Far Cry 2 Marty

1. Far Cry 2 Buddy
2. Far Cry 2 Marty

The first time I felt bad killing someone in Far Cry 2, it was a death I didn’t see coming. I’d seen plenty of unpredictable, often hilarious things happen as a result of my violent actions -- I once shot a driver who then rolled his truck into a zebra, over a bridge, and into a river. Moments like this get more out of hand in Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4.

But when remembering my truly definitive Far Cry moments, and when asking myself which Far Cry game is best, I always think about Marty Alencar, the friend I murdered.

Marty was my first and best Buddy in Far Cry 2’s Africa. He was the man I rescued from a fiery plane crash. The guy who always brought me back to life when I took too many bullets, put a gun in my hand, and stood by my side until everyone around me died.

Far Cry 2 is dated, sure, and it has many flaws, but as the field of open-world games keeps expanding its boundaries — making more places to go and things to do — they could stand to take a. Oct 30, 2008  For Far Cry 2 on the Xbox 360, a GameFAQs message board topic titled 'Marty Alencar?'

What Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4 both lack is human emergence.

Far Cry 4’s Guns for Hire system operates on a similar idea to Far Cry 2’s Buddy System, allowing you to summon an ally instantly to fight alongside you. But they’re nameless henchmen, expendable fodder I used to deliberately detonate landmines and send to certain death for the sake of distraction. I never cared about any of them. I used them.

Compare this to Far Cry 2, where I relied on Marty, approaching him every time I stepped out the door, knowing he’d tell me he had my back, knowing it was true. Marty was a good man, always ready with another option when a mission wasn’t going to benefit me as much as it could. Yes, these “character traits” fed into the gameplay structure and story missions of Far Cry 2, but it convinced me that Marty Alencar was more than a Buddy -- he was a friend.

Marty dragged me out of the line of fire and into the bushes when a random group of guys jumped me on the road. Stupid. You never take the road. A gunner on the back of a truck mowed me down while I fell into my own misplaced Molotov flames. Marty hands me a pistol and opens fire. I find a couple grenades, knock the truck around, and finish the job. When it’s all done, I hear Marty screaming for help. I can’t see him.

By the time I find his blue smoke streaming out of the woods, he’s grunting incoherently. I kneel down, jab a regenerative needle into his stomach, and wait for him to head home. He doesn’t get up. He’s still wounded, so I put another needle in him. Nothing, but he slows down, and his eyes roll upward. One more needle. Marty’s head hits the ground, and he stops squirming.

I overdosed my best friend.

Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4 have more environmental and systemic variables than Far Cry 2. It’s natural. They’re iterative improvements that add more to the memorable-moment formula Far Cry 2 improved on over the original. But what Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4 both lack is human emergence. Both have crazier stories about tiger attacks, flaming wildlife, and extreme wingsuiting -- but neither have the possibility of an unscripted human, heartfelt encounter like the death of Marty Alencar. Far Cry 2's opportunity for this kind of chaos is everywhere.

Because that moment carried weight, because it had a narrative leading up to its occurrence, I never, ever reloaded a save in Far Cry 2. I didn’t quick-save, and I didn’t start over for the sake of convenience. Marty became part of Far Cry 2’s story as a result -- it felt like a major plot point that shouldn’t be undone.

Far Cry 3 ends with an interactive do-it-or-don’t murder decision. It determines which final cutscene you see, but has no lasting effect on your experience throughout the rest of your journey in the Rook Islands. In Far Cry 4, you can choose to kill friends or enemies, or let it ride and see where their journeys take them through Kyrat. Far Cry 4 gets close, but both lack the genuine, emotional impact of fighting with, for, and eventually against those you called friends, in a truly lasting way.

Though it’s my favorite first-person shooter ever, I’m the first to admit that Far Cry 2 fails in many ways -- particularly in inviting players to enjoy its punishing world. But in sacrificing forgiveness, it creates a relentlessness that actually affects me. Far Cry 2’s sequels unquestionably improve on gameplay structure, character progression, and presentation. Some would argue this is because they removed some of Far Cry 2’s more challenging systems.

I always remember my times in Africa most, drowning in lakes when I’m suddenly stricken by malaria, dying because a shotgun shell jams the firing chamber, and losing hundreds of dollars when a sniper rifle explodes in my hands. But nothing stands out more among those scenes, or any other Far Cry game, than the unscripted, human moments of Far Cry 2. Marty Alencar is one of my many unexpected, substantial stories -- and it’s this special, weighty stuff the series has been missing since.

Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. He hosts IGN Arena, a podcast about MOBAs, and is trying to read more. Here's his reading list. Talk to Mitch about books, Dota 2, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FarCry2

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The Character Sheet for Far Cry 2.

• Anti-Hero: Played with, as while your character never commits any super-dickery onscreen without your input, he is obviously using the war to his advantage, and does whatever the person paying him tells him to do. Although with your Morality Pet buddies missions you can do things like stopping a human trafficking unit, stop a drug syndication from selling a drug meant for children, and with the ending mission sacrifice your life to save a group of refugees. It depends on which Player Character you select. Each of them has a shady background, the worst of which, arguably is Frank Bilders, an ex-IRA man who was rather fond of Knee Capping people.
• Anyone Can Die: Your merc buddies can be killed at any time they take to the field with you, i.e. during subversion missions or when showing up to rescue you from being downed-but-not-out. One of the reasons there are so many of them is so you'll have someone to fall back on if your current buddy gets killed.
• But Thou Must!: It's impossible, despite claims in some reviews, to pick a side; once you've done all one faction's missions in an area, the plot is on hold until you've done the other faction's. It's also impossible to carry out your initial mission and kill The Jackal; you're forced to join up with him. What's worse is that you're then forced to kill all your friends and allies for the sake of NPCs you've never met before at the behest of a man you've been trying to kill.
• Cutscene Incompetence: The Jackal always gets the drop on you. In addition, the player character manages to contract malaria during the opening cinematic. And after you get malaria, the Jackal nurses you back to health. Yes. It is just as embarrassing as it sounds. Bonus points for the fact that several player characters come from the regions where malaria is a problem and would either be resistant to it or knew better than to not take any precautions.
  • It gets better; you actually pass out from malaria at the end of the five-minute taxi ride from the airport to the hotel in the opening cinematic. Your character somehow managed to contract malaria before his plane even landed in-country.
• Double Agent: Regardless of choice, you ultimately end up working for both the UFLL and APR, then later screwing either one of the other to temporarily weaken that side's power in exchange for the other's.
• The Dreaded: The Player Character essentially becomes this depending on their reputation. At reputation level 0, the player is completely unknown, while at level 4, mooks believe that the player is the devil incarnate, and at level 5 the mere sight of him is enough to send even brave men into panic because they know if he is around things will get messy.
• Et Tu, Brute?: The game's 'final battle' is a firefight against your mercenary buddies, who are trying to use blood diamonds to bribe their way out of the country. You want the diamonds as bribes to help save the civilian population from genocide. Additionally, some of the optional buddy missions (especially those given by the 3 female mercs) given to you at Mike's Bar were actually fairly altruistic in motive (collecting evidence of war crimes, destroying weapon supplies, killing drug dealers marketing to children, etc.), so it's fairly jarring when at the end the majority of them turn out to be a bunch of selfish jerks.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Many of them have some kind of military background before becoming freelance mercenaries.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The player and the Jackal ultimately team up to rescue the fleeing refugees from being slaughtered by the UFLL and the APR in a Suicide Missiom that involves one blowing themselves up with a mountain and the orders to shoot themselves after the civlians escape. The player admits in the journal that the situation is nuts but it's the right thing to do.
• Mercy Kill: You can do this to your buddies, either by use of your pistol or overdosing them with syrettes if they've been wounded too many times.
• Motive Decay: Happens to the Player Character over the course of the game. You are initially tasked to take out the Jackal, but get caught up in the Civil War while trying to obtain information from both factions. By the time the player catches up with the Jackal, they decide to join forces in order to take out the leadership of the UFLL, the APR and the Private Military Contractors working for both of them and help civilians flee the country.
• One-Man Army: In genral, both the player and their buddies. Together they are quite capable of taking out a couple squads of enemy soldiers by themselves.
• Playing Both Sides: The player does this to try and gain information on The Jackal, switching sides as soon as he feels that he's getting nowhere.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In the end, you rid yourself of the leaders who ordered you to help them destroy each other and you rescue the civilian population from nationwide genocide, but you and nearly every other character in the entire game dies in the process, Reuben's reports on the war are ignored, and there's no sign that the conflict will ever end.
• Sadistic Choice: About halfway through the game, you're given the choice of either saving a church full of civilians or a bar full of your mercenary buddies. There's not enough time to come to the aid of both. Although your choice is ultimately pointless because you end up overrun by enemy soldiers either way. Your mercenary buddies actually survive, but you never meet them again until the end of the game. When they try to kill you. Not completely pointless, as the people in the church (presumably) escape if you assist them.
• Shrouded in Myth: As your reputation level grows, your character eventually gains this status among the enemy Mooks. Their in-game combat dialogue changes accordingly, from 'Who's this asshole? Who cares, let's kill him.' to 'Oh God! It's him! We're all gonna die!'.
  Description at Level 4: People believe I'm the Devil himself. Heard a rumor that I eat my victims and I prefer wounding rather than killing outright... just for the fun of it.
• A Simple Plan: When you're given a mission by one of the two major factions, one of your buddies will often phone you up and suggest additional objectives that will supposedly benefit one or both of you (as well as unlock upgrades for your safe houses). Complete these objectives, however, and your buddy's scheme will rapidly head south,requiring you to come and rescue them. This happens every single time. The game's plot basically amounts to this. The opening journal entry suggests that it's a simple enough job, until the player succumbs to malaria and has to go looking for information on The Jackal, getting dragged deeper and deeper into the conflict.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Your dozen or so mercenary buddies are the only friendly faces in the whole country. They help you out in missions and arrive to save you if you're ever critically injured in a firefight. This gives you an incentive to keep them alive throughout the game. ...And then they all try to kill you.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Aside from the various uses of incendiary devices, you can shoot enemies in the foot or the gut with an SVD to draw their buddies out.
• Villain Protagonist: The main character of the game, in his obsessive pursuit of his target, will help the opposing armies destroy medicine, kill innocents, and eliminate water supplies. His buddies can get just as bad, as well, even if it's to combat equally bad people. Xianyong Bai, in particular, has a side-mission involving someone holding onto a massive stack of travel documents and passports because he's waiting for a reason to sell them - rather than recovering them yourself to pass out or even sell, he wants you to just burn them all so nobody can use them.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Only the Northern District buddies and your Southern District best buddy show up at the final battle and force you to kill them. It's not clear what happens to the rest of the Southern District merc buddies, but given that the factions were arresting and purging all foreign mercenaries and you best buddy only survives because you were personally there to break them out of jail, it doesn't look good for them.

• But Not Too Foreign: He was born in Brazil but grew up in the U.S. and is an American citizen. Even served in the Marines to boot.
• Brainless Beauty: The female mercs refer to him as such, being easy on the eyes but not too bright.
• Consummate Professional: Unlike many of the other merc buddies, who actually have other motives for being here or are simply criminal entrepreneurs, Marty both carries himself as a professional soldier and is mostly Only in It for the Money, making him probably the purest example of a simple merc among your buddies.
• Idiot Hero: His character description as well as several of the other mercs comment that he's not the brightest bulb in the room, but is quite skilled at what he does.
• Mascot: Sort of. He's the default player character and (supposedly) the guy on the cover and promotional material, although his character design was changed so much between the concept art and the final release that he really looks nothing like the cover guy.
  • He's also unique in being the only merc buddy that can appear in either the North District or the Southern District, depending on which mercenary you pick as your player character.
• Overranked Soldier: According to his background, he was a Gunnery Sergeant in the U.S. Marines. He's only 28 years old and has been a mercenary for a few years. It takes many years for an enlisted Marine to be promoted to Gunnery Sergeant.
• Semper Fi: Was a Gunnery Sergeant in USMC Force Protection before going freelance, and still uses a lot of military lingo in his speech.

• Pay Evil unto Evil: Many of her buddy and subversion missions involve killing faction officials involved in child trafficking.
• Token Good Teammate: Michele's one of the more altruistic mercenary buddies, her buddy missions are aimed at preventing exploitation of the local populace and she worked as an abducted child retrieval specialist before the events of the game.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Her character description notes she has no problem being ruthless in dispensing justice.
• Younger Than They Look: Her character description notes she seems older than her actual age due to her rough life.

• Chummy Commies: Her character description mentions that she's from communist Cuba and chooses her assignments based on ideology rather than cash. She's also one of the more friendly and relatively altruistic mercenary teammates. She even prominently wears a red star shirt.
• The Cynic: She's quite cynical about most of the other mercenary buddies, regarding most of them as unskilled or reckless.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Unlike some of the other mercs, she's focused on destroying faction resources rather than stealing them, in order to weaken the factions or simply make a socio-political statement. On the whole she acts more like a foreign agent provocateur than a neutral merc.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She's the only mercenary who actually thinks the Prince will be able to bring peace to the country upon inheriting the King's fortune. Every other Northern District merc realizes the Prince just wants to inherit the fortune so he can live like a playboy in Europe.

• The Big Guy: At 6'3' and 230 pounds, with an athletic build, he's by far the largest of the merc buddies and has the boisterous attitude to match.
• I Just Want to Be Badass/Glory Seeker: Clyde's ambition is to be a badass mercenary working for an elite Private Military Contractor. This is further emphasized by his eager attitude and lack of actual military or combat experience.
• Eagleland: A downplayed example, Warren is much more overtly American compared to Marty Alencar, with a pronounced Southern drawl and a tendency to use Americanisms such as football terminology.
• No True Scotsman: Clyde has an idealized image of PMC work, and dismisses companies like MacGruder-Powell (the guys working for the APR) and Bastion UK (the guys working for the UFLL) as amateurs and not a real PMC. Though somewhat justified as the quality of a PMC and its soldiers can indeed vary considerably.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He fights with either an Ithaca 37 or a SPAS-12 in combat.
• Skilled, but Naïve: It's noted a number of times that Warren actually doesn't have very much combat experience. He's the only merc buddy not to have any prior military, paramilitary, or criminal job experience, only having a bodyguard permit and a pilot's license.
• The Stoner: One of his buddy missions involves stealing some khet from some growers so you and him can get high, which shows both his headstrong and somewhat irresponsible attitude.

• Cool Old Guy: Josip is the oldest of the mercenary buddies; he's 48 years old but looks older, presumably due to his rough lifestyle and heavy drinking and smoking.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Implied, as he mentions having more than 20 nieces and nephews back at his home village in Albania.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He fights with either an Ithaca 37 or a SPAS-12 in combat.
• Stout Strength: He's 240 pounds and visually overweight with a decent belly (though still quite well muscled), yet is every bit the fighter as the other merc buddies.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Unlike Michele, Flora, or Quarbani, Josip isn't a humanitarian and seems to be Only in It for the Money. However, he draws the line at harming children, and one of his buddy missions involves sabotaging a faction raid because it would have put children in the line of fire.
• You No Take Candle: Like Bai, his English is somewhat flawed. He often comes across as The Ahnold. Whenever he sends you to kill a bureaucrat on a subversion mission he even refers to them as 'little man'.

• Badass Israeli: Downplayed; Like all Israelis, Paul served in the IDF, but by all accounts he spent his service assigned to clerical duties and was high for much of it.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: His character description notes that he seems like a goof, but he's as much of a fighter as the other mercs.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Became a contraband smuggler after leaving the IDF.
• Dangerous Deserter: Ferenc went AWOL from the IDF to pursue a lucrative career in crime, and knows all too well that the Israelis know how to hold a grudge. If he's your best buddy, during the Special Forces UFLL mission he tells you the spec ops team are actually Israeli commandos sent to arrest him, and that he'll kill you himself if he believes you're working with them.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He fights with either an Ithaca 37 or a SPAS-12 in combat.

• Foil: Singh's beliefs seem to be the exact opposite of the Jackal's in terms of how the war can be solved.
• The Idealist: Singh wants to eliminate the factions and restore peace, and he believes that traditional military tactics (i.e. destroying their logistics, eliminating their experienced officers, etc.) can eventually weaken the factions enough to bring about regime change. This puts him in sharp contrast to The Jackal, who sees the war as a cancer that can only be treated by burning it all out. Given that Singh's efforts ultimately don't amount to anything and he gets purged by the factions by the end of the first act, it seems the Jackal was more correct than Singh was.
• Internal Reformist: Although he does merc work for the factions, he mentions that his ultimate goal is to overthrow and eliminate their leaders and bring stability back to the country. That doesn't work out for him at all.
• The Leader: He and Hakim are the only former commissioned military officers among the mercs, and a few other mercs comment about his leadership skills. In his subversion missions he also mentions commanding faction soldiers instead of being a lone wolf, though whenever you reach him during a mission all his men have either been killed or turned on him.
• Token Good Teammate: While Michele and Flora may have altruistic motives, Quarbani Singh is the only merc buddy whose ultimate goal is to bring an end to the war and who actually has a strategy for doing so.

• Foil: In contrast to the altruistic Michele and the ideological revolutionary Flora, Nasreen is a working merc and motivated primarily by getting a paycheck.
• It's Personal: She seems to have a personal grudge against Addi Mbwantuwe, the leader of the UFLL, often mentioning him negatively during her subversion missions.
• My God, What Have I Done?: For her first buddy mission, she sends you to kill an APR official who's about to accidentally stumble upon incriminating evidence against her. Once the job is done, she'll tell you that she feels sick about it. She later sends you to assassinate an arms dealer and celebrates his death, so it seems she feels guilty about killing people who only got involved by accident, but otherwise isn't squeamish about killing other 'players in the game'.
• Only in It for the Money: In contrast to Michele and Flora, who seem to have altruistic motives for participating in the war, Nasreen is a merc through-and-through and motivated by her paycheck. That said, she's not as cold-blooded as Bilders or Bai.

• But Not Too Foreign: Andre, the only Black player character, is actually from Haiti and in fact was formerly in league with the CIA, so his word usage is actually quite American. In fact Hakim, an Algerian Arab, is the only native Africa among the player characters.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments, especially compared to the other merc buddies.
• Defector from Decadence: Andre was involved in a CIA-backed assassination attempt on President Aristide, but aborted at the last minute after having a change of heart. He's been in hiding ever since, which is how he ended up in Africa doing merc work.
  • Resignations Not Accepted: He's rightly fearful the CIA is looking to eliminate him for his failure as well as the fact He Knows Too Much, and the motivation behind many of his subversion missions is to eliminate any evidence that could potentially lead the CIA to him.
• The Exile: He's only working as a merc in South Africa because he's unable to return to his native Haiti due to having botched a CIA-backed assassination attempt on President Aristide.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He fights with a SPAS-12 shotgun in combat.

• Commanding Coolness: He was a Lt. Commander in the Algerian Navy before going into maritime private security and eventually real estate.
• Badass Bandolier: He wears a bandolier of rifle rounds over a leather coat, which is somewhat odd since he fights exclusively with a shotgun unless you're playing as him.
• Escape from the Crazy Place: Unlike the other mercs, Hakim is already rich, his primary goal seems to be to find a way to get the hell out of the country so he can reclaim his fortune and get back to his family. Given the instability and social collapse caused by the civil war, that's easier than it sounds, so he's doing merc work to try and find the resources and connections needed to get the hell out.
• I Have a Family: He mentions at one point that he has a wife and children back in the U.A.E. that he's trying to get back to. Somewhat tragic if he's your Southern District best buddy since he'll fight against you alongside all the Northern District buddies and will have to be killed.
• Non-Idle Rich: Hakim used to be a real estate broker in the U.A.E. and is worth several million dollars, yet he's still in the war-torn country operating as a mercenary, apparently because he somehow ended up getting stuck there after the government collapsed.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He fights with a SPAS-12 shotgun in combat.

• Deadpan Snarker: Snarks about the situation on occasion.
• Drugs Are Bad: Frank isn't actually against drug use, but he does warn it can be 'dangerous'. He should know, as a former IRA enforcer he would have been in charge of kneecapping local citizens for dealing.
• Fighting Irish: He's a former IRA member turned black market criminal and mercenary.
• Handicapped Badass: Frank wears a leg brace due to having a power drill driven through his knee in prison, despite this he's as much of a tough fighter as the rest of your merc buddies.
• Retirony: During his subversion missions Frank mentions he's looking for one last big score in Africa that will set him up for life and let him retire. If he's your best South District buddy, which he should be if he's doing the assassination mission with you, then he'll be forced to fight you at the end of the game alongside the North District buddies and you'll have to kill him.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He fights with a SPAS-12 shotgun in combat.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He seems to be the most foul-mouthed of the merc buddies, as well as the most openly criminal.
• 10-Minute Retirement: He actually came to Africa to retire after making a decent living as a smuggler, but ended up getting pulled into the civil war.

• Disproportionate Retribution: Many of Bai's buddy and subversion missions involve killing people or destroying their stuff simply because they crossed him or he finds them annoying.
• It Amused Me: More than any of the other mercs, the motive Bai gives for killing people and blowing up their stuff is simply because he thinks it's cool.
• It's Personal: Bai seems to have a personal feud going with Hector Voorhees, which he mentions during one of his buddy missions and occasionally during his subversion missions.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Bai got his start as a smuggler before turning informant and later parlaying his criminal experience into more legit gigs as a stop-loss consultant.
• Too Many Belts: He wears a bracer made up of black leather belts on his right arm. It's most obvious if you're playing as him.
• Young Gun: At 24 years old he's by far the youngest of the merc buddies. At 5'9' and 140 pounds he's also the smallest of the male mercs.
• You No Take Candle: Like Idromeno, his English is somewhat flawed. Bai actually admits his English ain't great and says it's too bad that you don't speak his native Mandarin.

• Face Death with Dignity: Unlike Mbantuwe, if you're sent to assassinate him he'll simply calmly try to (unsuccessfully) talk you down, instead of going on a xenophobic rant like Mbantuwe does.
• The Leader: The leader of the APR.
• Manipulative Bastard: Major Tambossa seems very fond of False Flag Operations, with most of your missions for him being of that nature.

Far Cry 2 Buddy

• The Dragon: He's Major Tambossa's number two man and the head of the APR in the North District.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Tends to use his pistol to point at things and people the way normal people use their index finger. This quirk of his is one of the reasons people think he's Longinus from Far Cry 4, who shares the same mannerism.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He's quite egotistical and acts like his name carries much more cred than it probably does.

• Affably Evil: He's generally friendlier towards you than Prosper Kouassi, or even his own UFLL counterpart Hector Voorhees. He also comes across as the sanest of the faction leaders.
• Co-Dragons: Greaves is the leader of the APR's mercenary forces and seems to have authority roughly on par with Kouassi.
  • Dragon Ascendant: Greaves ends up taking over the APR after Major Tambossa gets killed, either by the Jackal or by you.
• Evil Albino: It's not clear if he's this or just a really, really pasty Brit, but he has white hair despite not looking that old and is also the palest character in the game.
• Evil Brit: He's British and complicit in the APR's misdeeds.
• Only Sane Man: Greaves seems to be the most rational and self-aware of the faction leaders, and is the only one who's ever noted to give any thought towards the plight of the civilian populace. In the end he still goes along with the madness anyway to save his own skin.

• Affably Evil: Like Purefoy, Quiepo is noticeably less Jerkass-ish compared to the two UFLL lieutenants that can rescue you at the beginning of the game, being relatively friendly when asking for your services to repay him for saving you, compared to Kankaras and Carbonell who are much more abrasive and demanding.

• Affably Evil: Purefoy is probably the friendliest of the four faction lieutenants that can rescue you at the beginning of the game, asking for your services in a friendly and comradely manner compared to the abrasive and demanding behavior of the two UFLL lieutenants.
• Disc-One Nuke: If you get rescued by him, he'll supply you with a rocket launcher right off the bat, compared to Quiepo and Kankaras who give you a flamethrower instead.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: He has a SEAL Team 3 patch on his leather jacket, which coupled with his use of military lingo suggests he might have formerly been a member.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Wears a leather jacket with several military patches on it.
• Southern-Fried Private: He has a noticeable Southern United States accent, and also demonstrates the region's noted warm politeness.

Far Cry 2 Marty

• Believing Their Own Lies: While Major Tambossa comes across as a ruthless and cynical exploiter, Mbantuwe gives the impression he actually believes his own propaganda, especially in the xenophobic rant he gives if you end up confronting him.
• Cultural Posturing: Engages in this somewhat more than his rival Major Tambossa. If you're sent to assassinate him, he'll go off on a xenophobic rant against all foreigners before you kill him.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has a very deep and bass-filled voice.
• The Leader: Leader of the UFLL.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Unlike Major Tambossa, Mbantuwe has no prior military or combat experience and is reliant on his local muscle and the mercs from Bastion UK to do his dirty work.

• Cultural Posturing: Much like his mentor Mbantuwe.
• The Dragon: He's Mbantuwe's number two man and the head of the UFLL in the North District.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has a deep, scratchy voice.
• I Surrender, Suckers: If he's the Goka Falls assassination target, when you confront him he'll surrender and tell you there's a large wad of cash in a nearby drawer. If you try to approach the drawer, he'll pull his pistol and start shooting you while you have your back turned.
• Mad Eye: Gakumba has a dead eye with a nasty scar running over it.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He was apparently a medical doctor before becoming a warlord.

• Amoral Afrikaner: He's an Afrikaner and pretty damn immoral.
• Co-Dragons: Voorhees is the leader of the UFLL's mercenary forces and seems to have authority roughly on par with Gakumba.
  • Dragon Ascendant: He ends up taking over the UFLL after his boss Mbantuwe gets killed, either by the Jackal or by you.
• The Exile: He was exiled from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe during decolonization, and has been working as a merc ever since.
• Jerkass/Sour Supporter: Unlike Greaves, Voorhees is a very openly angry man, often backtalking his own boss Mbantuwe. If he recruits you to assassinate Tambossa, he'll note that he doesn't like you and you probably don't like him, but the two of you need to work together.
• Private Military Contractors: He's working for the UFLL as an officer of Bastion UK, a PMC. About halfway through the game Bastion pulls out of the country, leaving Voorhees stuck there working for Mbantuwe.
• Reluctant Ruler: If the Jackal kills Mbantuwe, leaving Voorhees in charge of the UFLL, he informs you that he 'doesn't want to be a bloody warlord' but has to take the job anyway since you're all in the middle of a war.
• 0% Approval Rating: Voorhees seems to be universally hated among the merc community, with multiple characters speaking disparagingly about him, including Carbonell, his own lieutenant. Xianyong Bai in particular seems to have a personal grudge against him, and Frank Bilders also calls Voorhees a bastard and tells you about his plans to eventually kill him and Mbantuwe when the opportunity arises.

• Only in It for the Money: If he's the one to hire you to take out Voorhees at the end of the game, His motive for trying to take over the UFLL doesn't seem to be power, but rather an attempt to get rich.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He's the most foul-mouthed of the four faction lieutenants that can rescue you at the beginning of the game, as well as the most Jerkass-ish.
• You No Take Candle: He has a heavy Eastern European accent and speaks in somewhat broken English.

• Affably Evil: He'll press-gang you into UFLL service unlike the APR lieutenants, but he's at least polite about it. Afterwards, having proved your worth, he's nothing but civil with you whereas Kankaras remains a Jerkass.
• Disc-One Nuke: If he rescues you at the beginning of the game he'll supply you with a rocket launcher right off the bat, compared to Kankaras or Quiepo who give you a flamethrower instead.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He hates Voorhees and Kankaras, the former for making side-deals, and he calls the latter inbred.
• Gratuitous Spanish: He peppers his speech with Spanish words.
• Private Military Contractors: He's a merc working for Bastion UK, similar to his boss Voorhees.
• The Stoic: Carbonell doesn't raise his voice at all, even when he's furious that some of his men were killed (he assumes by the player) in the opening shootout.

• The Atoner: A background line of dialogue in Far Cry 3 seems to imply that part of Reuben's motivation in covering the civil war is to rebuild his reputation after he 'manipulated the truth' in a previous news story.
• Non-Action Guy: He's a reporter, not a mercenary.
• Not So Different: The Jackal, of all people, tells Reuben that he's this to himself, being organized, motivated, and intelligent. The Jackal notes the only difference between them is Reuben hasn't been forced by circumstances to realize what he's capable of yet.
• Token Good Teammate: Besides the Underground Railroad members, he's the only 'good' character in the game, with the Jackal and your merc buddies being morally grey and everyone else being straight up assholes.

• Becoming the Mask: The Jackal actually warns against doing this in one of his interviews with Reuben, where he advises performing horrific acts in combat to demoralize the enemy, but cautions against becoming engrossed in such deeds as doing so would debase you.
• Big Bad: From the beginning of the game, your primary mission is to find the Jackal and kill him. Averted in the ending, where you team up with him in an apparent suicide mission to save the country's civilian population and wipe out the leadership of both factions.
• Expy:
  • His character was heavily inspired by Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now.
  • He shares a remarkable number of similarities with the Far Cry Instincts version of Jack Carver, the protagonist of the first game, being a former Navy S.E.A.L. turned black market arms dealer and mercenary operating in the third world. They even look alike and have a similar red shirt. A popular fan theory is that the Jackal is Jack Carver.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Served as U.S. Navy SEAL during the Cold War. This is apparently how he got his start, as during his service he smuggled weapons all over the world.
• Motor Mouth: He talks very fast.
• Never Found the Body: At the end of the game, the Jackal either goes to blow himself up to collapse a mountain pass to stop advancing hostile troops, or takes a briefcase with diamonds to bribe the border guards before shooting himself in the head, with the player taking the other task. However, in both cases we never see whether or not the Jackal actually kills himself or not, and the ending text crawl mentions that his body was never found.
• Nietzsche Wannabe/Übermensch: He quotes Nietzche's 'Will to Power' to you at the beginning of the game, stating that adopting it as his personal philosophy has been the only way he's found of making sense of the madness he sees around him in a war-torn world.
• Not So Different: When you first meet him, the Jackal tells you he used to be just like you, a mercenary motivated only by a paycheck.
• Not Worth Killing: The Jackal lets you live on multiple occasions when he has you at his mercy, reasoning that you're not worth killing.
• One-Man Army: On two occasions you arrive at a major enemy base only to find the Jackal has single-handedly slaughtered everyone there, leaving scattered bodies and burning fires everywhere.
• Playing Both Sides: The Jackal doesn't discriminate and sells to all factions in the various civil wars he's been involved in.
• Shrouded in Myth: He has this reputation amongst everyone, both mercenaries and faction leaders. From what little you see of him in action, it's well earned.