Far Cry 3

The game is amazing. Exploring the world and taking down the enemies in their outposts is fun. The character Vaas is an excellent villain. The story is good. You feel the insanity of everything going on throughout the game. There are plenty of action sequences that are spectacular. You feel how brutal the world of the game is. The way the game looks is beautiful. The graphics are awesome. This is one of my all time favourite games. I recommend it. Far Cry 3 is a wild ride.

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.

"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?"

This game was sitting in my HDD for a long LONG time, finally got around to playing it. And I friggin loved it.

Far Cry 3 is an immense open world/sandbox style FPS game taking place in a tropical island. The premise is that a group of friends, while on vacation, are kidnapped on this island by pirates. The protagonist, Jason, gets free of their hold and now must try to save them all.

The story didn't interest me at first. Just felt like something tacked on to get you into the island and explore stuff. But after a while, it picked up the pace and got good. At one side, you had this quest to rescue your friends while on the other, you were fighting a psychological battle. In both ways, there was this satisfying presence of evolution and the more you played, the more apparent it became and more development the protagonist got.

The friends remained uninteresting throughout though. Would have liked it a lot if they got better development because we ARE trying to save them after all, more motivation would have been nice. It was the other side characters that help you along the way that made the story interesting. Most of them had great voice acting. Also, the villain(s) were great. I'll admit that I was disappointed in seeing that Vaas didn't had that many scenes in the game considering he was advertised like hell throughout. But whenever he appeared, he owned the scene.

Now, the island was VAST. And really dense. There was tons and tons of stuff to do around every corner. It felt really alive as well. Every where you go, you would encounter different animals going about their business. Predators hunting their preys. Pirates patrolling here and there, often fighting with the locals or other animals. This all made exploring the island a lot more fun. The side quests do get boring after a while though. It was all just, kill that pirate, hunt that animal, deliver those goods etc.

Doing missions and fighting enemies gave you experience points, which were used for upgrading your skills and making you a more proficient killing machine. You could craft syringes for various temporary boosts and for health since the game featured health bars. Different pouches could be upgraded to hold more items, ammo, etc via hunting and collecting various animal's skins. This I really liked and it compelled me to hunt A LOT early on since I found it annoying having less items on me. Also, in Ubisoft's fashion, you have to remove jammers from radio towers to unveil the map and unlock more items at the shop. And pirates controlled territories could be cleared to make places safer, which also acted as fast travel points.

Great thing about this game was that you had mostly full freedom to deal with enemies. Some times I used stealth, sometimes natural elements, sometimes I just rushed it guns blazing. Always kept experimenting with different stuff. One really annoying thing though was that enemy A.I kept firing at me even if there is a smoke/fire in between and I cannot see them. This often made me to not use fire. And speaking of fire, it was pretty dynamic. Lighting one thing could very well put the whole place on fire.

There were some true breakthrough points in the game. Two of my favourites were burning weed farm while listening to 'Skrillex' and riding a chopper with 'Flight of the valkyrie' being played. Truly awesome moments.

Graphically, the game looked good and surely had its moments. Tropical setting made for some awesome sightings. The draw distance wasn't too shabby either. Climbing a tower and just looking around always felt mesmerizing.

Soundtrack was great. It varied a lot too. Somber, sad and/or personal scenes had beautiful similar score while fighting/action scenes had fast paced adrenaline pumping music.

A great open world FPS experience. Had a lot of fun with it. Definitely a must for ever gamer.

8.8/10

An amazing game, featuring stunning visuals and game play.. Far Cry 3 is an exceptional FPS with fun mechanics and excellent characterization.. The freedom and power is intoxicating.. A new standard for the genre.. In Far Cry 3, you find yourself stranded on a tropical island, a lawless place ruled by piracy and human misery. You dictate how the story unfolds, from the battles you choose to fight down to the allies or enemies you make along the way. There are 18 radio towers to scale as you make your way through the game, each of which highlights new objectives on your map and opens up new weapons to buy at local shops, and each tower is a unique first-person climbing challenge - a peaceful ascent through a creaking spiral of steel that's fraying at the edges, revealing beautiful panoramic views before sending you back down to earth on a thrilling zip line .