My Time With FarCry 3

Apparently I’m on some sort of Ubisoft kick this summer as, following my play through with Splinter Cell Conviction, I decided to pick up a used copy of Far Cry 3 for a fairly reasonable price. 

I’ve never played any other Far Cry game, but I remember hearing good things about Far Cry 3 when the game first came out. After getting through the always fun patch updates I hit the loading screen and was prompted twice to activate a UPlay account...which was kind of annoying; but the game started fairly quickly after that.

The game’s opening cinematic is pretty decent: it’s basically a montage of a bunch of footage from a vacation trip a bunch of friends are on, all to the tune of Paper Planes by M.I.A. I always like it when games have a popular song in their opening credits. Borderlands rocked pretty hard with Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” and Call of Duty: Black Ops had a great scene featuring "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones.

As the opening cinematic concludes, it’s revealed to you that all the videos have been playing on a phone and they’re being watched by one of the characters. The phone is being held up by this mad man who’s got you (Jason) and another character (Grant) locked up in a makeshift bamboo cell. At this point I’m already praying that I get to destroy this man by the end of the game. After he leaves, Grant wiggles his way out of his shackles and frees Jason. Grant gets you to lure the guard over so he can take him out. It’s implied that Grant has some military training and you’re just a regular guy because Grant beats the guard to death and you freak out. After all that, the gameplay starts.

When I first heard about Far Cry 3 I thought it was a shoot ‘em up style shooter, but the core gameplay appears to lean more heavily on stealth. The first mission has you and Grant sneaking through this haggard compound trying to find your other friends. A few tutorials are introduced during the opening gameplay sequence, such as the “detection meter”. This meter allows you to monitor how aware the enemies are of your presence.  

I was really pleased with the fact that the game teaches you the mechanics as you play. Nothing drives me crazier than having to sit through an hour of mindless tutorials before actually getting to play the game. I’m looking at you Titanfall. After sneaking through this pirate compound you’re discovered by the jackass from the cage and he full-out murders Grant (who turns out to be your brother). This game starts going full blown Hollywood action/adventure movie in a hurry. I’ll try not to focus too much on the story to avoid spoilers (event though the game was released in December 2012) so I’ll try and stick to the gameplay from here on out.

After Grant gets shot in the face, you end up getting rescued and brought to a small village where you can buy weapons.  You’re prompted to buy a 1911 handgun and go to a radio tower. These radio towers have apparently been hooked up with some sort of signal scrambler and the shopkeeper wants you to disable it. By disabling these scramblers you start to reveal more of the map. Once you interact with a scrambler you’re shown a short clip of a bunch of different nearby points of interest. For example:  a lootable crate in the distance, a small shack with a nearby jeep and other random spots. After you’re done with the tower you’re introduced to the hunting and gathering mechanics in this game. By gathering different animal pelts and miscellaneous herbs you can craft different things for your character.

I really wasn’t expecting so many RPG-like mechanics from this game. Far Cry 3 feels a lot like a big blend of Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed and Red Dead Redemption. They’ve managed to blend a lot of my favorite game genres into one solid game. I had tons of fun exploring the island and running into little side quests here and there. If you’re somewhat of an achievement hunter this game is definitely for you. I tend to rush through my games and I rarely pick them up again after to try and get 100% but if you’re into that sort of thing there’s a tremendous amount of extra thing to do after you’ve completed the story.

The game isn’t perfect though. No game really is. Some of the animations for the hunting/gathering parts of the game get really annoying after a while. I found myself not wanting to put the effort in to craft all the items because of this. To craft the final weapon sling you need to harvest shark skin……No way….noooooope.  I never actually ended up killing a shark because I wasn’t sure how underwater combat would work and I got lazy.  Also, some major parts in the story are resolved in a very unsatisfying and anti-climactic way. I’m used to the end of my shooters to have some epic end scene where I get to exact my revenge on the pain in the ass antagonist. This was seriously lacking for me in the end of the game.

Overall, Far Cry 3 is a great experience; and I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to grab a AAA-calibre game for bargain bin pricing. You have the option of blowing through this game fairly fast or taking your time with all the side quests, achievements and collectables. I beat the game in roughly 12-15 hours but there is a guaranteed 25+ hours of gameplay for those with a greater attention span. I highly recommend this game to any RPG/FPS fans or just Ubisoft fans in general. Thanks for reading.

Later days.