Far Cry 2 comes with an arsenal of over 30 weapons (including a sweet flamethrower for some real anarchy), but here again the game takes an extra step to make the weapons feel real. Guns looted from enemies have seen a few wars in their day: they're rusted and grime-encrusted. They're prone to jamming. When a weapon jams, you can unjam it by repeatedly slamming the reload button. You're treated to an animation, unique for each weapon, of your character frantically pounding on the weapon until he can force the cartridge out of the chamber, then slamming the bolt back into place. It's another touch that roots you in the reality of the world. It also gives players an interesting decision: to loot high-end but unreliable hardware from enemies, or to run missions and spend money for nice shiny new guns that rarely jam?

The visceral, interactive world really hits a high note when you embark on specific missions in any number of unique battle areas on the map. Let's say you have to get into a village to blow up a radio transmitter. You can approach the village from any direction. You can come in high, with a sniper rifle (careful -- the enemy AI is smart enough to flank you if you stay in one nest too long). Or you can wait until nightfall, creeping into town with a silenced MP5 and a machete so that the enemy won't know what hit 'em. Shock and awe is always an option: you can rocket the roofs off of buildings, toss grenades like Halloween candy, and literally set the place ablaze before rampaging through the streets with a machinegun. This is where Far Cry 2 shines brightest.

Smells like ... victory.

Getting There Isn't Half the Fun

Unfortunately, these moments of open-ended anarchy are spaced frustratingly far apart. The pacing of the game is way off. The majority of your time is spent driving to or from missions or safe houses or bus stops. The roads aren't open: every couple of minutes you encounter a checkpoint that you'll have to shoot your way through or detour around. The first few times you blast through a checkpoint it's fun. After the fifth or sixth time you shoot up the same group of guys at the same checkpoint it gets stale. These encounters aren't tactically interesting and they usually play out the same way, every time.

Patrolling vehicles will also attack you as you drive. These patrols always behave the same way: the vehicle guns straight at you and rams your car. The driver gets out and starts shooting you, while the guy on the mounted machinegun opens fire. How do you handle this? The same way every time: You leap out of your seat into your own mounted machine gun. You shoot out the gunner. You blow away the driver. You jump out the back of your truck. You walk around the front, pop the hood, repair the engine, then close the hood. You walk back to the driver's side and get in. We're describing this process in excruciating detail because you'll be doing it over and over, over and over, over and over again.

It's not too bad during the initial parts of the game. The terrain is so open that you can usually find detours around the checkpoints, and patrols are rare. But the second half of the game takes place in more cramped quarters, with more checkpoints located at map bottlenecks and with more patrols on the road. By the time you get to Act III, kamikaze truck drivers are driving at your face at a rate of nearly one a minute. The endless procession of vehicles gunning for you is almost a joke. You find yourself painstakingly crawling from safe house to safe house to save your game. What should've been the most exciting part of the story is actually the most frustrating.

It's a shame, because the actual missions themselves are brilliant and fun. We would've gladly sacrificed some of the immersion to allow us to teleport to specific safe houses. It would've been nice to be able to clear a checkpoint and know it won't be re-staffed with soldiers for a couple days game-time, instead of almost immediately. Far Cry 2 could've easily been a four-star game or higher if the focus would've been on the missions and not the travel.