Beauty in Chaos

Kouassi in my sights

I wind my way up the cliff face, creeping along the steep dirt track. The trees cast long shadows that hide my advance. The few sentries I pass along the way are oblivious to my presence. Light fades as the sun begins to drop below the horizon, turning the sky a fiery orange as I finish my ascent. Inching forward through the dense vegetation, I push away some fronds to reveal my target beyond: a mountaintop villa. The private retreat of Prosper Kouassi, the APR’s lieutenant in Leboa-Sako.

This is Kouassi’s safehouse; an impenetrable haven he believes makes him untouchable. Things have been heating up here in the north, largely due to my errands for the APR, and Kouassi has gone into hiding. He knows his UFLL rivals will make a play for power at any time. What he never expects is that play to be executed by his own deniable asset – me.

For while Kouassi loves the idea of a freelancer with no strings attached, he never thought the UFLL would match his offers. In the end the stones didn’t matter; I grew tired of the APR’s anarchic philosophies and cocky militiamen. Marching into the UFLL’s headquarters, I found they were well aware of the looming anarchy the country will soon plunge in to and did not hesitate to make me an offer: Kill Propser Kouassi.

Creeping forward, I scan the villa and surrounding vegetation for hostiles. Six guards stand in the dense, jungle approach between the retreat and my vantage point. A further three to five patrol the immediate perimeter, while another six watch over the rear entrance, on the other side of a rickety wooden bridge. The cliff face on my left was too steep to scale, and to the right was a sheer drop to the ground where I began my climb. Only one way forward.

Timing my advance with the guards’ patrols, I make slow, gradual progress toward the retreat. The shadows are getting longer as the sun continues to disappear beyond the horizon. It takes minutes to move just a few metres, but every step is undetected.

With the bulk of the forward patrol now behind me, my attention turns to the guards at the villa. Their patrols are tight, and they show no signs of tiring. Their routes overlap regularly, and a stationary sentry mans each door. No way to take them out individually, and no way I can start a firefight now. I’ve gotten myself stuck between two groups of highly trained mercenaries guarding the most important person in the region. I need to change my plan.

Drawing my dart gun and bringing the scope to eye level, I scan the villa. A light is flickering inside, and I can see the shadow of a man through a small, square window on the right side of the villa. Carefully re-angling myself through the foliage, I edge slowly toward the cliff. After a minute, I finally reach an angle where I can see my target. Kouassi is staring intently out of the same window I am scoping him through. He seems scared. I can see his eyes. They dart back and forth, scanning the area beyond his guard patrols for any sign of a disturbance. Crouched a good fifty metres from the villa, my approach was obviously hidden.

I steady the rifle and draw in breath. Counting down the seconds, I wait for the perimeter guard to make one more pass. He walks by the window, exchanges a brief look with Kouassi, and continues to the far side of the villa. Kouassi turns back to the forest and scans the area with curiosity. I through my scope as his head turns, coming to a halt in my direction. Though he didn’t know it, Kouassi was staring directly at me.

I squeezed the trigger.

The shot was barely audible, like a cough or snap of a twig. Kouassi heard no sound at all. His head simply snapped back and he slumped to the ground, a lethal dart embedded in his forehead.

Lowering the rifle, I quickly scan the area. My shot was not heard. The guards have no idea Kouassi is dead. His superiors, though they knew this was coming, would never find out who pulled the trigger. The spent shell casing drops to the grass as I eject it and begin to load another round, when gunfire abruptly shatters the silence.

I turn around to see the forest behind me alight with fire and muzzle flashes. Out of the vegetation come camouflaged militia, taking down the patrols I had snuck past only minutes ago. It was a UFLL ambush – one whose occurance I was not privvy to. Before I could load the round I get spotted by both factions, and a hail of bullets shatters the plants around me. Grabbing the rifle, I spring to my feet and run.

In seconds I am sprinting in the first direction I see. Reaching the edge of the trees, I drop down a few metres and land awkwardly on a rocky outcropping. Without thinking I continue forward – but skid to a halt when I realise where I am. Teetering on the edge of the rock, I stare out into empty space and at a lake some fifty metres below. A waterfall lined with jagged rocks leads the only way down. I was on the edge of the cliff.

A burst of gunfire snaps me out of vertigo, and hot tracers ping off the rock at my feet. I whip round and bring my rifle to bear, focusing on my pursuers. Five men stand on the ledge I had dropped down from only seconds ago, their assault rifles trained at my heart. This is it; my rifle is still unloaded, and even if it were, there is no way I could take down all five. I prepare for them to fire, when the guard in the middle raises his hand, and says to the others,

“Hold your fire! He’s got nowhere else to go.”

And they hold their fire.

Five men, staring down at me, their guns trained on my heart, whilst I stand trapped on the edge of a cliff with my rifle pointed right back at them – and no one is firing. Seconds pass. They know I’m trapped. They know I’ve got nowhere else to go. And they’re waiting to see what I do next.

For those tense few seconds, I forgot I was playing against AI. This was Far Cry 2’s standout moment. And it was one that was entirely unscripted.

In playing the game you may never experience this situation, just as I myself may never experience your incredible encounters. The game allows players to fight the way they want, and those who come out the other end in one piece always have tales to tell. For while Far Cry 2’s story may be underdeveloped at best, combat weaves a rich narrative of its own.

To achieve this a number of smaller systems interact in a cohesive and logical manner. The AI, fire propogation, weapon degredation, vehicles, stealth and camouflage, day and night cycle, the critical healing animations – these are all smaller parts of a much more ambitious whole. Taken individually, these elements are unimpressive and at times inconsistent. Put them together then let the player loose and the game becomes an orchestra of death and destruction.

Combat is pure, visceral and unpredictable. You may think you have the drop on the enemy, but in seconds the entire situation can spin out of control. Your weapon jams, fire spreads, malaria hits, an enemy you never even saw flanks you. Far Cry 2 promotes reactionary playstyles over preparatory ones, rewarding players who take risks in combat with the best firefights I have ever seen in a first-person shooter. Even I – one so prone to sneaking and avoiding combat – never felt as though being spotted was a failure. I simply took stock of the situation, adjusted my plan, and did the best I could to control it. It is when you feel this control slipping away from you that the game excels.

And there I was in one such situation – on the edge of a cliff, marked by five trained soldiers, with nothing between me and a fifty metre drop to the lake below. I had completely lost control. The sun finally sank below the horizon, its last rays bouncing off the waterfall. Without taking my eyes off my enemies, I broke the stand-off by taking one slow, deliberate step back – dropping off the rocky outcropping and plunging down to the lake below.