Mac Gaming

Ubisoft had totally sold me on the idea of Far Cry 2 (Oct 2008) before the game ever came out, mostly because of their promo videos (especially, “Deceiving Your Enemy“). Semi-descructable environments (including buildings and vegetation), a huge, open world, night-and-day cycles, decent enemy AI, and fire that could spread unpredictably — all seemed like the ingredients for a dream flambé FPS.

But would I be able to run it?

I had my doubts, until I read a story stating that the game ran pretty well on modest/mid-level PCs. So, I downloaded and installed the game to see. While Far Cry 2 itself isn’t everything I’d hoped for (it’s fun, no doubt about it, just repetitive), it has performed well on my “modest,” one-year-old iMac. Below are the settings I’ve used.

My Settings

Far Cry 2 comes with its own benchmarking tool, so I ran a couple tests with that to see how the iMac performed. I used the “Ranch Small” demo, and the average results were:

Average Framerate: 32.95
Max. Framerate: 48.81
Min. Framerate: 25.92

Not too shabby, I guess. (Note: You can see comparison results from before and after I updated my video card drivers in my previous post, Update the Boot Camp Video Drivers.)

But what does that translate to in-game? Well, my in-game performance seemed to be just below the average framerate — so, ranging from 25-30 fps. But, that was mostly just driving around, not fighting dozens of enemies and lighting everything on fire. Anecdotally, however, the game has run very well, and while shadows don’t look great (I’ve got them turned down for better performance), the game is wonderfully detailed with some pretty amazing textures.

The Verdict

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the performance of the game; rather, as I mentioned above, it’s the gameplay itself that has a few shortcomings. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve really enjoyed Far Cry 2 — sneaking through the jungle, sniping baddies, sprinting away from incoming mortar shells, driving my Jeep over cliffs without consequence — but there are some definite flaws. The big ones, which have been covered elsewhere, are:

1. how quickly enemies respawn at guard checkpoints,
2. how everybody in the game wants to kill you on site (no matter who you’re working for),
3. how much you have to travel for missions (which makes 1 and 2 more annoying), and
4. how repetitive the missions are.

Having said all that, you can approach missions in any number of ways, which keeps the game entertaining.

So, if you like big, open-world first-person shooters and want to play them on your iMac, go and get Far Cry 2 — it will run well. If you’re on the fence about the gameplay, wait until the price goes down ($30 or less would be the perfect price) to begin your mercenary African safari.

Metacritic.com User Score

5.6/10