Far Cry 3 Review: Did I Ever Tell You The Definition Of Insanity?

Far Cry 3
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Montreal

X360, PS3, PC – December 4, 2012

 

 

Welcome to paradise! You and your friends are off on a tropical vacation where the sky is the limit, parties, women, and extreme sports are on your agenda… Until something goes horribly wrong and you wake up in a cell at a slavers camp. With no training, weapons, or idea of where you are, you are left to survive. What do you do? How far will you go to get to safety? You follow Jason Brody through the Far Cry 3 story as you slowly slip into insanity.

Far Cry 3 is a separate story from Far Cry and Far Cry 2. The story is told 100 % in the first person view which really adds to the feeling of the game. Far Cry 3 was quite easily one of the best single player campaigns I have ever played. From start to finish I was not able to put the game down. The story was very interesting keeping you hooked with plot twist, betrayals, and damn amazing scenes (some may have included intense dubstep in the background and burning weed fields). Far Cry 3 also offers a plethora of extra activities to complete to keep you buys when you do not feel like finishing the story. These side missions range from liberating camps, to races, to hunting different creatures with specific weapons (dogs with RPGs…Why not?). The hunting quests would also reward you with skins to allow you to craft bigger bags for loot, weapons, and healing materials. There were a few moments where you had to stop and say “really!?” But they were few and far between.

This time around Far Cry 3 offers a RPG element to the mix. A skill tree and level system was added to the game. The 3 trees focus on, stealth, healing, and combat. At first I thought this was a very amazing idea, allowing the player to customize their character to how they want to play. It was very quickly realized that you had very little choice in character class. Half the skills are locked at the start and slowly unlock as you finish key story points, which forces you to spend points in trees you were not interested in. Furthermore by the time you add up all the levels and the amount of skill, you notice that you will get enough points for every skill…or you can check the achievement list… There was a small amount of strategy that went to skill selection, but some of the knife combat skills are just devastating to watch which makes it well worth it! The skills are then represented by a tattoo on your arm that grows as your character learns new skills, it was a nice touch.

Speaking of knife combat, Far Cry 3 had one of the coolest melee mechanics I have seen in a while. Mixed with a number of skills from the different trees you could initiate some amazingly powerful attacks. I personally did most of my attacks with the takedown attacks because they were very stealthy and looked bad ass! My personal favorite included stabbing an enemy from behind the pulling out his knife and throwing it at another enemy…pure enjoyment!

The graphics in Far Cry 3 were quite spectacular! The open world tropical island was very realistic looking. The draw distance was very impressive considering the amount of details included on the island. The island even felt alive at points! The inclusion of small bright coloured birds that would flee when you got close to them really just helped draw you further into the game. The coolest graphical feature was the spreading of fire. This was first done in Far Cry 2, however it felt more natural in Far Cry 3; and by natural I mean completely wild and unpredictable. I learned very quickly not to go wild with fire base weapons, or not to blow up vehicles in areas with lots of foliage. The fire would spread and burn everything in its wake rather quickly, grass, tress, cars, buildings, scaffolding, you name it!

One thing that seriously lacked in FC3 was multiplayer. It had a online multiplayer and coop section, but they just didn’t feel up to par. The multiplayer felt very rushed and the execution of it just did not feel right. FC3 included a taunting feature at the end of each match, showed the top 3 players of the winning team surrounding the top player of the losing team. The MVP of the wining team the proceeds to beat the crap out of the losing MVP, while he is tied and has a bag over his head, with a number of moves you can pick in your player customization. This may have struck me the wrong way because it hit a bit close to home because of the areas I work in. One way or another it just seems a bit out of place.

The coop on the other hand was just boring. The missions were very linear and offered no options to clear the areas other than the single path In front of you. It is very much like putting 100s of enemies in an ally way with no were to run, then attacking them…I Personally did not finish the coop so maybe it got better, but from what I played I was very unimpressed!

All in all I think Far Cry 3 is an amazing single player game and is well worth picking up. You will not be disappointed!

NG Crew Top 5 Of 2012 – Dan’s List

Hey guys, I’m back and I’m here with my top 5 games of 2012.  Now as my good friend Dave O’Laughlin had stated in his post, 2012 had quite a few quality games and picking my list wasn’t an easy task.  Alas I have made my selections only unlike Mr. O’Laughlin I did not cop-out, my top 5 are in order.  So bring the hate and the Hitler comparisons in the comments about how I am dead wrong and tell me what game is clearly better than my list of five.  After all, isn’t that what the internet is for?

#5
Diablo 3

“Diablo 3 sucked.”  “Blizzard ruined the series.”  “I want my money back.”

Shut up, all of you.  Diablo 2 in my opinion is one of if not the best PC game of all time.  Diablo 3 was a great game that was doomed to be ridiculed from the start because of the massive shoes it had to fill.  That being said Blizzard made a game that was fun to play alone or with friends.  Every class felt different when I played them. The world of Sanctuary is filled with rich environments, Complex detailed enemies, and huge boss fights.  Did I mention individual loot?  No more loot whoring!  It’s not often that 12 years later you can release a sequel and sell 10 million copies.  This game is fun and after writing this I think I’ll be revisiting D3 before too long.

#4
Need For Speed Most Wanted

This was a game I was really looking forward to as I was a die-hard fan of the first Most Wanted.  However, this is a very different game than the original.  Most notably getting away from the cops can be hard, and I mean HARD.  I have had cop chases where after 20-25 minutes I’ve just pulled over put my controller down and surrendered to the boys in blue.  I would prefer to skip the open world driving concept were you have to drive to the races on your map.  That being said, when the racing does start it’s challenging and a lot of fun.  Now if only EA would stop force feeding me Origin… (Still can’t see your ugly mug on those billboards Dave.)

#3
Assassins Creed 3

Assassins Creed 3 answered a lot of questions relating to Desmond’s present day story and of course raised a few more.  The beauty in the Assassin’s Creed series has always been the combat and free running.  After all, nothing says “I’m a bad ass assassin” quite like tomahawking a few red coats in the face.  If you have played an AC game before the combat is more of the same, but in what seems like par for the course, it has been refined and tuned to perfection.  The AnvilNext engine made epic naval combat possible.  These iconic sea battles were my favorite part of the latest installment of this fantastic franchise.

#2
Mass Effect 3

The conclusion of my favourite game franchise of all time.  Terrible ending or not, no series has pulled me in and made me so attached to the characters around me.  In preparation of Mass Effect 3’s release I started a Mass Effect marathon where I played through ME, ME2, and carried that character into ME3.  The cameo appearances of characters from the previous two games are a very nice touch.  It is amazing how the characters would reflect on what I did or a choice I had made during a mission in one of the previous installments.  The sheer amount of voice over work for this game must have been ridiculous.  Then again that is nothing new for Bioware.  The combat was dead on as it had been all series.  The games ending was very disappointing especially after carrying a save file all the way from the beginning.  You could say that Mass Effect 3’s ending was full of tentacles and disappointment….

#1
Borderlands 2

Plain and simple, this game is fun.  Stupid, ridiculous, outrageous, stupendous, awesome amounts of fun.  I still remember when I fell in love with this game.  I was maybe level 10 or 11 and it was the first time I took a goliaths head off and saw him hulk out on a midget and level up I knew I was going to play the crap out of this game.  I have beaten this game countless times with different characters and yet each time the Nova Gamer crew gets together we always seem to end up playing this game.  Each and every time that we put this game disc in our systems something ridiculous seems to happen. Not to mention this game has the best villain I have ever experienced in a video game. I just loved to hate this guy, he is hilariously cruel. The writers at Gearbox Software deserve a raise after this one.

So that’s my list of my top 5 games of 2012.  Be sure to leave a comment stating how offended you are that I left out a certain game.

Mechromancer Class Available Now!

Gaige, the Mechromancer is available for download on all platforms as we speak! Gearbox Software’s CEO Randy Pitchford teased everyone yesterday on his twitter account saying “There may be a big surprise from us within the next 24 hours or so. Stay tuned!” Well @DuvalMagic didn’t disappoint when he tweeted this in the wee hours of the morning “So – here’s the surprise, Mechromancer for Borderlands 2 is ready about a week earlier than I promised. Oct 9, all platforms. Woo!”

Those of you who pre-ordered their copy of Borderlands 2 can download the new class for free. However if you did not pre-order your copy you the Mechromancer will run you $9.99 on the PSN or 800 MS Points on Xbox Live. You can check out the Gaige’s skills here with the interactive skill tree on the Borderlands 2 website.

Also take some time and get to know Gaige a little better by listening to her ECHO logs in the videos below.

…As if I needed another reason to play more Borderlands.

Borderlands 2 “In The Jungle” Trailer

Check out this cool new trailer that Gearbox recently released for Borderlands 2.

This game can’t get here soon enough.

~ Joker 27th

Borderlands Random Thought…

Remember this game? I bought this game day one. October 20, 2009 to be exact. Me and my 3 best buddies killed this game. Countless hours, multiple playthroughs, and characters. So, Mark and I (He is working in Australia right now) were online playing some COD Blops, when we got on the discussion of this game. Then thought to ourselves, we need to play this again. So we downloaded the General Knoxx add-on. We haven’t got into it yet, that’s for tomorrow morning. But I booted it up again, and it all came back to me, all its glory. What a fantastic game. The co-op is unreal in this. Developers can learn a lot from this co-op! Playing all of 10 minutes today got me jazzed to what Borderlands 2 could bring.

Well, here’s hoping that this E3 will bring a Borderlands 2 announcement!

~djskizim