HAVING A NICE HOLIDAY IN FAR CRY

Is it possible to stay out of trouble and just enjoy the views?

- Matt Killeen

You emerge from the iron shack into luminous dawn, a blue hour vision of crushed darks and saturated colors to the susurrating of strings, pregnant with tension. Before you, a stretch of scrubland peters out into the gleaming desert at the reddening horizon. But in front of that is a car.

It’s a sports car of sorts, but you know this was born in a second-string factory in the ’80s, its sharper corners now unfashionable, its metaphorical corners cut. Racing stripes are lost in a veneer of rust and decay. Yet you know that this car was someone’s pride and joy, the result of many nightshifts and dreary days. Now it’s a potent symbol of the UAC’s deterioration. Misplaced money, exploitative imports, shattered dreams… Then a dust cloud in the distance signals that this moment of reverie is over, and you have to shoot someone in the face.

This moment has stayed with me for more than 13 years. It was one of the most vivid places I had ever experienced and sits with other distinct, sacred memories both real and virtual, from approaching Rapture, to the wonders of the Maasai Mara itself.

I loved Far Cry 2. There was atmosphere and cinematography that Vittorio Storaro would have been proud of, and a soundtrack that featured Baaba Maal. There was a lightness of touch that demonstrated that developers trusted the player to fill the blanks if they provided an immersive enough experience. Most of all, I had dreamed of an FPS Elite, a truly open world I could live in, and approach as I saw fit, with as few breaks in the mise-en-scene as possible. I wasn’t disappointed.