I figured I could use a few friends, so I did a job for a man named Paul Frenec that I met in Mike’s bar. He wanted some documents from a fort up north. Easy enough. With my Dragunov, nobody stood a chance against me. I quickly gave the documents back, and got a job from the APR. They wanted me to kill a police chief. No problem. I even helped Warren Clyde out by stealing a ledger from the chief’s brother. Everybody will love me in this country.

After that, the APR wanted me to take out some tankers sitting in a rail station. Warren asked me to kill a guy in a cattle ranch beforehand. Something about killing a trainload of soldiers because their commander decided not to hire him. Kid’s a dick, but I helped him out anyway. I grabbed some passports for the underground. I ran out of malaria pills while helping Warren out, and only the underground has replacements. I can see why the militias always attack them.

I am Josip Indromena. I barely got to Africa, and already I failed twice. I must have caught malaria at the airport before my flight. By the time I reached my hotel, I couldn’ even walk. I woke to see my target, The Jackal, staring me down. Fortunately for me, he thinks I no longer pose a threat. Maybe he’s right.

Beyond the illness, I also got shot in the village. Fighting broke out between the UFLL and the APR, and they decided to shoot me. I guess I just attract unwanted attention. Some military-looking type named Kakaras saved me from bleeding out in the street. Maybe I ought to thank him. We’ll see. After all, he does work out of a slaughterhouse full of rotting meat. He payed me a few diamonds for killing some APR scum, anyway.

I made my way to the local drinking hole. A brazilian the APR thugs had locked up was hanging out. Seemed like a nice enough sort, if young and brash. With time, maybe he’ll become a proper fighter. I also met an obnoxious American. I don’t like him. I really don’t like him. If I get a chance, I think I might even kill him.

The UFLL boss-man Gakumba wanted me to destroy some supplies dropped in for enemy troops. Somehow, foreign soldiers would make him look bad if people thought he bought them. Marty suggested I have some Belgian guy send bad coordinates to the plane so he could kill them. He stole some equipment, and the soldiers were here to capture him. I agreed, and took care of the whole mess. By the time I reached Marty, fighting the soldiers, they had killed him. Too bad. I liked the kid.

I went to the arms dealer and bought some I.E.D.s. Great investment. I used them to work for the dealer, blowing up convoys of competitor’s merchandise. When I got it right, I wouldn’t even have to fire a shot. They never even knew I was there. One time, though, I messed it up. The convoy guards found me, and put some serious hurt on. That dumb American kid saved my ass. Maybe he isn’t so bad after all. I got a phone call while I was working for the dealer, and got a secondary target to kill. With the diamonds from that small jaunt to Mokumba, I bought myself another Dragunov rifle. Now I feel comfortable again.

What the hell did I do? Why did I jump for that briefcase? I knew it was stupid when I did it!

Oh well. I really did like playing Far Cry 2 with permadeath, however. Next, I think I’ll play through it again, with a different character. To play through without letting Xionyang really die would rather defeat the point of permadeath rules, I think.

The APR boys wanted me to blow up some gas tanks at a train yard. Michele asked me to kill some guy beforehand. Something about troop deployments. I took care of her problem, since it didn’t sound too hard, and shot an RPG right into the tank. I didn’t even need to step foot in the train yard. I met up with Michele out on the train tracks. As soon as I showed up, she killed the last of a trainload of soldiers. Guess she didn’t need too much help after all.

Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I decided to take another mission from the APR thugs. This time, they wanted me to blow up some air compressors in a junkyard. My malaria started acting up, so I talked to the priest again. This time, he wouldn’t give me any medicine. Instead, he said I had to help out some villagers who needed fake IDs to leave the country, and they would give me their medicine. Michele called, and said she wanted to meet. I looked at the map, and saw that both Michele and the villagers were right next to a bus station each. I hopped in a bus, and rode out to the villagers. After a tense firefight, I was able to get my medicine. Took long enough.

I rode out to Michele, and she suggested I steal a schedule of gasoline tanker routes. When I attacked the junkyard, then we could ambush the tankers. Even though I needed more ammunition, it sounded easy enough. I drove over to the petro company’s headquarters to steal the papers. From a nearby hill, I had a perfect line of sight to attack the facility. I took out half the guards before they even realized. Then, it was just a matter of mopping up the ones still inside.

After getting the papers, I made my fatal mistake. My GPS unit blinked, the sign that a briefcase full of diamonds was somewhere nearby. My greed overwhelmed me. I had to get those diamonds. I found them on top of a railcar. The only way to reach the diamonds would be to jump from the railing of a tall tanker. If I missed, I would die. Forget that they payed me 15 diamonds for the job I now worked, and the briefcase would have no more than three. I jumped anyway, and undershot the railcar.

I left the safehouse at 11 PM to go kill the police chief. His hideout wasn’t too far away, and the patrols didn’t cause me too slow down much. I approached from a small trail leading to an overlook over the little outpost. I snuck up behind a sniper, and killed him quietly with my machete. Somehow, however, the guards down in the valley saw me, even though the sniper I killed did not. I retreated a short way, and used a molotov to start a fire. The fire distracted the two soldiers, who I easily dispatched. Unfortunately, the wind blew the fire towards me. Behind me, I saw only a sheer cliff, sure to kill me if I jumped. My own fire trapped me.

I could only hope that the fire died out before reaching me, when I heard a whoosh from across the cliff. On the other side, a soldier had a rocket launcher, and fired towards me! The first blast wounded me, and I desperately tried to shoot the assailant. Jerky from the adrenaline, I could not take him down. Instead, down my rifle sights I saw a rocket heading straight towards me. With nowhere to run, it took me down. Thankfully, Josip came to save me again. With his help, I easily reached the police chief, and destroyed him with my Makarov. I had started to rely on Josip way too much.

I left the dead police chief to help Michelle attack the weapons convoy. After a short firefight with a roadblock, I reached her, and dispatched about 8 soldiers. I will become more than a cheap smuggler, it seems. I used a syrette on the wounded Michelle, and she thanked me profusely. I set off to do work for the arms dealers, and gain access to superior weaponry.

The arms dealer wanted me to take out a small convoy. Given that I carried an RPG launcher, it only took one shot to succeed. Especially since I took out the roadblock and replaced it with myself. Since the first mission went so smoothly, I immediately accepted another after buying a sniper rifle and a silenced pistol. The second time worked just as well, although the escorts spotted me. The terrain was a crowded ravine. Nobody saw me until the RPG took out the truck. Then, two assault jeeps were on top of me. Grenades took out the two trucks, which got caught in the trees, and one shot took out the lucky soldier who got away from the cars. In the end, I was quite safe, and now have better weapons to buy from the arms dealer. Really, though, I plan to stick with my M1903 sniper rifle.

I decided to go to Mike’s bar. Along the way, I happened across a plane crash. Next to the plane, I found a wounded, stupid American. I took pity on him, and gave him a syrette. When I got to Mike’s bar, the stupid American was already there somehow, and everybody wanted some help from me. I met an Indian, who wanted to find some prototype ammunition. Michelle wanted help getting some stupid files with evidence against the factions, and the stupid American was upset about the price of gasoline, or something like that. I decided to help out the Indian. He seemed to have reasonable priorities.

It turned out that the prototype ammunition was stored in the same police outpost where I killed the chief of police. It felt good to come back, especially with my sniper rifle. No more trouble with long-distance RPGs. Coming back I encountered some ammunition shortages, and had to raid an ammo roadblock just to guarantee my safety. My rifle started to jam, too. I guess sniper rifles do have some downsides. Fortunately, Mike’s bar sits right next to the weapon room, so I can grab a new, high quality piece.

I took another caravan contract from the weapons dealer. The caravan would pass right by the southwest bus station, so I took a bus. This turned out to make my mission both very easy, and very hard. The caravan was right outside the bus depot when I arrived! The guards immediately attacked me. Fortuitous grenades and a perfect, long-distance RPG shot to the big truck saved my life and completed the mission. Fast and dangerous.