Far Cry 2 – A Far Cry From The Original?
Technical Features
Powered by the DUNIA engine developed by Ubisoft, Far Cry 2 takes advantage of the DirectX 10 graphics API. One of the more surreal features of Far Cry 2 is that time is continuous, similar to Oblivion and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The player can choose to fight day or night, with each time giving its advantages and disadvantages to the mission chosen. The 24 hour day/night cycle is emulated by the use of some stunning dynamic lighting and soft shadows, which result in some picturesque sunsets/sunrises as seen below.
The weather is another great feature in Far Cry 2, and while weather effects are nothing new to gaming, the procedural sky and varying weather patterns along with random dust storms and downpours add together to make a more realistic battlefield.
.Perhaps one of the coolest (or hottest!) features of Far Cry 2 is the Dynamic Fire. As you will soon discover, lighting and propagating fire in the dry bush is a very usefully tactic to deter your enemies, which can give you those crucial few seconds to either evade them, heal yourself, or unjam your weapon in preparation to return fire. Wholly dependent on the weather and location at the time, fire will spread in varying fashions reliant on how wet, dry and windy the conditions at the time are. Start a fire in dry scrub land and the fire will spread rapidly to trees and buildings; try doing the same in boggy, wet swampland and as you would expect, getting a good inferno going is difficult.
Flamethrowers are an all time favourite of FPS fans, and Far Cry 2 satisfies that craving for destruction with this old school weapon. Not only can flamethrowers be used to ignite the battlefield, but Molotov cocktails can also be used to devastating effect. The usual explosive barrels of kerosene abound the areas explode with ferocity when shot, which makes use of another of Far Cry’s features, the PhysX engine. This serves to enhance the reality of the game.
Although the screenshots above depict some stunning graphics, for the most part the arena is a very subdued and oppressive affair. Whether that is down to the actual theme of the African wasteland or the graphics themselves I cannot say, but for whatever reason the images did not look as fresh or as crisp as the gorgeous Crysis. The graphics engine, however, is a lot more refined than the Crysis and most GPU’s should be able to muster a playable frame rate without too much hassle.
Far Cry 2 reads from a multisampled depth buffer to speed up anti-aliasing performance. This feature is fully implemented on GeForce GPUs via NVAPI while ATI Radeon GPUs implement an equivalent path via DirectX 10.1. Both manufacturers have been quick to release beta drivers and hotfixes in anticipation of the game and then release further drivers and hotfixes to patch the previous drivers. Such is the complexity and desire to perform well in the game.
