Far Cry 3
Review
Welcome to the jungle... we got fun and OMG LEOPARD ATTACK!
by Zee Salahuddin
reviewed on PC
Ridiculous Mechanics
The central theme of this iteration of the Far Cry series seems to be forgoing logic in the interest of having fun. When all is said and done, I am glad they opted for this route, because ridiculous mechanics notwithstanding, the game is a lot of fun to play. Perhaps the most outstanding of these is Brody's metamorphosis from a bratty rich kid into a lean, mean killing machine. It makes no sense, but it sure is fun. Brody can skin all kinds of wild animals, shoot any type of weapon placed in his hands, dish out death in a flurry of dazzling killer combos and handle vehicles better than Evel Knievel. There is no discernible explanation for how he gains these remarkable abilities, but, honestly, that question will just unnecessarily distract you from the fun stuff. For example, punching that shark right in the face.
You can also use your camera to tag enemies and once tagged, they show through walls, effectively giving you the ability to wall-hack on the fly. It may sound illogical, but in practice it is a lot of fun, and patiently tagging all enemies in an area results in methodical control of the situation. Another example is skinning and foraging, which help you craft useful supplies and items. Incredibly, it seems no one on the island has invented the concept of bags, as the only way for you to upgrade your inventory is by crafting new containers out of the skins of animals. Even then, why do I have to hunt something else to craft a larger container? Why can I not patch together the skins of several smaller animals? These are silly questions. Just accept the fact that the premise, however ridiculous, is sound. And then just have fun with it!
Ridiculous Leveling
There is a level-based progression system complete with three skill trees. You earn points for just about any activity in the game, but the emphasis seems to be on planning and patience rather than outright violence. As an example, in outpost capture missions if you ignore the alarm and kill everything in the camp along with any reinforcements that arrive, you get 500 experience points. However, if you eliminate the camp without raising the alarm and ever being spotted, you gain 1,500, triple the previous amount. Therefore, investing the time to plan your strategy and clinically executing it is valued far above reckless firefights and number of enemies disposed of.
The Heron skill tree favors mobility and taking out the enemy from a distance, the Spider tree helps with stealthy take-downs and endurance, whereas the Shark tree helps with assault take-downs and healing. For example, in Heron, you can invest points in your skill to cook grenades to precisely time blasts, ability to run faster or reduce fall damage. In Spider, you can move faster while stalking the enemy, reload while sprinting, and harvest more efficiently. In Shark, you can heal naturally without medicine, chain your take-downs, or kill an enemy by activating his grenade before pushing him away. Investing in any tree is visually indicated by tribal tattoos on your arms, which is a cool visual tally of your progression.
In open-world games that feature skill trees, the traditional thing to do is to starve the player for points. You constantly have to manage where to put your points, as going too deep in one tree implies you can barely invest in another. This is a problem because once you are committed to a certain type of play style, your choice of approaching a situation is increasingly dictated by the tree you have invested in. Far Cry 3, in an unprecedented move that ought to be lauded by critics, allows you to level all three trees to the fullest, granted you are willing to invest a lot of time into the game. This effectively implies that even if you tend to favor one play style, you can call upon a much wider array of abilities to deal with a dynamically unfolding situation. Ridiculous.
Ridiculous: Graphics, Sound and Performance
Far Cry 3 looks like a tropical paradise populated by eccentric and driven characters, peppered with lush landscapes, sandy beaches and dense jungles, and given a sense of wonder by ancient ruins, wrecked ships, and tribal settlements. The game is gorgeous, an incredible feat of visual splendor that frequently grabs you by the collar and uses its Medusa gaze to enchant you. The jungle is alive with the sounds of the two dozen or so beasts that populate it: buffaloes and leopards, tigers and turtles, sharks and jellyfish. The settlements are filled with the crackle of bonfires, ritualistic music, radio chatter, and the creaking of towers as you carefully clamber up their precarious joints.
Even on my mediocre hardware I never dipped below 32-35 frames per second and the game was able to render everything without sacrificing too many graphical tweaks. Very rarely and in moments of intense, visually rich gunfights would the frame rate dip, and even then the lowest I saw was at 23. The game is also very stable: it never once crashed or presented me with any major, distracting bugs.
Bottomline
As a fan of inventive storytelling and immersion, the best compliment I can afford Far Cry 3 is that despite coming up short on both accounts, it is a remarkable achievement in contemporary video gaming, one that no serious gamer can choose to skip out on. Far Cry 3 may be late in the race, but it is a very serious contender for the game of the year. Welcome to the jungle.
8.9
fun score
Pros
Lush visuals, truly open-ended gameplay, no skill point starvation, a plethora of activities and missions to engage in, emergent gameplay, cool skill-tree, outpost captures are awesome
Cons
Illogical at times, story starts strong but stagnates quickly, infrequently quirky AI
