My first experience with Far Cry 2 was slightly disappointing. I first took the E3 demo for a spin on the Xbox 360, and here's why: the Far Cry 2 demo room at E3 had several builds of the game running for media members to play, but only one of the demos was the PC version. All of the other demo stations were Xbox 360s or PlayStation 3s. Even worse, when I first visited the Far Cry 2 demo room, the Dell XPS devoted to the game was actually turned off.

Why? Because, according, to the Ubisoft team, the PC was overheating (it was pretty hot in that cramped demo room). But apparently, the temperature wasn't high enough to get the notoriously fragile Xbox 360s to overheat and enter the "read ring" death stage. Obviously, I was a little concerned that Ubisoft only had one PC running Far Cry 2 and that the system overheated. Was this game going to be incredibly taxing like Crysis? What were the hardware requirements for this game? I had a lot of questions. So I went back the next day to Ubisoft's demo room and got on the PC version, which was back up and running. And the results from my second try with Far Cry 2 were leaps and bounds better than my first.

Visually, there is no comparison between the PC and console versions. That may sound like an obvious statement, of course, but it's worth emphasizing. The magnificent fire propagation effects that Ubisoft has treated us to in early trailers and gameplay videos were on full display in the E3 demo, but on the consoles, the fire animation was extremely bland and lacked the kind of detail and texture of the PC version. Similarly, the lighting and environmental weather effects were outstanding on the PC but didn't have the same kind of punch on the consoles. In terms of graphics, the PC version of Far Cry 2 looks almost as impressive as Crysis; the game is punctuated with vivid explosions, beautiful jungle environments and rich character renders much like Crysis. Ubisoft's newly constructed Dunia game engine delivered top notch visuals in this demo.

In fact, Far Cry 2 may be more like Crytek's 2007 shooter than the original Far Cry, which is ironic since Ubisoft Montreal took over the Far Cry series and developed the sequel on its own while Crytek moved on to Crysis. Far Cry 2 puts you in an open-ended environment with non-linear missions. Not much is known about the game's story other than the new title revolves around battling mercenaries and warlords in war-torn Africa. In addition, Jack Carver, the protagonist from the original Far Cry, doesn't return in the sequel.

Instead, Far Cry 2 will have several different playable characters that gamers can select, and each character has his own back story and specialized weapons. Before loading up the demo, Dominic Guay, engineering director at Ubisoft Montreal, handed me a sheet with six different "loadouts" or character types. I selected "The All-American" loadout, which came with a .50 cal sniper rifle, an M-79 grenade launcher and M-249 automatic machine gun. Other loadouts comes with different weaponry ("The Heavy" comes with a flame thrower, for example, while "The Professional" comes with a guided missile system). Therefore, you can choose a loadout based on what kind of gameplay style you want to play.

The "All-American" loadout comes with a heavy M-249 machine gun that will do plenty of damage in war-torn Africa.

The demo began with my character situated in a jungle near several hostile strongholds, and my objective was to take out an oil pipeline located nearby. Luckily, there are several "safehouses" strategically placed throughout the African country, where several friendly NPCs are housed. The safehouses serve as both save points and weapons caches, as well as a cot where players can rest (sleeping will fast forward the game's clock from day to night or vice versa, showing off some excellent lighting effects).

After entering the safehouse, I meet some of my mercenary companions, including Warren. At any point during the game when a player gets seriously injured, Warren will emerge and comes to your aid, picking you up and healing you. The trick is, Warren will only do this once per turn - the next time you fall, you'll die. The ally artificial intelligence was better than expected; after a scripted, black-and-white rescue scene later in the demo, Warren stayed in the battle and keenly took out some enemy NPCs trying to flank our position. The rescue gameplay mechanic added an interesting dimension to the action.

When I first tried Far Cry 2 on the Xbox 360, I played the demo at night. However, the second time around, I started the mission during daylight, and it showed off the game's graphics much better. The first time through the demo, I knocked out the pipeline fairly quickly by sneaking up on the enemy camp with the sniper rifle. Then I snuck through the dark jungle to explore the terrain a bit. During the demo, Ubisoft explained how players can use their scope or binoculars to scout the environment, and once they discover an enemy camp, machine gun nest or sniper tower, the game map will then update and reflect the newly discovered positions. With an environment as big as Far Cry 2's, I expect the map will be very handy.

The flamethrower can be a dangerous weapon for both the enemy and players themselves, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

As I explored the jungle, I came across an even larger enemy camp. After hitting a few NPCs with the sniper rifle, I snuck down toward the camp and began unloading on the camp with my machine gun. Then came then highlight - I picked up a flamethrower near a dead NPC and began to torch the camp. Again, the fire animation on the Xbox 360 was much weaker than what we've seen on the PC. However, even on the console, the fire propagation effects were impressive - the flames quickly spread across the camp, burning though huts and stairways in whatever direction the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, the console demo came to an end when I got a little carried away with the flamethrower and torched some enemy soldiers standing near some fuel drums. Boom! Game over.

Luckily I got to go through the demo again the next day, and Far Cry 2 truly shined on the Dell XPS quad core system (running the game on two SLI-enabled GeForce 8800 Ultras). While the real time progression of the daytime lighting is a nice addition to the game, there are more impressive aspects of Far Cry 2. For example, I noticed the enemy AI behaved much differently during my second demo experience. Overall, I found the enemy soldiers to be very unpredictable in their responses during battle - so unpredictable that I got ambushed badly during my second time around.

Another key element to the game is destructible environments. At one point during my second run through the demo, I fired my machine gun through a tin fence, which penetrated the sheet metal and hit NPCs on the other side. Similarly, you can blast through trees and other foliage just like in Crysis. The demo also made good use of the Havok physics engine. Lobbing a few grenades into the enemy camp provided some memorable fireworks and sent soldiers and pieces of the environment flying across the screen. The shooter action in Far Cry 2's demo was certainly on par with the likes of Crysis and the original Far Cry.

Lastly, I asked Guay about the game's system requirements. He explained that the final build of Far Cry 2 was still being optimized, but that Ubisoft wanted to make sure the title was playable on mid-range systems (unlike a certain other free-roaming FPS). Guay also said the development team currently has the game running on a Pentium 4 system with a single GeForce 6800 card at Ubisoft Montreal's office. The game will support both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, too.

Stay tuned for more Far Cry 2 news on Tom's Games.

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