“You don't know what you've got till it's gone.”

- Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell CC


I found this game the same way I found my favourite games ever: unwillingly, sometimes by accident. I found it on the free section of the PlayStation Store, and bored, decided to try it out. It was so weird and complicated it seemed like a game just not for me. It had way too much of everything: all sections of the inventory and pause menu, the chat, the quick menu, the world, the game itself, it was way too complicated for me, and it had one very special thing to it: it felt horribly lonely. The chat had several people talking, some trading, some just hanging around, but there was absolutely NO ONE around, and the more I progressed, the less of the game I understood.

Slowly but surely I began discovering more of it, and it was NOTHING like I imagined. So many people with absurdly high levels, incredible outfits and CRAZY inventories. It didn't take long to make me fall in love with something I didn't know I liked: exaggerated weapons. There were rifles that straight up shot acid, grenade launchers that seemed to shot a thousand explosives per shot and create different effects, pistols that shot eggs that would then become parasites that were your allies and killed everyone they saw, some weird ring first thing that shot huge rays that could chain kill enemies and chain heal allies, and how to forget: A ♥♥♥♥ MISSILE LAUNCHER THAT SHOT GIANT PUMPKINS AND HAD STUPID WIDE HIT AREAS, amongst a ton others. There were also swords, which were rarer and became my favourites.

One thing I never liked about it was the money system. It was called “scripts”, and missions and everything else I'd play would pay half a cent, I could barely afford normal game stuff, let alone those crazy weapons from the giant players that costed tens of millions, I never even knew how they managed to get that rich in the first place. The game vendors would only provide boring NERF jokes, so if you wanted the good stuff, you bought/traded with other players. After so much teasing from others, I was DYING for some scripts to afford me some mind-blowing gear, I was gonna do whatever, and I did; one day I find this dude who's selling 25M scripts for the best offers, and I offered him a $25 USD PS Store card, I did not have a $25 USD PS Store card. We agree to I send the pic of the code and he accepts the trade at the same time, and we do, I get my money, I'm finally someone and I'm gonna have crazy fun, I just have to deal with the dude complaining that the code from the photo I found on Google and sent him isn't working.

I scammed, and I couldn't care less, I bought some STUPID stuff. Not long after, I see some dude selling his Fusion Falchion blade, the one I had recently heard about as being the best and rarest blade in the game; I love blades, so you bet I ABSOLUTELY want it. He's not asking for much, I can totally afford it with my scam money, so what do I do? I pull the PS Store card on him as well and get the blade for free, I scammed again, and again, I couldn't care less. Some time afterwards, I see some dude selling several weapons, none of that seems interesting, but I can't help myself, so what do I do? Yeah, I scammed him as well.

Amongst those weapons was a cluster grenade launcher that would give you increased damage and super speed after every kill, and the damn thing was horribly powerful itself. An extremely solid addition to my gear, which consists of my FF blade I got from scamming and other cool stuff I bought with the money I got also got from scamming. I built myself on dishonesty, and I couldn't wait before I could scam someone else.

Now about the game, it was crazy. There were cool missions, as well as massive freemode events that'd easily gather a lot of players to fight something that just won't die. No matter where you look, there are enemies, all kinds of hallucinating guns being shot around, and so many people dying. It was always pretty fun, and crazy hard, CRAZY HARD.

As for PvP, it was… look, there was a pistol named “Mass Blaster”. That ♥♥♥♥ thing could kill anyone in under 2 seconds, and EVERY single max level player used it. PvP was entirely dominated by those things, yet I still always tried with my FF blade and did my best. It was fun, but it was extremely nerve-wrecking. I used to rage so, so, so, so hard that I'd go to sleep with my throat and stomach hurting and my ears ringing. It was absolutely worth it.

Fast forward to 2021, I'm playing on PS4 now, and this Argentinean friend who messes around a lot tells me Defiance is closing soon, a message I disregard. Time later I find out Defiance is no longer, and I feel like a loved one just died in my arms. I thought he was kidding, he wasn't. I couldn't play it one last time anyway because my PS3 was unusable due to a dead HDMI port, and it still felt like sht, because I didn't try. Then and only then I realise… that Defiance was my favourite game ever, that I love doomsday scenery, exaggerated weapons, the lonely environment, futuristic technology, and the way I was able to interact with people, and Defiance had it all all along. I never even understood it completely, a lot of things remained uncharted for me.

So many video games, so many games similar in certain aspects, and yet nothing even remotely close to Defiance. I wish I had played it more, I wish I hadn't wasted it, I wish I never left, I wish it never left.

This game is special, a big part of my childhood (is it still childhood at 12?)

Starting things pretty simple, I HATE first-person in video games. It's annoying, limiting, unnecessary, I HATE IT. When this friend of my father's, Michelle, lends him a copy of this game, I decide to give it a try. Long story short, I absolutely LOVED it. It was fun, cool, the story was interesting.

I used to play it a lot, it was a part of my child times back when I wasn't allowed to play PS3 for more than 30 minutes and not everyday, so I used to play when my parents were asleep, at work, when I was alone for any reason I'd play while absolutely PRAYING no one came through that door, and Far Cry 2 was a part of that. An AWESOME part of that.

It always saddened me that this game was part of that trend where the games I loved the most were basically nonexistent on the internet, all other games from the respective franchises would be talked about and would have a lot of videos about them on YouTube, but specifically the ones I loved didn't exist. This happened with MC: LA, NfS: TR, and yes, Far Cry 2.

It defied my hatred for first-person camera, and made me eat my words. It wasn't limiting, it was awesome; it wasn't bad, it was underrated; it wasn't boring, it was lonely; it wasn't another crappy first-person game, it was Far Cry 2.