Far Cry 2

We get to grips with a mission ("we don't really have levels in the world at all; it's a giant game world") in a marshy swamp. We talk to Frank, look at our map, hop in a car and drive towards our mark. We could be sneaky and pull off some stealth kills with a quiet weapon or our machete, but instead we plough through the front gates adopting what Redding calls "the Rambo way". It's our choice after all, and we can always go back and do it differently. Baddies pull up in cars or appear from, er, over there, and open fire. We return, stabbing our arm with health syringes (like BioShock) intermittently while forcing great spurts of gooey blood to flood from the puncture holes of those in our sights. It looks wonderful. Get shot too much and you start picking bullets out of your body. Wounded enemies are still dangerous and can drag themselves to cover and call their friends.

Far Cry 2 has no cover system, but moving from shelter to shelter is the best plan of action. Aiming through your iron sights view and firing in bursts to negate recoil is a good move, rather than firing wildly from the hip. Redding outlines a Call of Duty 4 comparison because of fast action with some realism, so the ability to shoot through thin walls shouldn't surprise you. Enemies actively flank you and will adapt to your fighting style after a while. We thought they were silly and breezed our way through them, but Redding deflated us by explaining we were on the easiest difficulty. When he got someone who looked like he knew what he was doing he would increase it. Gutted. Anyway, eventually we found our objective, planted the bomb by pressing the action button and won the day. And then fell off a cliff.

This cliff, bottomed by water, illustrates the many ways we could have approached this mission. We could have gone in that way or even waited until dark by going into a safehouse and sleeping on a bed roll; simply specify the amount of hours you want to rest for, like Oblivion. Incidentally, you can also save your game in safehouses. Redding tells us baddies change at night. They are more likely to patrol, or gather around a fire, or perhaps be in bed like normal people. Again, your choice.

As we probe about variation, we're told the majority of missions will be based around "guerrilla warfare": hit and run tactics involving sabotage, assassinations, that sort of thing. Main story missions will be more complicated and have you ambushing convoys, escorting people or attacking heavily defended forts with bosses inside. Bosses are not superhuman but surrounded by a more organised and cohesive force - a more realistic difficulty multiplier. "As we keep communicating many times over: there are no mutants, there's no feral powers, there's no aliens, there's no cyborgs - it's very much ground in the real world," says Redding. "The toughest and scariest enemies you'll fight in the game will still be human beings."

Locations will also vary. Our marsh could have been a savannah plain or dense jungle or mountains. We saw just three square-kilometres of a total 50 on offer. If you accidentally stray too far the game gently tells you to go back by increasing the effects of your malaria, in the same way Far Cry tried to drown you [by putting bullet-holes in you from a helicopter - Ed] if you swam too far out to sea. Settlements range from wooden huts to corrugated iron-clad shelters, and from colonial-style postcard towns to the harsh concrete of modern cities. Generally, interiors are limited, used mainly for cover rather than exploration.

Ignore all the side-missions and Redding thinks you'll be finished somewhere between 12 and 20 hours. Be completist and you can quadruple that. "It's not quite Oblivion, it's not quite GTA, but it's definitely in the same ballpark," quips Redding.

Far Cry 2 is also a beautiful game, at least on PC. Clever shading based on layers not textures means the game can scale to your PC, and the powerful demonstration machine displayed a crisp, sun-drenched, coherent and detailed landscape; one both functional and flattering, given the decision to all but scrap a HUD. Requirements will be typically lower than bitter rival Crysis, we're told, but Far Cry 2 will happily get the most out of even the most monstrous rig. Redding describes the console versions as comparable to a "medium load-out on PC", and warns us that, "graphically you're going to notice slight differences". Which we did. The Xbox 360 was the better of the two with its anti-aliasing, but both looked unspectacular and even drab in points. Far from ugly, mind you.

There's no co-op. Redding says it is something his team is "talking about for future games", and that the buddy system is a precursor to it. "We're supporting all the major modes for 16 players online," Redding tells us, revealing a "kind of levelling up component" based around undisclosed classes and similar to Call of Duty 4. More on that soon, we're told. Excitingly, all three versions of Far Cry 2 will also come with their own level editors. Redding believes it is "probably the most robust editor that's ever been released for a first-person shooter of this type", and explains you will be able to share your creations to others on your platform: no crossing the streams.

We're told Far Cry 2 is a "very short" time away from beta and will be feature-compete in just over a month. What we saw held enormous promise, but we're still a bit sceptical. An enormous open-world where you create your own story certainly sounds very impressive, but can often lead to duplicated filler content and a stale and unengaging experience. Make good on the promises of variation, Ubisoft, and Far Cry 2 could cast shadows of its own.