Every character has a unique story and specialty and all of them will be present in the game after you choose which one to be your companion. The ones on your side will be called Buddies and will help you on your final quest, or at least until a point (no further explanation or I will spoil your pleasure). I had two buddies on my side, one that brought me additional informations for every major mission, and another one that was helping me while I was down during a mission. The idea with this 'rescue boy' is quite interesting. If you can free a nearby safehouse, he will be able to rescue you from the fire of the enemy. Otherwise the quicksave button is your only chance to retry the mission (the quickload and quicsave options are available only in the PC version of the game). In many co-op missions, your Buddy can hurt as well, and you decide if you should help him or not. In case you don't have first aid packages, you have to euthanize him.

The story based missions are as linear as possible: go from point A to point B and kill the enemy, or destroy the convoy, locations, etc, but the way you decide to complete them is as free as possible. Working for both factions will increase the difficulty of every new mission taken outside the city limits, as every faction owns different tactical locations and villages. Most of these small security posts are scattered on the main roads. So either you try to destroy them, or choose to cross them in stealthy manner. Sometimes running is not enough, so you have to fight and gain control of some of these posts which will give access to ammunition, or health packs. If you decide for a while to do something else, besides the main missions, then you can complete assassination missions taken from a private phone line near any antenna scattered throughout the map. Also you can take control of safe-houses which can provide you with weapons, health and saving points. These safe-houses will become your home each one giving you the ability to sleep and to change day/night cycle in every way you want. Malaria will force you from time to time to complete secondary missions in order to acquire the right medication in exchange of false documentation for several members of the Underground faction (known also as the civilians).

Weapons

A large arsenal stands at your disposal, every weapon being available at the weapons stores, or at the enemy's posts. You can carry four weapons classified in melee, primary, secondary and special weapons. For every category you are able to choose a single model: assault rifle, sniper rifle, light machine guns, RPG's, etc. All the models are realistic recreated featuring recoil effect and suffering damage after a long use. The player will observe the degradation of the weapon by its rusty color and by several blocking times. An over-use of every weapon will cause it to explode in your hands, forcing you to find another substitute.

More weapons and ammo needs more tasks to be completed. Every weapon merchandiser gives you missions (in general consisting in destroying weapons convoys) to obtain new weapon models, ammo, upgrades, and vehicles. These toys have a price, and like all the other missions, they imply the use of a more unusual trading object: diamonds. Either you complete missions, or just searching for hidden stacks of diamonds, your total amount of goods will be increased.