Frank offers me a mission to take out a water pipeline which a rebel faction is exploiting, selling fresh water in exchange for arms. After detonating the pipeline, Frank expects the rebels to call for reinforcements. While I'm keeping them busy, he will attack another rebel camp, one headed up by a local warlord that crossed Frank in the past.

Outside the safehouse was a jeep, providing for convenient transport to the target. Driving in the direction of the pipeline, I occasionally glanced down at the steering wheel, where my tattered map was sprawled over the horn. These maps, very slick in design, are key to navigation in the large world of Far Cry 2.

"We have basically world maps, 25x25 kilometers," explains Amancio. "We have sector maps which are 1x1 kilometers, we call them local maps. And then we have detail maps, which are basically [for these] areas."

After reaching the outskirts of the camp, I pulled out a pair of primitive binoculars. Using these, I could see mark targets with a touch of the trigger. Marking one sniper put the location of every sniper in the area on the map, and likewise with vehicles and other enemy types. Unlike the larger maps, the smaller local maps are highly detailed, showing the outline of the water pipeline and other buildings. In conjunction with enemy markers, the map allows you to carefully plan your attack.

My ensuing assault didn't live up to expectations. After triggering the attention of a nearby enemy, I was soon in an all-out firefight. Quickly finding myself outnumbered, I hit the ground hard, mortally wounded. It was then that Warren, the ally from the safehouse, emerged from the jungle, spraying bullets at the surrounding enemies.

Dragging me to safety, Warren injected me with a syringe, then handed me a gun to keep the pace of the game going. Nice service, but you can't relax yet--Warren will stick around to fight with you, and if he dies, he's gone for good.

Syringes of morphine act as the game's health units. You can carry up to three at a time, with extras being picked up in medkits found around buildings. Along with self-injections, the character can also perform a little impromptu surgery, digging a pair of rusty pliers right into a wound and extracting bullets.

After getting back on my feet, it was time to get serious. Sneaking up behind a wall, I popped off a few shots with a silenced pistol, dropping a nearby guard. Picking up his AK-47, I noticed that it was significantly aged, rusty and degraded. Amancio noted that this is actually a dynamic feature--even enemy guns will break down based on time and use, becoming older and more prone to jamming.

Enemies are purely dynamic, never spawned. Instead, they simply exist in the world, sometimes called in from other areas by signal flares. Amancio recalled one instance in testing where, after reinforcements were sent to finish him off, he had five enemy trucks on his tail, a record for testing. Needless to say, he died soon after.

The battle reaching a fever pitch, more than a few corpses began to litter the ground. At this, Amancio took the opportunity to point out that the enemies will always be totally randomized in appearance.

"If you notice, all enemies are different," he said. "You'll see this on console [too]. I wanted to create a system where every enemy would be different, but I had a hard time justifying the development of this. But since we have multipalyer, and we needed to create something for variety in multiplayer, we were able to use the same system."

It's a great feature, something we've been waiting to see in a game for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't have long to admire the fashion show. It was time to return fire.

During my demo, I fired off pistols, machineguns, shotguns, RPGs, and a laser-guided rocket launcher right out of Half-Life. I can't say that many of these guns were particularly notable, but the focus on iron-sight aiming was very apparent. Firing from the hip, or firing out of a sighted aim, was wild and terribly ineffective.

Probably the most interesting of the weapons was the flamethrower, which can quickly create a torrent of realistically-spreading fire. The wind governs the spread of the flames, as does the material lit--dry grass will catch fire more effecitvely than wet jungle foliage. Unsurprisingly, Amancio mentioned that oil puddles are particularly useful.

The enemy AI was a bit buggy in this early build of the game, so it was difficult to get a sense of the ebb and flow of combat, except to say that the typical Far Cry stealth vs. soldier dichotomy is very much intact. Full-on firefights were incredibly chaotic, with enemies flanking and taking cover behind trees. Incoming RPG fire was notably terrifying, both in its abruptness and its damage. On the stealth side of things, the wonderful machete weapon allowed me to sneak up behind an enemy and slit his throat in a quiet, gruesome kill.

In fact, hacking and slashing with the machete can be so sick that it can actually begin to affect the player's mental health. Amacio told me that if you choose to kill your enemies in sadistic fashion, chopping away at their corpses, you may become temporarily mad, actually losing control of the character as he goes on a rampage. This unbalanced behavior can also impact how other people treat you in the game world.

"The more immoral stuff you do, the less people will be willing to help you, and they're gonna stop giving you malaria medication. So you yeah, you're gonna have a reputation where people are gonna see you coming in and they're like, 'It's that nutcase who kills people with machetes!' But if you don't do all those atrocities, yes, people will not be as afraid of you, and you will be stronger physically."

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