Far Cry 3

The renaissance of Far cry! This game make far cry alive and give to the franchise a new breathe. The story want us to find all our friend and kill Vaas. The vilain. Vaas is one of the strong point. Of this game. The guy who subbed Vaas make him more psychopath and Far cry 3 may be the best far cry of the series.

Far cry 3 puts you in the shoes of Jason Brody and into the massive Rook Islands. You and your friends ends up in the hands of a group of pirates led by the insane Vaas Montenegro who murders your brother in cold blood. Fed with vengeance, you hunt and kill your way up the very hostile yet paradisaic Rook Islands. The plot is nothing game-changing, but its super cool nonetheless. It ploughs you forward through the campaign.

The Rook Island as I mentioned is massive to say the least and there is a ton to do here. Jason Brody and friends came here for adventure and that's exactly what you get served well THAT and more. Far Cry 3 promises open ended gameplay and its vast and varied as opposed to the Far Cry 2′s drab African Savannah But a lot of mechanics from the original has been carried over to Far Cry 3 most notably the Fire mechanics. There are different alternatives to complete an objective and ergo its one of the best open-ended game out in the market now. RPG elements comes aback and gives you skill points for almost everything you do which can be invested in the Skill Tree. These skills are distributed through 3 tabs: The Heron, The Shark and The Spider, which you will acquire as you progress. And unlike other RPG element-merged- FPS, it does make a huge difference. Once you acquire all these skills, verging close to the climax, you either feel like a one man army at times or someone edging close to insanity.

Far Cry 3 has superb character development. You as Jason Brody initially is revolted when he sees his brother kills someone and he is further shocked when he makes his first kill. Though as you progress through the campaign, you learn new skills, you get more driven with a lust to kill, with vengeance to the point where you sacrifice certain stuff.

Characters oozes personality. Never before were NPC characters so memorable. Vaas, Citra, Dennis, Hoyt, Sam, Buck; Hell I remember almost everyone in the game. Superbly voice acted and mo-capped, these are some of the characters that could be considered classic. "Did I ever tell you the definition of INSANITY?" says Vaas in one sequence. After Heath Ledger's legendary Joker, Michael Mando's portrayal of an insane, merciless, sadistic 'Vaas Montenegro' saturates everything a perfect Antagonist should ever be. And that's exactly why the reason Vaas, the game's antagonist ended up on the box art rather than the protagonist Jason Brody in an action pose.

Enemy AI could be considered good and bad. They don't just stand there while you snipe them off, the moment they find a fallen comrade, they run off to set the siren on and they flank you from all sides. And then there were also instances like them running straight towards you giving you a chance at making an easy headshot coz while these morons run they somehow tend to forget to shoot at you. You can either go stealthy taking off each enemy or go in guns blazing. If you are playing in the latter style there are tons of arsenal at your disposal ranging from pistols to rocket launchers. Though much more fun is to go stealthy. Love the camera feature, used for surveillance. You can tag enemies with it and monitor their movements and take them off with your trusty Bow and Arrow (which by the way is super cool) or distract them tossing a stone, isolating them and going in for a very pleasurable melee kill. You can loot them too. Far Cry 3 is indeed, as I read somewhere, SKYRIM WITH GUNS.

Just like Assassin's Creed there are Radio Tower laid all around the island. Climbing on top of it and activating them unlocks & marks key points and items on your map. The Radio Tower climbing itself could be considered a mini-game which actually felt a lot like platforming and deeper you go into the plot these tower become more complex to climb.

I just could go on rant about the graphics. Far Cry 3 has some really sweet graphics which can be only defined as 'Orgasmic'. Comes with a catch though, it can only be enjoyed completely with a DX11 graphics card. I was unable to turn on anti-aliasing and other features and the game, although gorgeous to look at, still had something missing. Add to that the soft shadows around the characters was a bit distracting. The animations felt smooth and authentic. The island itself is populated by lush forests and greenery and the ocean. Wildlife is another thing I loved, I spent hours hunting animals in the island. These animals can then be skinned with which you can craft ammo pouches to loot sacks. You can also craft medical/combat/hunting syringes harvesting from plants spread throughout the island.

Music is another thing which I enjoyed. A pure mix of tribal music immixed with adrenaline pumping music in action sequences. Composed by Brian Tyler, Far Cry 3′s soundtrack is a thoroughly enjoyable one, even when you are not playing it.

Far Cry is an uber-polished game with very high production values which can be seen throughout the game. From flawless voice acting to action- stealth blended gameplay. It is without doubt the best singleplayer campaign this season. And a true cinematic experience at its best. Despite being distracted from the main plot by a whole ton of things to do in Rook Island, I took immense pleasure in playing Far Cry 3. I clocked in more than 17+ hours in Far Cry 3 and I am still nowhere near to be done with it. I'd recommend it to everybody out there. You are never going to forget this 'getaway' anytime soon.

This review is focused completely on the story, not any game play elements. And as far as story-telling goes, this is the best depiction of the slide into insanity and/or empowerment that survival in a violent environment can bring.

The fact that the main character is a character, rather than just some first-person avatar for the player, let's the creators of the game tell an amazing story of transformation. Jason Brody starts the game out as a privileged white kid. He's the kind of guy that the majority of us would hate. And in fact, he is pretty douche-y. But over the course of the game, as he has to do more and more to save his friends he changes.

So many times Hollywood is quick to portray only two outcomes from having to fight a war, which though he is in no way a soldier is exactly what Jason does. Either you become a kill-crazy nut-job or you become a despondent, PTSD-ridden misanthrope. Jason skirts between both, sometimes questioning what it is he has become and other times realizing that he is in fact a stronger person for all that he has gone through.

It's really his reactions in this game and how he goes from simply wanting to save his friends to wanting to not only save them but also kill everybody involved in their capture that is so amazing. It really is like watching a very well written and directed movie.

The primary villain through most of the game is Vaas, and he is extremely interesting and fun to watch. He has the same kind of chaotic energy as Heath Ledger's Joker, a kind of humorous outlook and deceptively flighty attention to the world around him that makes is sudden snaps into full-blown psychotic utterly frightening. And he makes a great counterweight to Jason. You get the feeling that if Jason spends too much time on the island he could end up like Vaas.

I've never seen the psychological consequence of battle shown in this light on screen, in games, TV, or film, like this before, and it comes shockingly close to the reality of it. A little part of you does like it, and Jason shows that part. A little part of you can't believe what you've done, and Jason has those moments of panic as well.

If you don't want to play the game or aren't willing to spend $60 for a good movie, watch some Let's Plays on YouTube. It makes for a great movie night.

I'm an old man who's new to video gaming. I wanted to see what the state of the art and all the hype is about. It ends up that I purchase 3 or 4 games for every one that I truly enjoy. I have abandoned many very popular, highly-rated games after less than an hour of play.

The Very Good: The main story is set in the present. That means: no stretches into unrealistic Sci-Fi worlds. I can enjoy Sci-Fi games, Deus Ex Human Revolution is one example, but the interminable popularity of the "Star Wars" series seems to dictate that we must endure comically-voiced robots in every futuristic game. Please.

With a very good story and superb voice acting, this game comes the closest I've found to dramatic realism -- like a good movie -- only interactive. It's still a "first person, shoot 'em up" game and requires a very high level of suspension of disbelief -- more than I would like and greater than most cinema requires -- but this is getting closer to a quality of dramatic storytelling in a game.

There exist fewer gaming clichés here. Gamers seem to hold past clichés as icons, dearly, with expectation, and here I think the developers felt a need to satisfy expectations. Fantasy/Sci-Fi seems the rule in gaming. However the very good aspects of this game demonstrate that the writers/developers were not limited by imagination or expertise. BTW, when I say the voice acting is superb I really do mean superb, at least in the main story line and among the primary and most supporting characters. Allow me repeat: Superb.

The Mediocre: The original, incidental music is mostly percussion and synth, is often repetitive and droning and is just fair overall. The licensed songs (real pre-existing songs used in the game) are generally better. That licensed music plays over certain quests or sequences and whenever you are driving a vehicle. The game takes place on a tropical island and so the licensed music gave a very good sense of location. In that vein however, I, for one, kept wanting to hear "Israelites," the 1968 Top 40 reggae hit by Desmond Dekker. One particular licensed song that makes its way into the game is a truly inspired placement though.

The Bad: For such a good game, the thought put into the side quests seems lazy, like an afterthought. Even the superb voice acting is diminished in the side quests, as though the main quest and the side quests were written by different teams or were hurried. I know, the development time and budget would have cost xx% more to integrate them more closely and realistically into the main quest. Even among all the video games I truly enjoy the lazy side quests are always apparent and sadly there is little exception here.

With that said, there is an ongoing public debate concerning "can a video game be art?" It is these things like the worn-out clichés and poor integration of side quests that will continue to make the skeptics say "No." I very much want that answer to deserve to be "yes." Soon graphics technology will advance to permit a true confluence of games and movies allowing a new and true interactive cinema. Will the game writers and developers be up to the story task? Based on the evidence so far the answer is "no" but Far Cry 3 is as good as it gets. The best motion pictures, throughout the history of cinema for example, never compromised at all but video games compromise too easily and too frequently. That is the difference between games and art and is something I wish game producers would learn.

The Bugs: Even on my 4 core, 16GB, Win7x64 PC with 1GB graphics there exist too many bugs and glitches to list. Outright crashes occur occasionally. Numerous glitches occur that require a restart from the beginning of a quest or at the most recent checkpoint. The system of one saving one's own progress is the worst I have yet encountered, nonsensical, nonexistent. The game auto saves checkpoints well enough and the game is enjoyable enough so that, although annoying, I can dismiss them. It's worth it.

Perversion: so, so many video games, especially FPSs are violent but I have trouble gauging whether the more perverse aspects of Far Cry 3 are gratuitous or not. For the most part they advance the story and create a heightened sense of dread so I'm inclined to say 'no' but this is very definitely adult material. I was somewhat taken aback at a few points and so I felt it is worth mentioning: Adult Material.

Conclusion: The cliché-ridden "Half-Life 2" is often held up as the contemporary milestone in good game development. Yes it is almost a decade older and the technological eras they were created in are vastly different but Far Cry 3 leaves Half Life and most all other games in the dust on the basis of story and voice acting alone.

As of this writing Far Cry 3 as a whole is the state-of-the-art, the best of the best. Given the long time period the Valve company has been taking in the development of Half-life 3, one holds hope for it to be another new milestone, if only Valve can escape its C3PO/R2D2 mentality to somehow find a mature story. Fingers crossed.

Far Cry 3 is an amazing open-world FPS.

Pros:

• A good story with an incredible main character and villain.
• Great open world filled with side missions and other things to do.
• A nice upgrade system that makes the gameplay more dynamic
• The guns are excellent. They sound great and are a blast to use.
• Vehicles are fun, but a little awkward to control at first.
• Good crafting system.
• Some good side characters.

Cons:

• Some of the side missions are repetitive.
• Most of the side characters aren't that great.

In conclusion, Far Cry 3 is incredible. It's one of the best open world games I've played in a while.