jefequeso: I've said it before and I'll say it again: As someone who played the games within about a year of each other, Far Cry 2 was better than Far Cry 1, in almost every way.
Yeah, Far Cry 2 had some irritations. But Far Cry 1 was almost nothing but irritations, or worse (the boss battle and certain segments after the half way mark were damn near unplayable). I still like it--or at least the first half. The way it integrates stealth and action is still pretty unique, and the AI is loads of fun to play cat and mouse with. And it sure is pretty even today. But I have a very hard time convincing myself to replay it again, simply because I don't feel like putting up with the amount of trial and error frustration it had... with a
checkpoint-only save system. I'm sorry. You can have checkpoint-only save systems, or you can have insta-death mutants and choppers and brutally unforgiving stealth. You can't have both.
Again, it's not that I think the game sucks, it's that I think they botched a huge number of their good ideas in decisively ruinous ways.
I can agree with some of that - though i found FC2 to be too repetetive and easy myself - for some opposite reason to your statement.