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Maybe I did treat Far Cry 2 differently because, on some lower, needier level, I wanted to impress those people. I know exactly what you're thinking, and you're right to. I was playing a game that I knew enough people I respected were fond of even though received wisdom - including my own - was that it was awful. To me, its being a looser concept is freeing: when I revisited Far Cry 2 this week, I wasn't playing a 'Far Cry' game as such. Perhaps, for others, 'Far Cry' is still a promise that was repeatedly broken. I won't tell you how you're going to feel about that (because for all I know, 2020 me is penning me a letter about it right now), but yeah, 'Far Cry' ceases to be a reliable definition of anything. And you wouldn't believe me if I showed you a video of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Whatever 'Far Cry' once meant to me, it doesn't any more. Even so, perhaps a bigger part of my changed response to this strange, morally ugly, unusually punitive shooter is my expectations are all gone. My brain has not undergone such change and critical epiphany that I can see design and subtext that my younger eyes could not.
![far cry 2 buddy far cry 2 buddy](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/farcry2/images/c/c8/FC2_Loadscreen_80.jpg)
Hah, I'm being a little too kind to myself there. It's more easily able to see what a videogame is trying to do at its core, rather than full-force snarl and sneer at what it might get wrong on the surface. Oh God, we're still imperfect and quick-to-judge and tired, but my mind inquires a little further before it snaps to an opinion. I think we've improved a little with age. Don't worry, we're cool about it) and, if it didn't have 'Far Cry' in the name, I'm quite sure it would have received a rapturous response from the kind of people it was made for. It could have been released today (that day being Thursday 13th February 2014 yes, that means we're going to be 35 years old in a fortnight. It doesn't: it's the same game in 2014 that it was in 2008, and technology hasn't moved on enough for it to feel meaningfully dated. Don't worry, I'm not so old and lazy that I'm going to bust out some strained 'like a fine whisky, it improves with age' analogy. It's because I'm coming back to it aware of what I felt for it then, and how different things are now. Honestly, I think a big part of the reason I like it now is because I didn't like it then. I'm not here to tell you that you'll be wrong, and I'm certainly not suggesting you don't play it for another six years. (I've never called anyone 'kid' in my life, and neither will you, which is exactly why I keep calling you it). Though you did openly scoff at friends who enjoyed it. You don't know that you're going to fall in with the latter, though I'm glad to say that you weren't particularly noisy about it. You don't know that Far Cry 2 will prove divisive, that there'll be a small but passionate group of fans against a larger, angrier horde who feel it's a disaster and a betrayal. It's looked great in videos, you've thought, but it seems wrong that it's not made by the developers of the first game, which you're very fond of despite that crap with the mutant monkey things. Any day now, you're going to sit down with Far Cry 2. None of that's what I'm writing to you about, though. And don't worry, Ripley the cat's still going strong. You did move to London (didn't stay long, but for a good reason, not a bad one), that RPS thing took off so you're no longer a slave to corporations, and hell, you've even got a baby daughter now.
![far cry 2 buddy far cry 2 buddy](https://www.trustedreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2008/10/9125-fc2pak906copy-1.jpg)
You're also about to sit down with Far Cry 2, and you're not going to like it. Everything's going to change in time, including how you feel about that game. You're burning to up and leave this fusty old town you've spent the last eight years in, but you feel so tired, so broken, so bitter. It's been a bad year, even by your standards. Yeah, yeah, you're no kid - right now, every one of your twenty-nine years feels like a scar. Hah, I've probably pissed you off already, haven't I? That was easily done back then, as I recall.