Jack Brickman
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2012
- Messages
- 38,456
- Reaction score
- 61,544
- Points
- 148
I'm really enjoying this game, although I haven't had a tone of time to play it (three to four hours so far). The story is decent (for this type of game), the voice acting and character models are both great, and the graphics are fantastic. Once the game opens up after about thirty minutes, you're basically left with an entire gigantic island to explore at your leisure. You can follow the main plot line, which is all about rescuing your friends from pirates, you can do side missions (hunting, supply runs, radio towers, bounties, etc.), or you can just lose yourself in the jungle and explore.
Granted, early on there aren't a whole lot of side missions to be had, but so many upgrades can be crafted out of animal skins that doing some hunting is basically a necessity. Animals in the game are no pushover, though. It's pretty easy to kill the harmless ones (goats, pigs, etc.), although some of them can really book it if they survive your first couple of shots, and losing prey in the trees happens frequently. Not all the animals are harmless, though, and it's the dangerous ones you have to worry about, often moreso than the pirates on the island.
This brings up one of the greatest aspects of the game: emergent gameplay. Occasionally, you'll happen across cool things that have nothing to do with missions in the game. For example, I ran afoul of a small group of pirates who happened to have a tiger in a cage nearby. The pirates had caught me off guard and I was concerned about losing the fight, so I put a couple of rounds into the tiger's cage, breaking it open in the process. The tiger proceeding to sprint out and maul one of the guards, shifting their focus to him and giving me time to high-tail it to the tree line. The tiger finished off two of the guards before they gunned him down, and from my now safe vantage point I gunned the rest of them down and looted the area.
This was one of many such moments that I've experienced. The dangerous animals in the game are formidable enough (read: you will be mauled by a tiger or a pack of dogs early) that you actually grow concerned when you hear one growl nearby. The fact that most of them are low to the ground and, thus, hard to spot in the jungle makes them all the more intimidating.
The next point in this game's favor is stealth. I love a game that is able to capably combine stealth and action. Far Cry 3 is one of those games. Attacking enemy outposts is almost like a puzzle, as you mark enemy positions and try to figure out how many you can take out before being spotted and in what order you can best maximize that number. It's a lot of fun, and it gives almost every encounter a strategic tinge. I really can't wait until I craft the extra weapon slings to allow me to carry four weapons at once, as that will really add to how I am able to plan out each encounter.
All in all, hard not to recommend this game.
Granted, early on there aren't a whole lot of side missions to be had, but so many upgrades can be crafted out of animal skins that doing some hunting is basically a necessity. Animals in the game are no pushover, though. It's pretty easy to kill the harmless ones (goats, pigs, etc.), although some of them can really book it if they survive your first couple of shots, and losing prey in the trees happens frequently. Not all the animals are harmless, though, and it's the dangerous ones you have to worry about, often moreso than the pirates on the island.
This brings up one of the greatest aspects of the game: emergent gameplay. Occasionally, you'll happen across cool things that have nothing to do with missions in the game. For example, I ran afoul of a small group of pirates who happened to have a tiger in a cage nearby. The pirates had caught me off guard and I was concerned about losing the fight, so I put a couple of rounds into the tiger's cage, breaking it open in the process. The tiger proceeding to sprint out and maul one of the guards, shifting their focus to him and giving me time to high-tail it to the tree line. The tiger finished off two of the guards before they gunned him down, and from my now safe vantage point I gunned the rest of them down and looted the area.
This was one of many such moments that I've experienced. The dangerous animals in the game are formidable enough (read: you will be mauled by a tiger or a pack of dogs early) that you actually grow concerned when you hear one growl nearby. The fact that most of them are low to the ground and, thus, hard to spot in the jungle makes them all the more intimidating.
The next point in this game's favor is stealth. I love a game that is able to capably combine stealth and action. Far Cry 3 is one of those games. Attacking enemy outposts is almost like a puzzle, as you mark enemy positions and try to figure out how many you can take out before being spotted and in what order you can best maximize that number. It's a lot of fun, and it gives almost every encounter a strategic tinge. I really can't wait until I craft the extra weapon slings to allow me to carry four weapons at once, as that will really add to how I am able to plan out each encounter.
All in all, hard not to recommend this game.