Justin Keever | Jul 26, 2017
My Summer Playlist Project: Every time I finish a game, I write at least 500 words about it. Enjoy!
To write about Far Cry 2 is to fall into a pernicious trap, insofar as it’s very difficult to honestly address what the game does well without overselling its achievements, and equally difficult to address what the game does poorly without sounding dismissive of the entire canon of popular videogame criticism. I’ve had a difficult relationship with Far Cry 2 – over the course of the 5-6 years in which I’ve attempted to play the game completion. I’ve gone from earnest interest, to boredom born out of frustration with the ways the game is unlike other open world games, to seething hatred, to genuine appreciation, to boredom born out of frustration with the ways the game is exactly like other open world games, and finally landed on an unremarkable conclusion: Far Cry 2 is okay. It inspires little more than detached appreciation. It is, however, an interesting failure. It is an ambitious game whose core fault is a lack of ambition, a deeply subversive game in all the ways except for the ones that truly matter. Continue reading
Virtual Narrative 