So, I've been playing Farcry 2 which I got cheaply on Steam. I enjoyed the first game a lot more.

People have already written about all the ways that it sucks, so I'll just articulate my few personal pet peeves.

The malaria medication system is bullshit. You would take your meds according to a dosing schedule, not just when you become symptomatic. In the first place the meds wouldn't instantaneously eliminate symptoms. Second you would create drug resistant parasites in your body. Third if it's doxycyclene you're popping that increases your sensitivity to sunlight. Fourth, what kind of idiot douchebag is your character for not arriving in-country on prophylactic meds?

The weapon malfunctions are bullshit. The animations are all wrong, demonstrating exactly how you wouldn't clear a casing still hooked on your extractor. You wouldn't just bang on the weapon like an idiot. You'd have to strip the mag, rack rack rack, and reload. Banging on the weapon or hitting the forward assist is retarded. Also, if your gun blew up on you, your last shot wouldn't hit whatever you were aming at, because it probably hit an obstruction in your barrel.

That game makes me stupid as I play it.

Pretty much spot-on. Far Cry 2 is one of the most misnamed games ever: it has no connection whatsoever to Far Cry, in its story, in its setting, in the quality of the game, in any element.

And you can fix any car by tightening the cap on the radiator.

Isn't roleplaying malaria FUN? So glad i got this game for free; it would have been a shame to give someone money for it. My game bugged and I can't even finish the damn thing. In a way....I was glad.

I rented it. I wanted my money back.

And now I can't rent anything.

Meh, Far Cry 2 has many, many problems. But come on. The malaria medication is supposed to be dramatic, not realistic. Fixing cars? A system to ensure you don't have to walk forever if you get somewhat shot up out in the plains. The animations for clearing the gun needed to be fast enough to occur in combat without frustrating players TOO much.
So maybe they're not realistic. But you can also take several bullets and "fix" the damage with morphine, and never get infected, and you never eat anything or drink any water, or need to sleep, or... anything like that. Realism was not the goal of the game. A cinematic sense of the game world was.

That said, why the hell are THOSE the problems you chose to harp on? Far Cry 2 has WAY worse problems than that! How about:

1) It takes forever to get anywhere, and every single person in the game world is hostile to you regardless of how much rep you have with either faction. So any trip anywhere becomes a running gun battle.
2) Stealth just plain *does not work*, and sound suppressors only reduce the range at which enemies can *see you* - wtf is that all about.
3) Yet in this war-torn world, there's still a functioning bus system.. but it can't pick anyone up on the side of the road, it's only point to point...
4) There's a MASSIVE unpatched memory leak in the PC version that tends to lock the game up after about an hour and a half, or at least cuts FPS down to 1/3rd.
5) The ending. FUCK YOU, ENDING. You have the same conceptual problems as the Fallout 3 ending: "Do X or Y." Well, what if Z is also an option? No Z? FUCK YOU.
6) Buddies ask for help and then are dead when I arrive, despite the fact that I am within 5 minutes of them? Good job, game.
7) What is the purpose of choosing different characters to play if it does not affect ANYTHING?
Why did you make an open world game and give me no f'ing reason to play in your open world? Same problem as Assassin's Creed 1.

No Z is a problem with all video games, really.

That's why there's still pencil and paper RPGs. And also why I'd love a Fallout RPG!

Just have to settle for my FanFic for now, however.

Can I use racial slurs? Because my main problem with Far Cry 2 is best described with a racial slur and some expletives.

Holy crap. I totally just had this conversation AGAIN, in person, with the Director of Design here at work. Surreal.

I had fun with Farcry 2, despite all its faults. I picked it up for like a couple bucks on Steam, so I don't feel like I lost anything to run around shooting everything with a silenced shotgun, especially old men ... in the country side.

The funny thing is that I agree with most of what's said here (except the malaria and gun jamming part: the Malaria thing is here for dramatic effect, it's as unrealistic as the fact that drinking water restores your health after getting shot, and I don't know much about how guns work so I wasn't aware of the jamming problem), but I still enjoyed playing the game.

Sure, the long trips with the respawning checkpoints got quickly old (but the bus system and some good navigation actually let you get to your destination quickly), but once in combat, it was fun. Escaping from a town full of enemies with a jammed rifle, an empty pistol and a machette was fun, infiltrating a "fortress" like an 90s action movie hero was fun and so on. Despite all the problems the game had, there are tons of good moments I've had with it.

Just postin' to say that FC2 was terrible. Scenery was pretty. that's about it.

Pretty scenery don't make a game.

It makes for a tourism simulator game.

I thought that was Dead Island.

Oh yeah, that one also had lots of driving to and fro, weapons that broke much too fast and constantly respawning hordes of aggressive natives and tourists, but at least in DI the natives and tourists rarely shot at you or chased you for more than ten meters.

I got shot at enough I didn't like it.

I just wish I had known that particular game was designed for multiplayer.

I don't know, I hated multiplayer on that game even more than single player. Fail all around.

Heh, yeah, given the aggression with which NPCs hound you on sight, you wonder why they don't just all kill each other going to and from the latrine at night.