's girlfriend leaves him for that trendy bloke from Shoreditch. Well this is why you'll care. When you die your buddy will come along, revive you, hand you a pistol and drag you to safety. They basically act as a fail safe. Problem is, if they then get killed that's it, they're gone from the rest of the game forever. No more buddy. Bet you want a shoulder to cry on now don't you?

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Buddies won't keep bailing you out every time you bite the dust though. Get saved once and you'll have to go back to the base where you got chummy with them in the first place and reset it. During our play test our buddy proved a decent shot, but was somewhat kamikaze. It's a nice feature, but we're anxious to see if Ubisoft Montreal implements more interesting ways the Buddy system impacts on the game world, other than simply reviving you and dishing out quests. Here's hoping the dynamic of the story is genuinely affected by your varying relationships with the game's mercenaries.

If Far Cry 2 makes you think twice about computer controlled characters, it makes you think thrice about killing its bad guys. With the monocular, players can zoom in and scout camps, adding troops, vehicles and health stations automatically to the real time map with simple clicks of the mouse. It's intended to make the game more considered, with more emphasis on working out effective death dealing strategies rather than storming in like a nut case.

We can't wait to get more extended hands on time with the game

In our demo we scouted a camp for about 10 minutes, trying to add as much intel to our map as possible. In the end though, we simply strapped some explosives to a car, drove through the gates (taking a couple of unfortunate bad guys out along the way), jumped out, ran away and pressed the boom button. Cue pretty explosions and burning flesh. Lovely. This won't work every time of course. On harder difficulty levels scouting and a more stealthy approach will be a necessity. And that's cool with us.

Some things change, some things stay the same. "As a group we looked at the hang-glider and said 'you know I'm not sure how practical it is to have a hang glider in a war zone'," Patrick says. "But it's a signature element of the Far Cry brand and when you're in an open Savannah type environment it does offer us a good tool for showing the player what these environments are like and seeing a little bit of our draw distance, giving him a chance to look at wildlife and everything else."

More practical vehicles are cars, trucks and speed boats, all of which will help you get about the huge Far Cry 2 map. And expect some impressive weaponry, too, including the hut splintering grenade launcher and the devastating flame thrower, which I'm most interested in. You'll be able to set fire to enemy huts for example, and watch the direction of the wind send the flames through a camp, which we reckon sounds darn cool. More weird than cool is the dynamic weather system which subtly changes depending on how well you're doing. Head shot your way through 20 guys without suffering a scratch and the sun will shine in appreciation. Mess things up and you might end up causing a storm. It sounds like pretty cool tech, but we're not sure it makes much sense in a game that focuses so much on realism.

And if that's not enough to whet your FPS appetite, Far Cry 2 support up to16-player online multiplayer, with CoD4 style rewards and experience. Ubisoft Montreal isn't talking much about multiplayer right now, so expect some more juicy details in the near future.

Far Cry 2 is scheduled for release this autumn, which isn't that far away really. In fact, since it's a multi platform title, ie it's coming out on Xbox 360, PS3 as well as PC, it's going up against some pretty high profile shooters, including Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2, as well as the similarly open world PC-only FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, and, ironically, the recently announced Crysis Warhead. From what I saw of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Far Cry 2, Sony and Microsoft's sterling exclusives are going to have a run for their money in the best looking console game ever!1! stakes. Having got my monocular out and spied on the future, I can see Ubisoft's game sneaking up on the blind side and making a very loud noise come Christmas time.

Far Cry 2 is scheduled for release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this Autumn.

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