Can anyone explain plot?

[SKO]

WARNING!!! MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!
Just finished game and I wanna ask wtf did I play? ))) Why I had to kill all faction bosses? Why faction bosses from north wanted to kill faction bosses from south? Jackal is good or bad guy? Why in the end where I had to pick up briefcase with diamonds all my buddies attacked me even ones who got previously killed? What just happend in this game???

[Vic Evicerator]

The wiki can give you more detail, but the basics:

An African country has two major factions fighting for control - the APR and the UFLL. The bosses of each in the north are minor bosses, and the bosses for each in the south are the main bosses. Each one has mercenary armies with mercs as their various lieutenants. In addition to these fighting groups, you have an underground trying to get innocent civilians out of the country.

You start out hired by some unnamed person to go kill The Jackal, who is an arms dealer who has been operating for decades, and now he's arming both sides here. You get sick, the Jackal leaves you to your fate, and so you have no mission and no way out of the country - so you start hiring yourself out to both the APR and UFLL, while also working for the underground to keep yourself stocked with Malaria medicine. The fight in the north starts winding down when you end up killing the minor boss for each side.

However, you head south where the old lieutenants from each side, not wanting to end up unemployed when it looks like the APR and UFLL will make peace, stir up the fight again. Again, you play each side against the middle while helping the Underground, until it ends up again where each side says they want to make peace again. That's when you go to the village to get diamonds from the Sediko village only to find the boss murdered and the Jackal tells you the truth - the latest APR/UFLL peace plan is just so that they can secure the country and terrorize the population in secret.

That's when the Jackal tells you that he's had a change of heart and lately he's been working to stop the war and save mass numbers of refugees, and the endgame is you helping him do that, by killing the last merc chiefs of each side and getting the diamonds you need to buy the refugees passage out of the country, while also blowing up the mountain passage so the refugees won't be chased by the APR/UFLL troops. Your merc buddies from the north weren't murdered when you went south, it turns out, and they were trying to take the diamonds to buy their own way out, so they turn on you when you try to take them to save other people.

Gross oversimplification, of course, so check wiki for more detailed explanations, but that's the gist of it.

[Akoomsh]

Also, it's worth mentioning that originally you were paid to kill the Jackal because he's making money by perpetuating the war, which is "evil," and from how I figure it, you keep hunting the Jackal out of embarassment and spite for how he humiliated you in the beginning, when you're bedridden and he pays you a visit. To work your way back to him, you need to get weapons and information. To get them you decide to do whatever work you can, getting jobs and killing people for both sides of the war to get money yourself.

When you're betrayed by your friends, it shakes this idealist view of "killing for good" from your head, to the point where the Jackal makes you realize that you're as guilty as he is, or anyone else for that matter. You've been hunting him "because he makes people kill each other for his own profit," but in order to catch him, you've done the exact same thing. You then realize you've only actually been after him for selfish reasons, killing countless numbers of people in the name of a lie you tell yourself.

Turning to the one last "good thing" left, the Jackal proposes that neither of you are good people, neither of you deserve to live, but in a sort of redemption, you can at least die making up for some of your wrongs. Hence, you kill yourself in order to save the only innocent people left, the civilians.

The first post was more of a factual presentation of the game, and mine was more of my own speculation, but I think it's a pretty good interpretation.

[SKO]

Cheers! It makes a lot more sense now, but still whole story seems a little bit strange.

[Vic Evicerator]

SKO, definitely check out Akoomsh's thread a little farther down (should still be on the first page) about this being the most underrated game. He analyzes this more from the moral standpoint he briefly touches on above, and I think he makes a lot of great points - well worth reading.

[EbonHawk]

Awesome game...except for that wtf ending where your "friends" magically resurrect and attack you. Or not attack you, as my game decided to glitch at the last part and they just stood there, waiting for the bus or something. Loved the story, loved the setting, up until that "Wat...?" moment.

[Karma]

Originally posted by EbonHawk:

Awesome game...except for that wtf ending where your "friends" magically resurrect and attack you. Or not attack you, as my game decided to glitch at the last part and they just stood there, waiting for the bus or something. Loved the story, loved the setting, up until that "Wat...?" moment.

That's why i personally kill them in the field when they are my buddies.......so i don't have to see them at the end.

Here's what you do.......whenever you do a faction mission and your buddy calls you with an alternative, complete the mission, help him/her, then kill him/her. If they are all at Mike's bar during the shootout and "die" they will come back at the end. You have to personally take them out. Trust me, i've gotten to the "arena" where you fight them and only had 1 person there (my buddy from the south which i couldn't kill until this point). Easy as pie!

[EbonHawk]

Thanks for that tip. I'll definitely play it that way next time.

[Gerardius418]

well the thing is that the game have got a message against war and weapons dealers and that´s the point(I guess) :D

[Gerardius418]

can you play this game multiplayer online? with a coop partner.that would be nice!

[Akoomsh]

No, not really, it has a message against killing in general. The message is about how weapons dealing is bad, but if you're willing to kill a lot of people in order to end this "evil," you're just as bad as the arms dealer. It seems to advocate saving the innocents instead of killing the "bad guys."

[sam98]

Yeah, I wasn't a particular fan of the WTF moment with the buddies either