Review - Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3

Ubisoft Montreal

Dunia Engine 2

Windows (reviewed), XBOX 360, PS3

FPS, Action-Adventure, RPG

December 4, 2012

The Preamble

I’d never played a Far Cry title before Far Cry 3, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I knew the gist of it: Open world, tropical island setting, first person shooter. Far Cry 3 is certainly all of these things, but it’s also so much more...

The Overview

You play as Jason Brody, stereotypical rich frat boy who’s out vacationing in Southeast Asia somewhere with a bunch of friends. After taking a skydiving trip and landing on seemingly deserted island, the vacation comes to an end when a band of pirates kidnaps the group and holds them hostage. You manage to escape, but your buddies aren’t as fortunate, some are killed, and some are whisked away to other parts of the island. With the help of the local natives, you unlock your Rakyat powers, which give you the strength to defeat the pirates and rescue your friends.

The Good

• The open world aspect of the game is really well done. It achieves the feeling of being able to go anywhere, and supplies you with two giant islands to explore. While I feel like there could have been some improvements in the exploration rewards (see The Bad), the ability to tackle situations in the game from any angle you can imagine is really satisfying and adds a nice diversity to the plethora of enemy outposts that you can take over throughout the game.
  
  
  

  

  I can't even fit everything on the screen!

• Hunting! I don’t think I’ve come across a game that makes hunting as amusing as it is in Far Cry 3. Red Dead Redemption makes a pretty good attempt, and the hunting/skinning/crafting system is very similar but far more satisfying in FC3. I think the key here is that you, as the player, not only are hunting animals but you also feel hunted as you venture throughout the jungle. The first time I came across a stream out in the middle of the jungle, I stopped to gawk at the beautiful water and all of a sudden, a massive crocodile jumps out of the water and takes me down to the ground. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The developers do a great job of making you feel genuinely threatened and vulnerable while wandering the jungle; you never know what’s going to jump out at you.
  

  

  Oftentimes you'll see your enemies get taken down by wildlife as well.

• Crafting! What are you going to do with all those animal carcasses and skins? Craft stuff of course! There’s a pretty robust crafting system in the game that requires you to hunt animals and gather herbs in order to make inventory bags, ammo pouches, healing potions, etc. While I hated the interface, the system itself was well designed, and compelled you to go hunt more than you probably would otherwise.
• The game is beautiful. Like BioShock Infinite and Skyrim, I was constantly stopping to just enjoy the sights, taking screenshots left and right. The game uses the Dunia 2 Engine, an evolved form of the engine used for Far Cry 2, and it is really, really nice. This is one of those games where if you have a powerful machine, it pays off.
  
  
  

  

  
  
• The FPS combat mechanics, while not doing anything especially different, are solid and fun. The wide array of weaponry at your disposal and cool stealth-melee attacks that you can put skill points into are extremely satisfying to utilize.
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
• Yet another FPS that employs some RPG elements that are actually quite good! This makes the game almost feel a little Skyrim-ish. There are 3 skill trees, each having its own theme. It’s not terribly important which one you decide on first as you will get more than enough points to get nearly every skill, especially if you’re going the completionist route. But the choices are nice, and they provide a nice sense of progression as you play through the main story.
• Insane antagonist. I could take or leave most of the characters in Far Cry 3, but the antagonist, Vaas, is really well done. He’s got sort of a Tuco vibe, making him extremely unpredictable, and downright frightening to encounter. The times where I was face to face with Vaas are some of the most memorable times in the game.
  
  

• The story is actually pretty good. It’s not great, I’ll admit, but the voice acting is on point, and while there is a fair amount of supernatural mumbo jumbo involved in Jason’s acquisition of strength, you get a pretty good feel for the character developing and getting used to the situation that he’s been thrust into. It was good enough to keep me compelled until the end, and I think most people would feel the same way.
  

  The Bad
• I wish the loot crates that are all over the islands had some useful stuff in them. Instead, you get money and vendor trash to acquire more money. Never any crafting material, weapons, nothing. Hunting for loot is a big draw of exploring for me, so without this, I was less inclined to explore after a while.
• The UI is clunky and obnoxious, at least on the PC. It really doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the game too much, but it was a minor annoyance for me.
  
  

The Verdict

This is a great game that I would highly recommend to any FPS-RPG fan. Diversified, fun FPS combat, tons of exploration, RPG skill progression, beautiful setting, fairly compelling story; I would go as far as to say that this game comes close to being perfect. I'll be looking forward to seeing the next game in the series!

The Extras

Here are some videos of various gameplay from my playthrough. Mostly just messing around, but it will give you a good idea of what to expect from the game.

Thomplog Retrospective - Week of 4/8/13

The Preamble

Welcome to the first of many Thomplog Retrospectives! The purpose of these posts is to give me a chance to tell you what I’ve been playing on a week to week basis (because I know you are dying to find out). Many of the games I like to play are too long to finish in a week (at least when working full time), so rather than go on with month long review droughts, I thought I’d give a weekly update on what I’ve been playing, and current thoughts on the games.

My general approach to reviews is to not start writing them until I’ve completed the game, so this kind of thing will be nice for games that can’t be “beaten” in the traditional sense (i.e. MMO, Multiplayer, etc), and also for games that are beatable, but I likely won’t officially “beat” them (i.e. Racing, Simulators, ARPG, etc).

The tl;dr of it is, this is a facade for allowing me to ramble and share my experiences with games some more. Hopefully you’ll enjoy these extra (questionably relevant) nuggets of gaming goodness.

Defiance

I spend most of my weekday evenings gaming, and last week, that time was almost entirely spent with Defiance. You can read my first impressions of the game here, if you haven’t checked them out yet.

Since I posted my first impressions, I’ve sunk close to 20 more hours into the game. In this time I’ve been leveling up (or EGO’ing up, in Defiance terms), getting a better feel for the game, and exploring more of what it has to offer.

I spent a good deal of time running co-op missions, which are about 20 minute long, instanced events that you play through with 3 other people. There are bosses at the end that pose a significant challenge and upon defeat, drop some nice goodies for the group. These are fun, and it’s nice that Trion implemented the “queue” for this out of the box so you can find a group quickly (especially since chatting in-game is impossible).

I also sampled the PvP scene, trying out the Deathmatch mode. I only played a few matches, so it’s hard for me to judge too much, but my cursory conclusion is that the matches net you a ton of XP (even when you lose), but you’ve really got to be on top of your game as far as skill and weapon choices go. Also, lag sucks...

As I mentioned in my post last week, I’ll likely do a Defiance Part 2 post outlining my experiences with co-op and PvP in more detail, as well as the effect of the TV show (which premieres tonight!) on the game and vice versa.

Far Cry 3

I dove into this game right after I finished BioShock Infinite and immediately loved it. Far Cry 3 provides a bright, beautiful island to play around on, along with a surprisingly compelling main story line. I don’t know how long that sentiment will hold, but for now, it’s been keeping me going.

You come across many beautiful sights throughout the island.

I’ve put about 21 hours into Far Cry 3 so far and I think I’m about halfway through the story line. The time might sound inflated and that’s because I started out doing every single side quest and collectable. I stopped doing that this weekend, as this is a very time consuming thing to do, and honestly, gets old after a while. In Defiance, there are a similar number of extra things to take part in (side quests, challenges, dynamic content) but there’s a more measurable reward for your time (XP, currency, gear), where in FC3, there’s barely any incentive aside from the fun of actually carrying out these tasks. I don’t want to discount that fun either, because it is fun, but it’s fun that I feel like I can go revisit any time. With that, I’ve decided to go full throttle on the main story missions in the game, and leave the side stuff for a later date... or maybe even never.

Long story short, I’m enjoying Far Cry 3 a lot so far but there’s an immense amount to do. I’m going to focus on the main story line now, and hopefully get a review out to you within the next week or two.  

Torchlight 2

I ended up booting TL2 back up this weekend for an hour or two. Recent interest from my roommate and the new support from Steam Workshop is what compelled me to do such a thing.

Torchlight always benefited a lot from the modding scene, and it appears TL2 is no different. Steam Workshop wasn’t super populated with stuff yet, but I did check out a sizable mod called Synergies Mod which adds a TON of stuff, including respec potions, fully functional Necromancer class, and two nearly finished classes: Paladin and Warlock, just to mention a few. I think I will be diving back into this game once I finish up some of the other stuff I’ve been playing.

The Necromancer class in action. Did I mention they upped the difficulty?
This is one  of the first encounters I ran into at Level 3...

SynergiesMOD

Steam Workshop

Chains

Basically, since the Humble Bundle group released their first uber successful bundle of indie games with the ‘pay what you want’ model, there have been a plethora of bundle sites that have popped up, all with amazing deals. I, for one, have a terrible time resisting the urge to pick these up. A dozen games for $5? SOLD! So now I have hundreds of these indie games, most of which I’ve never even touched.

I’m attempting to at least try out one of these games every week to evaluate if it’s something I want to sink more time into. This week, I chose Chains.

The gist of the game is that you link together bubbles together by their color... and that's really about it. It sounds simple, but mixing physics and speed tests into the mix can make for some very tough challenges. I don't want to talk too much about it because I've only played 5 levels or so, but at the very least, here’s a video of one of the early puzzles (this level made me realize that this game is going to kick my ass).

When I first started I was pretty skeptical, but with each new level, it revealed new and interesting challenges. I'm not confident I'll be able to beat it as it seems to have a fairly steep learning curve (I had to retry the above level from the video at least 10 times before beating it), but I think this will be one I stick with, at least to the point of being able to give it a real review.

Stay tuned for more info on this one.

Check out the BundleStars Catnip Bundle to get your hands on Chains now!

Fire Emblem: Awakening

I started this back in March on my way to PAX East and have been slowly making my way through it. My save file says I’ve logged 15 hours, but I think it’s probably been more like 20 or 25. For those who aren't familiar with Fire Emblem games, they're tactical turn based strategy RPGs. Sort of like the most recent XCOM, but with ridiculous anime characters, and its own set of kooky rules and quirks.

I decided initially to go with the permadeath mode of the game. Meaning, if any of your squad dies during a battle, they are gone forever (in regular mode, they revive at the end of the fight). There’s one way around this, and that is to shut off your 3DS, and retry the battle from the beginning.

Seeing as this is my first Fire Emblem experience, this was tearing me up at the beginning as I was figuring out combat strategies and how to play the game in general. I was shutting down my 3DS left and right, retrying missions 4 or 5 times before completing it without losing my most vital characters.

At any rate, I finally got the hang of it, and am now in a position where my squad of Shepherds are unstoppable. I’m now enjoying this game a ton and consistently look forward to playing it, which I normally do before I go to bed.

I’m looking forward to writing a review for this one, and it will likely come alongside the Far Cry 3 review in the next couple of weeks, though it may not be until later (15 hours in, I’m not even halfway through yet, you can do the math).

Pending

I finished BioShock Infinite 4 days after it released and I still haven’t posted a review yet. I’m working on it! The review has been in progress for a long time now, but for some reason I have not felt compelled to work on it. I think it’s partly because of the massive amount of hype the game has gotten since it came out. You know what my review is going to say... The game is amazing. It’s not hard to figure that out. Surprises aside, I plan to post that review for you this week sometime.

Lastly, the PAX East 2013 Day 3 post! I’ve been a little slow on getting these out (there’s too much gaming to do!) but the wait will finally come to an end this week. I will post Day 3 this week, I promise!

To whet your palette for the BioShock Infinite review...