...insanity calls home!
Far cry 3 opens with a concussive bang, amazing voice acting and a chilling scene. From the outset our main character is already in a dire situation, pirates/terrorists/mad men have captured you and your Abercrombie wearing friends, and it soon becomes up to you to save them and yourself. The rabbit hole you will descend down is rife with violence, fear, hallucinations, suspense and good old fashioned fun!
The game is excellently paced, from the start a sense of urgency abounds. You will need to master this island, or it will quickly become your shallow and sunny grave. Without going into too much detail, sufice it to say there will be people native to the island that are also in desperate situations, they will need your help. In exchange they will guide you to your friends and show you the ways of Rook island and help you to grow stronger, more cunning, and more ferocious.
The weapons in the game are diverse and excellently modeled, the recoil and weight to each is done perfectly, and the sound when you fire off a round is immense and splendid. The shooting mechanics are expertly crafted and feel authentic. If you were searching for a minor gripe, it could be that the a.i. is somewhat lackluster at times. As usually is the case with most shooters, enimies can be funneled into doorways or corridors and taken out two to three at a time.
Quite honestly though, this is a minor complaint, most encounters will occur in a vast open area, you will find yourself ducking for cover and praying for a spare moment to inject yourself with a healing herb syringe that you have crafted yourself....the firefights are epic and intense, and speaking of crafting...
Crafting in the game is simple, straightforward, but nessasary. Unlike many games that have a crafting element that is totally optional, in Far Cry 3, is is downright mandatory, that is, unless you want a wallet that only holds a few hundred dollars, a weapon holster that only allows you to carry one gun, or a backback that fills up within one or two missions. These items can be crafted by hunting the indigenous species of the island. Stalking the beautiful foothills in the setting sun, lining up the perfect shot. Using your own crafted hunters potions to mask your scent and veil you approach, this is NOT your average mash a few ingots together to make new boots affair.
No, this is Far Cry 3, a giant, beautiful sandbox that allows you to game the way you see fit. There are giant radio towers to decommision to gain access to new weapons, relics to be found for experience gains, wanted posters with assassinations to complete. As you progress through the game you will be awarded skill points, these translate into new tattoos that appear on your avatars body, signaling yet another right of passage. They range from simple speed increases, or holding your breath longer while aiming to more elaborate choices that will play into your gaming styles, like stealth killing an enemy from above, or dragging the bodies of your victims away from prying eyes.
The game rewards you for playing to your liking, exploration, precision and a slight case of ocd are all favored here, and you will be rewarded handsomely for them all.
The visuals of the game are 100% top tier, day and night cycle in and out with a gentle ebb and flow, thunderstorms roll in over the vast waterways, streams, lakes and estuaries. The sun glints through the trees with a warm, realistic glow. The animals are modeled excellently and the in game character models are truly a sight to behold. The draw distance in the game is jaw droppingly beautiful, sometimes you will find yourself pearched 100's of feet in the air on a giant radio tower, in sheer awe at the masterful world laid out before you, or hang-gliding over the misty foothills of some unexplored range.
As for the multiplayer, I only checked out about an hour or so, I am just having way too much fun exploring the vastness of the single player portion. What I did play of it struck me as very fun, yet very familiar. Though the amazing visuals and audio presentation still hold true in the MP portion of the game. After I have spent many, many more hours roaming the wildlands of the island, I am quite sure I will be back to give the MP a closer look.
Let me say this, as close as any vidoe game can get to perfection, this is it. The gunplay, the visuals, the audio, the voice acting, the rpg-like elements, the vast and wonderfully realized world, they all come together to form a glorious cornucopia of gaming awesomeness that, I believe, is unmatched this year, possibly this generation...
That is Far Cry 3, you owe it to yourself to get lost on this beautiful and terrifying island, jump on in, the longest part of a journey is the first step.
What are you waiting for?
The new trailer for the free 60 FPS update is here.
I'm happy with Part 3 & Blood Dragon getting the 60FPS treatment. I'll eventually try Primal, maybe this weekend.
Following a series of repetitive games, a formulaic approach, and a disappointing last entry, the Far Cry series has been run into the ground.
The trouble with most criticisms of this franchise is that they insist Far Cry 3 was the best game, but the things they claim to hate about the franchise are all the elements that 3 introduced.
Couldn't agree with you more! I've always thought that, my personal favourite is two, the whole atmosphere, mystery, adrenaline, my vehicle steaming up because I've crashed too many times trying to escape and then getting in a shootout, having to pull a bullet out my arm while fire rages and bullets fly, can't beat it
Yep, 2 is my favorite by far as well, and one of my favorite singleplayer games of all time. It was probably one of the last games Ubisoft made before they started homogenizing their franchises to be open world collect-a-thons with unnecessary RPG mechanics tacked on. I enjoyed 3 for what it was, but it was clearly an attempt to make the franchise appeal to a mass audience (which, in fairness, was successful).
That's not the issue. If Far Cry 3 never existed and they just made another 5 or 6 games that were increasingly generic copies of Far Cry 2 instead, would that make FC2 the real problem?
No. It's the lack of creativity and effort that followed that's the real issue.
And there are things that are genuinely different about FC3. Simple example - the story was easily the best. Best main villain by far too but it also has strong themes and wasn't afraid to explore controversial topics. The sequels are much blander.
Comparing the fun and creativity of Blood Dragon to the DLC in the sequels ... also says a lot about how Ubisoft fell off.
Yeah like even Far Cry 4 was decent, not as great as FC3 but they still gave us an interesting story, setting and villain. Pagan Min's random calls to Ajay were pretty funny.
They just got lazier and lazier, pumping them out while making it a little more streamlined each time. I mean Jesus, they gave us a silent protagonist with FC5 which really hurt the main story and are obsessed with pleasing everyone by trying to do two characters, male and female rather than just settling on one to tell the best story they can.
I started FC6 and yes the game works fine but I just wssnt Fun. Do many Ubi games are huge playgrounds but feel empty and doesn't give the feeling of a world which is lived in
I have found that the more recent FC games work better as what I call "background games." Basically what I mean is it's nice to have an active save in one of them going for those times you have 45 minutes to play games and just want to have fun and don't want to get bogged down playing a game online or starting a new game and spending all your time into an annoying tutorial. Like I haven't touched FC4 in years but I know if I had 30 minutes to an hour to play I could hop in and easily be back in the swing of things and attack an outpost and have a good time.
I think a lot of people use big RPGs like Skyrim or Cyberpunk in a similar way.
Yes because FC3 executed those aspects better. Every game since FC3 has just been Frankensteined off the bones of FC3 with half the effort.
Ubisoft gets a lot of hate for their content filling of maps. Personally I enjoy the mechanic when i play an open world game I like revealing hte entire map and doing all the side mission stuff before i go into main missions. Far Cry and the RPG AC maps where a joy to play.
Far Cry 2 was soo unique ... it was ahead of its time and is often misunderstood (thank you Clint Hocking, can't wait for his next game Assassins Creed Hexe)
(yes, FC2 was a departure from from FC1, so in strictest sense, Crysis 1 & 3 are the truer successors)
Yep. Unfortunately there has been so little since then that has scratched the same itch. Really the closest thing has been BOTW, which uses a lot of similar systems (though ironically FC2 came out before Ubisoft put the Assassin's Creed towers in Far Cry, while BOTW had Ubi towers). Obviously it isn't a shooter though. I keep hoping that that some indie dev will put an FC2-esque game out on Steam, but so far I've been left wanting.
I actually enjoyed Far Cry 5 and New Dawn. Far Cry 6 was a joke. It was a step backwards in every way. That was probably the worst Far Cry I have ever played.
Far Cry 3, an open-world masterpiece that redefined the series. Gameplay and storyline makes it a timeless classic that still inspires today.
It's gotta be Far Cry 2 for me, the feeling of that game I'm still yet to find again, just everything about it, I'd kill for a remaster, I'd even be happy with just a bump in resolution and frame rate, occasionally go back to it, think I'm gunna have to do just that now 😂
A remaster of Far Cry 2 would be amazing, especially with the mods that fixed the broken stealth system and the dumb checkpoint respawns. Include those fixes and it would be a huge upgrade over the original.
Enemies respawn in Far Cry 2? Terrible! It's a broken system! Make me a one-man army who can inexplicably hold an entire region!
Enemies respawn in Dark Souls and Zelda? Brilliant! So much more hardcore! Glad the devs took risks!
The problem isn't them respawning. It's that they respawned after just 5 minutes. Like you'd still be in the area looking for diamonds, loot, exploring, etc, and the enemies would just respawn with you there.
Great review, and i feel the same way after playing it for 10 hours or so!
Also that bow is freaking epic. i find myself trying to line up 100m shots with it just for fun, instead of pulling out the big ass sniper.
One thing i'd like though, is to have some use of animal skins after i craft the mandatory items. I might be missing something, but i feel there should be options to combine some leathers into something sellable or into something you could apply to a weapon.