Far Cry 3 Review – Nicolas Sherman
Far
Cry 3 is a game all about choices: Do you sneak into the base and silently kill
each guard one by one? Do you snipe from afar or go in guns blazing? Do you go
save your friends before or after you hunt Tiger skin so you can craft a pouch
to hold even more Tiger skin? It’s the variety and freedom of play styles
combined with solid gameplay and an engrossing story that make Far Cry 3 one of
the best, most memorable games this year.
Far Cry 3 is a game that came out of
nowhere. Lost between the big November releases such as Black Ops II, Assassin’s
Creed III, Halo 4 (you see where
I’m going with this) and more, it’s
easy to overlook a game that hasn’t received as much publicity or anticipation
as others. Don’t let its lacking of attention fool you however, as Far Cry 3 is
anything but.
You play as the aptly named “Jason
Brody”, a California native out on vacation with his friends who’s lured into
skydiving above “Rook Island” and is captured by pirates to be sold into
slavery. It’s here you’re introduced to the game’s central villain, Vaas, a
demented, sadistic warlord played and voiced impeccably well like few other
video game villains before him. After escaping Vaas’s camp you’re recruited by
the natives of Rook Island to tap into your inner “warrior” and free the island
and your friends by fighting back. As stated before, how you choose to fight
back is entirely up to you.
The Far Cry series has always been a
game formed around multiple play styles and that trend hasn’t changed with the
third iteration. There’s so much to do in this game and so much to see that
you’ll find yourself avoiding the main story entirely just to find out what’s
in that underwater cave or how far you can manage to fly using the island’s
plentiful hang gliders. With a leveling up system based around earning skill
points for experimentation, upgrades for your character for hunting specific
wildlife, and completing side-quests you’ll have no shortage of side activities
to keep you entertained if the plight of saving your family and friends proves
dull. You find money from looting dead enemies and chests lying around in
abandoned sheds and caves which usually hold ammo or trinkets to sell back to
stores for weapon attachments, ammo refills, or medical supplies. Doing these
side quests are not only addicting, challenging, and fun, but outfit your
character with better supplies incentivizing you complete them.
One of the themes of the game is
what it takes from you when you take another’s life and ironically, you end up
taking a lot of lives and level up because of it. Kills grant you experience
points which grant you perk-like additions a-la Fallout 3 to your “Tataus”
which range from swimming 25% faster to shooting your pistol from a zip line.
Headshots are worth more XP, as are silent knife takedowns, and multi-kills.
None
of this would be as fun however if it didn’t look so great doing and
thankfully, Far Cry 3 is gorgeous. Straight out of a Bahamas’ travel brochure,
Rook Island looks and sounds like a paradise. Dense jungles with believable
(and stealth-aiding) foliage, giant waterfalls with rushing rapids, dazzling
fires that spread across the hills, and sensational sunsets which you can’t
help but stare at make for a incredible playground. The graphics aren’t the
greatest we’ve seen yet but that isn’t to say they aren’t fantastic and
considering there’s no slowdown with a solid frame rate, I have no complaints.
Sound design is excellent as well. Gun shots are powerful as is the sickening
scoop of skinning an animal for the first time. The growl of a leopard as it
stalks you in the grass will make your hair stand. The air rushes past and
birds fly by as you soar through the air in your hang glider. What must be
commented on is the voice acting of the supporting characters. Vaas’s
monologues are frightening and heartfelt and the cut scene acting is top-notch.
Jason’s friends display reserved trauma in your interactions with them turning
into real people as the island wears on them despite their fairly
uninteresting, stereotypical roles they start out as.
The
writing in the game is equal parts moving, terrifying, and hilarious. Jason and
his friends have been through a lot and to see them try to come back from that
is in no way campy or melodramatic. The villains sound bloodthirsty and
soulless and the people you encounter are witty and genuine. Every bit of
treasure you find which could be “someone’s car keys” or a “green poker chip”
is accompanied by a description with laugh out loud results. Oliver’s
insistence on remaining high throughout the ordeal is a bit excessive but
nothing that can’t be forgiven after you read about the elusive “White-Bellied
Tapir” and its “why not?” reason for existence.
Far Cry 3 is not without its share of island
storms however: The weapon switching system is a little finicky which is fine
when you’re running around the island but when there’s a bear in your face and
you’re trying to whip out your shotgun only to get stuck in the menu wheel, it
becomes apparent. Path of the hunter side missions are fun until that last
remaining deer decides to run out of the kill zone and over a cliff leading you
to run in circles for ten minutes trying to find it. Driving can be somewhat of
a pain as well when they don’t highlight the proper roads to take. Perhaps this
is just acting spoiled since the days of GTA IV’s in game GPS but you’ll find
yourself driving off cliffs or circling back to find that one bridge to get to
your next objective more often than you’d like. It got to the point where I
almost avoided driving entirely. Besides, it was much more fun to find a hang
glider!
The multiplayer and co-op can’t
compete with the main story but are certainly strong enough diversions to merit
a playthrough. Co-op is spit into 6 chapters with simple objectives such as
clearing out an enemy base or the always popular, blowing of a bridge. There’s
a class system involved for assault, sniper, rush, and support characters but
unless you get four people to actively play their role, you’re all going to
find yourself at the front line fighting for kills. There are competitions involving
transporting explosives on water skis, who can snipe the most bad guys, or
hitting moving boats with RPGs that serve to break up the repetitive objectives
but are little more than just that. The story and characters aren’t even half
as interesting with the only differences in personality made by accents and the
amount of times they choose to curse (Callum appears the most charming by this
logic).
In
the multiplayer portion you’ll find just about what you’d come across in any
other shooter. Your smorgasbord of Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Capture the
flag variants are spiced up slightly by “Battle Cry’s”, a power-up you can give
to your team in the heat of battle such as more health or better accuracy,
being able to revive your teammates if they’re down, and being able to slide on
your butt around the battlefield. Maps do their part which are usually just
villages with a couple huts and raises in elevation with a path around the
perimeter. There are kill streaks like “scouts” which function eerily similar
to “Spy Planes” and air strikes to reward players who rack up the kills.
Far Cry 3 is not the best shooter
released this year but that’s not what it’s trying to be. While providing an
excellent first person shooter experience with a story that keeps you playing,
it’s the combined effort of the little things that make it worth experiencing.
The way Jason brings the gun closer when he approaches cover, how dust kicks into
the air when you slide across the dirt, how you can tell you’re drowning not by
a meter but by blurring vision and Jason’s desperate, internal gasps. When you
make your first kill Jason is mortified, when you skin an animal he cringes in
a “why me?” manner and groans in disgust. He pants for breath when sprinting
and grunts when he falls too far and thuds to the ground, his hands slamming
forward to help break it. It’s these little touches and animations that serve
to make Jason appear more human than your typical 1st person shooter
badass and make his character all the more relatable because of it. The feeling
you get when you sneak into an enemy encampment, pick off a few guards, then
shoot open the cage of an Ostrich to finish the rest is not only unique to the
game, but provides a unique satisfaction you won’t find anywhere else. Whether
or not you choose to skin your flightless friend into a larger syringe pack is
up to you.
+Well
acted, mature, gripping story
+Refined
gameplay and variety
+Plenty
of things to do
‒ Little
glitches somewhat hamper experience
Overall:
9.3/10
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