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Thread: Far Cry 3

  1. #1
    Huberto's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Far Cry 3

    If you're considering buying Far Cry 3, then the opening of Civilization V's Gods and Kings intro trailer is for you: "Be wary, my son."

    Far Cry 3 is not a bad or unplayable game; it offers hours of entertaining combat and exploration of a huge, albeit samey, open world. The problem with the game is that everything else in it works against it's core strengths -- including frequently annoying cut-scenes, tightly scripted and restrictive missions, goofy mechanics and disjointed side quests with no genuine relationship to the story. It's a game that tries to be too many things to too many people and therefore fails as a game, although there is plenty of entertainment along the way.

    To add insult to injury, the main writer, Jeffrey Yohalem, has asserted in interviews that Far Cry 3 is essentially a parody of shooters, a story deliberately crafted to make us self conscious about why we play shooters and to make us all realize how bad most FPS games are. I kid you not, read all about it here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...re-and-satire/

    A key problem with Far Cry 3 is how it treats the open world, i.e. in a less than open way. A good example of this is seen during one of the early missions, where the player must eliminate several radio operators on an abandoned ship and get to a control room to gather intel. The game requires stealth to kill each radio operator; if you are detected you must start over. You cannot decide how to approach the mission yourself. Nor are you able to choose the best vantage to scout or begin the mission, because getting around to those vantage points require you to leave the "mission area," which is prohibited.

    Worst of all, after finally getting the intel, enemy reinforcements arrive. Your natural instinct of course is to flee the area immediately. During my first playthrough I dove off the ship, swimming underwater to make my getaway, when suddenly I was greeted by a popup alert, warning me that I was leaving the mission area! As it turns out, the "mission" required me to stay on board and kill all the arriving reinforcements. Who knows why, perhaps Yohalem wanted to make sure I question my relationship to FPS games?

    There are numerous other heavy-handed sequences in Far Cry 3 -- five or six -- which require the player to follow extremely specific instructions to complete, such as mashing certain keys repeatedly or in a directed sequence in order to "beat" the game. This is not really my idea of fun, or of what an open world shooter should be.

    The player is also required to endure several turret gunner sequences straight out of Bad Company 2 (if you managed to get through that title's single player campaign, you'll know what I'm talking about). Instead of bickering with the boys as in BFBC2, Far Cry 3 has you bickering with your girlfriend. Another turret gunner escape scene features interaction with your stereotypical stoner friend (remember the heli pilot in BFBC2?) who says after a murderous rampage, "wow dude, this is serious."

    Anyway, you get the idea. The author of Far Cry 3 wants players to recognize all these video game "tropes," as a engaging parody he believes is worthy of modern art, whereas all I wanted to do was lose myself in a richly detailed, hostile open world.

    That's another regret I have about Far Cry 3. The hostile world isn't really all that hostile. Enemies fall quickly as long as you shoot --as Monty Python's Frenchman farted -- "in their general direction." You also enjoy in-game perks such as "tagging" enemies and animals by using a camera to photograph them, which allows you to see them through walls and behind trees and such. So yes Far Cry 3 has X-ray vision.

    When you capture enemy outposts they revert to the friendly forces, and the entire area becomes permanently free of enemies. Take enough outposts and you will literally have nothing opposing you on the island except an occasional dangerous animal (usually an endangered species that you must shoot, for ironic effect I suppose).

    Remember how hard it was to come up with the cash (i.e. diamonds) in Far Cry 2 in order to upgrade your loadout? Not in Far Cry 3 -- all you need to do is climb a bunch of radio towers clearly marked on your map and you will be able to upgrade weapons to your heart's content.

    And speaking of maps, Far Cry 3 features an omnipresent mini-map cluttering your screen, which reveals the precise location of all the special plants you need to craft potions that provide extra health and other abilities. At the same time, you are bombarded with popups are constantly reminding him what mission you're supposed to be on. Many players, including this one, find this hand-holding excessive. Fortunately Ubisoft has promised a forthcoming patch that will enable players to eliminate the popups and have control over the mini-map.

    For all these immersion-killing negatives, there are plenty of delicious moments to be had in Far Cry 3. They usually involve random encounters with enemies -- both human and animal -- in unexpected convergences and pileups. These moments help the player appreciate the excellent feel of the weapons in the game. While the shooting may be too easy in this game overall, it is fun.

    Vaas, the leader of the pirates, is also a wel-drawn villian and entertaining. It's just a pity that more respect wasn't accorded to the other characters or the overall story in Far Cry 3 to draw the player in, instead of pushing him away.
    Last edited by Huberto; January 07, 2013 at 02:35 PM.

  2. #2
    Vađarholmr's Avatar Archivum Scriptorium
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    Default

    Good review.
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  3. #3
    xcorps's Avatar Praefectus
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    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    Yeah, that review really nails Farcry 3. Good job.
    "Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker's enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason." -Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

  4. #4
    sickpeople's Avatar Semisalis
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    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    I 100% agree with you. It was like you wrote this straight from my mind. + rep

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  5. #5
    shikaka's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    This game suffers greatly because Far Cry 2 was kinda "ahead of it's time".
    I LOVED that game, even with bugs still in it after the final patch.


    There was a great hysteria regarding the respawning guardposts. If you didn't play FC2, I summarize: you were a dirty merc, playing two warring factions out against each other (like Last Man Standing or Fistful of Dollars), while only the leaders knew you are working for them. When you wiped out a UFLL outpost the APR took over, but they regarded you as enemy of course.
    Players were whining about this for years (I loved it tho).

    The other thing which most players whined about was travel: In FC2 there was no teleport, there was no mission. You had to decide how to get to your objective (and where to approach it from!), a kind of basic planning. But it turned out that players, who praised FC1 for "open environment" and "sandbox feel" were in reality turned on by the illusion of open environement in FC1, not the actual open environment in FC2.
    In FC2 you could drive around the mountain to get to a good on the cliff overseeing the target (and take him out in one shot), you could take a boat to go near, leave the boat a while away and sneak into the complex, or you could pretty much go the FC1 route of kicking in the front door.


    I also liked the immersion buffs in FC2 (like if you pulled out your map, it obscured half of your monitor) except for one f.cking annoying "feature": blur. It is realistic that there is a blur effect whenever I turn fast, or when the character is running. But really, it is hard on the eyes (FC2 was the first game where I saw lots of comments about motion sickness)

  6. #6
    Huberto's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    I am a Far Cry 2 fan as well, but there is a larger point here, applicable to any open world game, which that if you build an open world, and then seal off that world in almost all the missions, and then further restrict the player's freedom of action during the missions, it just isn't very much fun to play.

    One example of might be the infamous "burn the drug fields" mission. I found out that if I didn't burn the fields in a certain order the game would start spawning enemies in greater numbers until I did. I shot about sixty guys before I figured that one out. What a fool I was thinking I could eliminate the pirates protecting the fields first and then go about burning the fields!

    I also inadvertantly ran out of the mission area in that one too trying to get to that dock from a different direction after finishing in the fields. This forced me to have to listen to that annoying jacked up dub song for a lot longer than I cared.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    To add insult to injury, the main writer, Jeffrey Yohalem, has asserted in interviews that Far Cry 3 is essentially a parody of shooters, a story deliberately crafted to make us self conscious about why we play shooters and to make us all realize how bad most FPS games are. I kid you not, read all about it here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...re-and-satire/

    Wow. How a moron of that level managed to be a plot writer is beyond me.
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  8. #8
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    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    I can only say one thing.... enter the Review of the Month!

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  9. #9

    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    good review! thanks a lot

  10. #10
    intel's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    Quote Originally Posted by shikaka View Post
    This game suffers greatly because Far Cry 2 was kinda "ahead of it's time".
    I LOVED that game, even with bugs still in it after the final patch.


    There was a great hysteria regarding the respawning guardposts. If you didn't play FC2, I summarize: you were a dirty merc, playing two warring factions out against each other (like Last Man Standing or Fistful of Dollars), while only the leaders knew you are working for them. When you wiped out a UFLL outpost the APR took over, but they regarded you as enemy of course.
    Players were whining about this for years (I loved it tho).

    (...)
    I whined about all-seeing dumb enemies, extremely annoying outposts which kept on respawning soldiers, all of which would of course shoot you, no questions asked. It kind of ruined traveling for me.


  11. #11

    Default Re: Far Cry 3

    great review
    its funny how some random student with no training suddenly becomes an expert with every weapon he can lay his hands on

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