To celebrate the fact that I officially became old this month [1] I decided to lash out on a new computer and a shiny new game to go along with it.

Because my previous PC could barely run Solitaire, I had let mainstream PC gaming pass me by for a few years. My only real contact with playing computer games of any kind was humiliating thrashing beating Darren Saturday on a weekly basis at Xbox 360 Basketball at his place [2], and playing an occasional round of Far Cry on my boss’s PC.

So, here I was at age 40: new PC, new game, and a rekindled desire to escape, if even only briefly, from the reality of growing older.

***

The game is Far Cry 2, the eagerly awaited sequel to Far Cry, and it’s surprisingly different to the original. In Far Cry, you play a soldier of fortune who finds himself caught up in Some Very Bad Things when he is marooned on an island on which genetic experiments are being conducted.
Things get ugly very quickly in Far Cry, leaving you with the impression that Jack Carver (the character you are playing) is a little short on diplomacy but long on using sniper rifles to do most of his talking. Not that anyone – or anything, for that matter – in Far Cry ever stops to ask questions or offer any small talk. No, it’s straight down to the business of shooting, stabbing, clawing, and having your head torn off in dark places by mutant monsters in the original Far Cry.
Far Cry 2, on the other hand, is a very different experience.

***

I’m banging around the back roads of the African countryside in a battered old jeep.

In the original Far Cry you followed a linear storyline – you had a little bit of leeway over how you completed each level, but you essentially went from scenario one to scenario two to scenario three and so on.

In Far Cry 2, you are instead dwelling within a map – yes, there are still missions and objectives, but how you go about pursuing and completing them is entirely up to you.

For example, I’m currently on my way to a town called Mosate-Selao to kill a guy. I have no idea why. The town is crawling with militia, and this is not going to be pleasant for anyone [3].

***

There’s still a basic storyline in Far Cry 2 – your character has arrived in a desolate, war-torn part of Africa, hunting for a legendary mercenary and arms dealer known only as… ‘The Jackal’ [4].

As you begin the game, you have a sense that you’re there to free the oppressed masses from the tyranny of a very evil man. However, as the game progresses you quickly come to realise that all you’re really doing is leaving behind a growing pile of bullet-ridden corpses, and that it’s unlikely that any of the oppressed masses will still be left alive when you’ve finished to feel like they’ve been liberated.

There’s something annoyingly philosophical about this whole situation, but it’s escaping me at the moment.

***

The guy is trying to escape, but he’s not going to get far.

He’s yelling: “Bloody Hell! I wish I hadn’t got on that plane in the first place! I wish I hadn’t come to this country! Jesus Christ!”

My gun is jammed, so I’m chasing the guy through the undergrowth outside Mosate-Selao. He’s not the guy I was sent here to kill – that guy is already dead. This guy is just part of the militia, but I like to be thorough.

I’m saying: “I’m disappointed in you Ralph [5]. That was very anti-social of you, hiding in the bushes back there. I think we should bring this up at your next Performance Development Review.”

He’s yelling: “Where is he? Where is he? I can’t see him!”

I’m saying: “I thought you had a bright future in this organisation, Ralph, but you’ll never get ahead if you don’t step up to the plate. You want to get ahead, don’t you Ralph?”

He’s yelling: “I see him! He’s over-“

I’m standing about 30 paces away from him when my gun finally unjams. It’s an AS50 Sniper Rifle, and Ralph gets his next Performance Development Review cancelled in a very messy way.

I trot back to the jeep a few moments later – it’s time to go get another mission.

***

Later, the philosophical observation that was escaping me before finally takes shape.

I came to this (fictional) place to save the (fictional) people and to hunt for The (Fictional) Jackal. Instead, it seems I have become a plague upon the land, an avenging angel from one of those Old Testament style religions where no-one has a sense of humour, a man driven to kill and kill again. Each mission I accept is a tiny fraction more morally ambiguous than the last, and I’m beginning to wonder: am I really here to really kill The Jackal, or to become his replacement?

I guess the only way to find out is to play the game and see how it ends.

War is hell, man.

Even when it’s fictional.