Far Cry 2

- Avoid guard posts as much as possible, but if you have to assault one, just come in close with an attack jeep and hit C to switch to your mounted gun as you roll in. You should be able to mop up everyone with minimal damage. most guard posts have water bottles so you won't even have to use up a health kit.

- There are infinite health kits at gun shops, so when you reoutfit, replenish your health kits (syringes)

- Do the Gun shop missions first to unlock a greater assortment of guns, and the cell tower missions in between to be able to afford the new weapons.

- Sniper rifles will make your life really easy, even though you are terrified of going in without a nice AK-47.

- You can save anywhere (PC VERSION ONLY), you do not need to be at a safe house or gun shop, as I assumed for about 30% of the game.

- Unlock every safe house you pass by. It involves killing maybe three guys and gives you all the perks you have unlocked. You never know when a mission will take place in that area and having instant access to weapons and vehicles is nice.

- If the enemy is in a vehicle, stay the heck in yours, or get behind a tree. They will simply drive into you any chance they get.

- Missions are way more effective ways of getting diamonds. Briefcases net you 1-2 diamonds average per find. Granted there are 200+ briefcases in the game, and if you see your GPS beeping, by all means grab the case, just don't expect to buy that new rocket launcher by finding 3 or 4 cases. You'll need to find like 10-12.

- Don't don't don't pick up enemy weapons...ever! They are crap, will jam a lot, and unless you want a quick rocket launcher for a single shot, just use your own shiny new ones.

- Visit a gun shop to replace your weapons every two or so missions, just in case, and to replenish your ammo if needed. Enemy weapons will provide you ammo if you walk over them, and get the webbing upgrades ASAP because 90 rounds is NEVER enough, even for short missions.

- It's worth it to do the buddy missions. Really.

- Vehicles without mounted guns are faster, generally, but can be deadly in a vehicle on vehicle firefight. You will need to get out of yours, and they will simply drive over you repeatedly.

- In large towns, you CAN get up on the rooftops for some serious stealth based kills.

- Buy the weapon crates. Not as a priority, but they come in handy later on when you get into trickier and lengthier missions in areas which aren't near a gun store. Basically if you put a weapon in the crates inside your gun store, they'll be waiting for you in the crates in any safe house you've unlocked. Comes in handy if you wear through guns quickly and need backups, or just to have a stealth/sniper set handy if a mission isn't what you were expecting.

- On the other hand, don't bother with the camo upgrade unless you really like to stealth (it only makes you less visible while crouched and stationary in grass, not a situation that comes up a whole lot), and ignore the car/jeep upgrades completely. It takes 10 seconds tops to repair a car and your gems are better spent elsewhere, especially since you have to upgrade each model individually. Also I personally found the syringe upgrades useless as I rarely ever ran out, but your mileage may vary, and they're probably necessary on infamous.

- As for weapons, don't bother with the Carl Gustav rocket launcher. The RPG-7 is powerful enough to take out anything in one hit and you'll never notice the comparative lack of accuracy. The CG also burns anything the rocket's trail touches, including the grass directly beneath your feet when you fire it. Besides which the grenade launcher is far better than either of them, because it frees up your special slot for the dart rifle. (And also because you can pretend like you're the terminator. I mean uhhhh)

- Regarding buddies: you need 2 buddies to be offered subversion missions and 3 if you want a buddy to rescue you when you die.

- Doing the subversion missions upgrades your safe houses with ammo, health and better vehicles.

- Use the buses, plan your routes around minimizing skirmishes.

- Don't think you can kill everyone without being spotted. If you do get spotted don't stay still, keep moving and make sure you have a good close/medium range weapon for when they close in on you. The shotguns are overpowered and very effective.

- Don't think you need to kill everyone or not be spotted to complete missions. Once spotted, you can normally be evasive and still get in to complete the objective and then get out.

- Make sure to do the gun shop missions whenever you can since doing them unlocks weapons. And if you need diamonds do the cell phone tower assassinations since they give you quite a few for a relatively simple mission.

- If you're tired of driving around, take the water route. They're usually even faster than driving, less checkpoints around and you'll be surprised how different the environment looks from water.

- Use the buses, they minimize the travel time.

- Don't stick to the usual guns. First time I played the game, I carried an UZI, some assault rifle and a machine gun. Buy the flare gun, buy the grenade launcher, try out everything.

- Explore the world. Sometimes I just play without doing any missions, just driving around and checking out places I haven't been to. You'll obviously get much diamonds too.

- Don't rush the main quest. Do the buddy missions, they often expand the usual "go here, blow up this" missions.

- Don't instantly reload when you die. I beat the game first time without noticing the awesome buddy rescues.

- Anyway, remember to have fun. The game is best played in one, tops two hour sessions.

- The quality of guns you find out in the wild tend to suck. If you want shiny new guns, you need to buy them and recover them from your storehouses. If you pick up a gun and it looks like a rusty piece of shit, it probably is.

- Sometimes you can find advanced weaponry before you can afford to buy it. Particularly in the case of explosives, its well worth picking up enemy toys and blowing them to shit, who cares if it jams, just get a new one.

- Scour the landscape to find diamonds. It's a giant scavenger hunt, and you use those diamonds to buy and upgrade all your goodies. Start out by getting a basic set of utility weapons - a good AR, a good explosive, a good sniper. From there, branch out and pick up whatever looks fun.

- There are enemy checkpoints all over the main roads. A lot of people found these annoying, I found them to be an easy source of comedy. Find checkpoint, add mortar, stir. If you don't want to fight them, simply drive offroad. You may occasionally (often) get goons chasing you. Either outrun them, or keep some explosives onhand to ruin their pursuit.

- Use all your toys. Don't stick with snipers only, play with shotguns, smgs, ars, explosives, fire, melee, whatever - the variety of tactical situations you can get into is pretty great, and it's a lot of fun to experiment.

- Make friends with a merc or two. They'll drag you out of trouble if you get injured, which is pretty cool.

- Explore! Find yourself a blinged out AK!