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In Far Cry 2’s chaotic world of mercenaries, gunrunners, and armed militias, you’ll find yourself dropped into a dizzying web of shady clients and paper-thin alliances. All manner of names and faces are introduced during the course of the storyline, but the real star isn’t anyone brandishing a smuggled weapon in search of blood diamonds; it’s the daunting and awe-inspiring 50-square kilometers of African landscape that make up the game’s open-world setting. Aside from providing the opportunity to soak up an amazing sunset, Far Cry 2’s free-roaming terrain brilliantly harmonizes with the first-person combat. The diverse landscape and myriad environmental factors work alongside a wide assortment of weaponry to give you tremendous freedom to approach each mission. Combined with solid multiplayer, Far Cry 2’s sheer breadth of action provides you with plenty of reason to stay lost in the African wilderness despite an underwhelming plot and the occasional sense of tedium in navigating from one location to another on the gargantuan map.

Far Cry 2 is quite the looker.

Far Cry 2’s story is filled with potential. You’re a mercenary working for a client who’s sent you to an unnamed African nation engulfed in civil war, and your job is to take out a notorious arms dealer known as “The Jackal.” He quickly proves to be an elusive figure, so you’ll need to begin working for various warring factions that the Jackal has armed so you can trace the supply line back to your target. The two primary organizations at the heart of all this bloodshed are the militaristic UFLL and the revolutionary APR. You’ll spend the bulk of the story working for these two groups, getting to know their power structures, and taking on all of the violent tasks they throw your way. Complicating things is the fact that your character has malaria, which means you’ll need to occasionally play nice with the more ragtag Underground, the only group with the medical connections necessary to keep your potentially life-threatening symptoms at bay.

Each story mission can be played in multiple ways. There are 12 potential buddies randomly scattered throughout the storyline who you can befriend (nine of whom are available to choose as your silent protagonist), and they’re often keen to tack on their own interests to the quests handed out by the UFLL and APR. Instead of just taking out a target, you have the option to earn extra reputation points by working alongside your buddy to first squeeze any remaining assets from the soon-to-be-deceased. This also earns you the ability to increase your level of companionship with that buddy. It’s a neat reward, but it doesn’t shed much light on their backgrounds. But that’s par for the course; the main story is delivered in such a rushed, quick-and-dirty way that you never feel very involved in the game’s overarching conflicts. The plot is less Blood Diamond than it is early Grand Theft Auto, a long roster of changing faces that scroll by far too quickly to capitalize on the politically charged setting.

So with the recent release of Menace of Axis for the PSP, I thought I’d go and play it’s predecessor for the PSX.

It’s a nifty little tactical strategy rpg that lets you mess with the continuity of the Universal Century Gundam timeline.
You start out after the signing of the Antarctic Treaty during the One Year War, and then proceed as one of the factions until the end of the Zeta Gundam story.
you can attempt to recreate the Anime’s story as closely as you want, or you can change events in or against your favor. (for example: you can prevent Gihren Zabi from firing the solar ray and murdering his father, or if your the Feddies, you can reject the Zeons offer for peace after the battle of A Boa Qu and continue the war into side 3)

At the onset you can only choose to be either the Earth Federation Space Force, or the Principality of Zeon.
After completing a certain amount of the game you can unlock other factions.
such as:
The Delaz Fleet(Gundam 0083)
The Titans(Helmed by Jamitov Hyman, Z Gundam)
Titans(Controlled by Paptimus Scirocco, Z Gundam)
Haman’s Neo Zeon(Z, and ZZ Gundam)
Casval’s Neo Zeon (Char’s Counterattack)
A.E.U.G (Commanded by Blex Forer and Quattro Bagina)
And a special all female faction of all the female Gundam characters lead by Haman Kahn
This game also has characters and sub plots from 08th MS team, Blue Destiny, Rise from the Ashes and others.

This game plays like a hybrid of SD Gundam G Generation, and Risk.

Here are some of the things I didn’t like about the game though.

The Enemy AI is pathetic, once you figure the three things they do in and out of battle
the game becomes ridiculously easy(still long though)

The game only works with ONE very specific emulator and it’s none of the ones we like to use normally.
(that is, if you were to use an emulator, heh)

Transformable MS are practically nerfed in the way that when they are in flight mode they can’t attack ground units.
(although this isn’t a problem in space, but most of the fighting I did was on Earth)

For the amount of water combat in this game there are surprisingly few units that can traverse water and or attack water units (unless you’re the zeons of course, then you’re just ducky.)