I love open world games. I can't wait for Fallout 4 and "yet another Skyrim game?" Yes please. That's why Far Cry 3 was the game I was the most interested to get in the last Steam sale. So when I saw the entire Far Cry franchise pack on sale for $15 I jumped at it.
To start things off properly, I installed the original Far Cry. I've heard great things about it and to date, haven't played it. After playing it for a few hours I can say I had a pretty good time and I now see why people hold it in high regard. That said, it's really fucking hard, the story isn't great and the play is a bit stiff. There was little to keep my interest in advancement so I didn't complete it, but I do see why people love it. For the time it was a beautiful, open world experience at a time where that kind of game wasn't very popular.
Originally I played Far Cry 2 on the PS3 I acquired from a Gamestop bargain bin sale and for the $5 I payed for it, thought it was great. Far Cry 2 improves on the Far Cry game play and graphics in nearly every way I can think of. That said, the version I picked up in the Steam sale is far superior to the PS3 version graphically and the game is still, very good. It's a fairly dark game as your start by picking a mercenary character to play as. You fly into a war-torn African country and complete for-hire jobs from two sides of the countries conflict. Over the course of the game, you hunt down The Jackal and attempt to stop him from arming both sides.
That said, I was more interested in Far Cry 3 and after a few hours of Far Cry 2 on PC I started Far Cry 3.
The first cut scene is the video above and as you can see, the game starts up with some bro worthy shenanigans. I was hoping there would be some kind of satirical element at play or a wink and nod to this kind of bro-culture, but it was played straight. It's as if the writers of Far Cry 3 are trying really hard to get "dat white guy" audience to love the game but it just comes off as some really bad version of some MTV reality show. That said, the intro sequence doesn't last forever and you are thrust into the part of the game where you can ignore the main story, because honestly, this game is best served that way.
It's not so much the intro sequence as the entire setup of the main narrative entirely. Basically the point of the game is that your are Whitey McDude on a vacation with your bro-squad living life to the X-treme when you take a totally questionable sky dive jump into a camp of pirates. The story does get sightly more interesting as you are called "a little bitch" by the pirate leader Vaas. Again, the games narrative gets more interesting when the super X-treme bro-squad get's imprisoned by pirates, if only for a minute. That said, the shit gets real fast and you escape the camp to later be knocked unconscious. You wake up in the hut of "one of the good island natives" and he proceeds to say you are going to save the island because you are a warrior. Nothing to this point proves you are a warrior, except deep down, this guy feels it. He then proceeds to tattoo you up and hands you a gun and you set out to save his people.
As much pandering as that is, I think this game might have been more interesting if you were some islander who got fed up with the pirates and decided to take action. But instead of that it's Whitey McDude on the case and does he ever look good in that plain white shirt and those tribal tattoos.
That said, if you ignore the story and focus on the gameplay that's where the game shines. The game is a fantastic open world extravaganza of interesting gameplay and great shooting mechanics. It's awesome to just simply walk around in this world as the art is so beautiful. As you walk around the island, wild dogs will chase other animals like pigs and goats. In fact, there are tons of animals on the island and experiencing them all is fun. Getting attacked by a shark for the first time scared the shit out of me so much I decided to take revenge by going on a great white killing spree with a Jetski. Jaws couldn't top the carnage I inflicted on his children and many sharks were lost.
Nearly every element of the game is upgradable by collecting some in game item and crafting it. For instance, if you want to upgrade an ammo pouch, hunt a wild boar and craft a better one from the skins. The game doesn't skimp on the gore as it shows the player taking out a knife and cutting up the animal you are hunting.
If you are looking for a really neat RPG open world shooter, Far Cry 3 is for you. If you are expecting a game that goes beyond seriously cliched plot devices you will be disappointed but there is a lot of awesome here to love. And if it's any consolation, Far Cry 4 drops the white savior main character and opts for something a bit more interesting. Because if there is anything i've come to expect is the next version of Far Cry should be a ton better than the previous one.
To start things off properly, I installed the original Far Cry. I've heard great things about it and to date, haven't played it. After playing it for a few hours I can say I had a pretty good time and I now see why people hold it in high regard. That said, it's really fucking hard, the story isn't great and the play is a bit stiff. There was little to keep my interest in advancement so I didn't complete it, but I do see why people love it. For the time it was a beautiful, open world experience at a time where that kind of game wasn't very popular.
Originally I played Far Cry 2 on the PS3 I acquired from a Gamestop bargain bin sale and for the $5 I payed for it, thought it was great. Far Cry 2 improves on the Far Cry game play and graphics in nearly every way I can think of. That said, the version I picked up in the Steam sale is far superior to the PS3 version graphically and the game is still, very good. It's a fairly dark game as your start by picking a mercenary character to play as. You fly into a war-torn African country and complete for-hire jobs from two sides of the countries conflict. Over the course of the game, you hunt down The Jackal and attempt to stop him from arming both sides.
That said, I was more interested in Far Cry 3 and after a few hours of Far Cry 2 on PC I started Far Cry 3.
The first cut scene is the video above and as you can see, the game starts up with some bro worthy shenanigans. I was hoping there would be some kind of satirical element at play or a wink and nod to this kind of bro-culture, but it was played straight. It's as if the writers of Far Cry 3 are trying really hard to get "dat white guy" audience to love the game but it just comes off as some really bad version of some MTV reality show. That said, the intro sequence doesn't last forever and you are thrust into the part of the game where you can ignore the main story, because honestly, this game is best served that way.
It's not so much the intro sequence as the entire setup of the main narrative entirely. Basically the point of the game is that your are Whitey McDude on a vacation with your bro-squad living life to the X-treme when you take a totally questionable sky dive jump into a camp of pirates. The story does get sightly more interesting as you are called "a little bitch" by the pirate leader Vaas. Again, the games narrative gets more interesting when the super X-treme bro-squad get's imprisoned by pirates, if only for a minute. That said, the shit gets real fast and you escape the camp to later be knocked unconscious. You wake up in the hut of "one of the good island natives" and he proceeds to say you are going to save the island because you are a warrior. Nothing to this point proves you are a warrior, except deep down, this guy feels it. He then proceeds to tattoo you up and hands you a gun and you set out to save his people.
As much pandering as that is, I think this game might have been more interesting if you were some islander who got fed up with the pirates and decided to take action. But instead of that it's Whitey McDude on the case and does he ever look good in that plain white shirt and those tribal tattoos.
That said, if you ignore the story and focus on the gameplay that's where the game shines. The game is a fantastic open world extravaganza of interesting gameplay and great shooting mechanics. It's awesome to just simply walk around in this world as the art is so beautiful. As you walk around the island, wild dogs will chase other animals like pigs and goats. In fact, there are tons of animals on the island and experiencing them all is fun. Getting attacked by a shark for the first time scared the shit out of me so much I decided to take revenge by going on a great white killing spree with a Jetski. Jaws couldn't top the carnage I inflicted on his children and many sharks were lost.
Nearly every element of the game is upgradable by collecting some in game item and crafting it. For instance, if you want to upgrade an ammo pouch, hunt a wild boar and craft a better one from the skins. The game doesn't skimp on the gore as it shows the player taking out a knife and cutting up the animal you are hunting.
If you are looking for a really neat RPG open world shooter, Far Cry 3 is for you. If you are expecting a game that goes beyond seriously cliched plot devices you will be disappointed but there is a lot of awesome here to love. And if it's any consolation, Far Cry 4 drops the white savior main character and opts for something a bit more interesting. Because if there is anything i've come to expect is the next version of Far Cry should be a ton better than the previous one.
A bit of trivia: Vaas is played (VO and Mo-Cap) by Michael Mando, He plays Vic "the Dick" in Orphan Black, which is about as far from Vaas as you can get. Great actor.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3103126/?ref_=tt_cl_i8
A few questions for you--
1. How long did the game last you?
2. Did you also play Blood Dragon? I've heard it's basically an 80s campy extravaganza set on the same island.
3. Did you get any motion sickness from it? I played it for a few hours and the room was spinning. Apparently there's a fix for that but I haven't tried it yet.
1. Still playing it. I'll let you know total hours if/when I beat it.
2. Blood Dragon was part of the far Cry pack but since it came after FC3 I'll play it afterward. I played the demo though, it's fun.
3. No motion sickness so far.
I played the original game on PC right after it came out. I was thoroughly impressed with the game and it more than held my attention for the amount of time i played it (probably a total of 20 hours) until i got a new game and simply moved on.
I played a little bit of Far Cry Vengeance on the WII and I'll say that the game was fun and fairly well built, but playing it on the WII ruined it for me. It was just too much effort trying to do all the controls it required while still trying not to get shot, so i didn't put a whole lot of time into it.
I believe i've played a bit of FC2 but i dont remember enough about it to comment. Haven't played FC3 but a friend told me that i should buy it for the sole purpose of playing Blood Dragon, even though i later found out it's a stand-alone game and you don't need FC3 to play it.
Sounds good to me though, next time i see FC3 on sale i'll give it a go.
Yeah, Blood Dragon is stand alone and doesn't require Far Cry 3 at all.
@Travis: OK yeah I got a bit sick after steaming it on my TV. When I sit down to play it "PC Style" without a controller things are generally fine.
How far had you gotten in the game, story-wise, at the time you posted this article?
Met up with the woman that runs the tribe I fight for.
I actually enjoyed the story, and I'd say that it does get much more interesting as it progresses. I remember thinking something similar when I started playing, that it was a bit heavy handed with the rich-kid American all of a sudden becoming a warrior, but there are twists later on that give it a little more depth, and offer insight as to why Jason Brody is being pushed to "save the island." It's definitely more Clive Cussler than Daniel Defoe, but I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it cliche.
Cliche, trope, whatever you want to call "white guy saves the natives" storyline. Ubi or Disney, it's a pretty trodden plotline. That said, it doesn't make the game bad OR the story bad, but the start of the game sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Like I said though, the game is pretty bad ass.
That said, maybe they will open things up a bit as the game continues. It's possible the game creators decided to do something pretty tropey and then do something different later.
I haven't played it that much due to the aforementioned motion sickness issues, but I took the plot to be poking fun at the trope. It didn't seem to be taking itself seriously to me.
I could be wrong, or seeing what I want to see, but I found it enjoyable *because* I thought they were making fun of it.
They may very well have done that. Interesting if they did because it was, in my case, super effective