I just finished it last night, and I don’t think I’m overstating the case when I say it might well be my favourite game of all time (positions 2 and 3 in that list go to Crysis and Far Cry 1, so maybe it’s not a huge shock). Probably the first game I’ve ever played where I genuinely cared what happened to the characters.
Anyone else playing it?
I did, but didn’t finish it - the second island disagreed with me. Not only is the Big Bad much less interesting a character than Vaas was, but the enemies become much too perceptive/aggressive/ninja, enough that it becomes not much fun. Many more Heavies, too, and those fuckers are the bane of every damn game. Plus the land itself is much more tamed and bland, there are no random casoars taking bases over for you and shit. The fun was gone at that point, in so many words.
I did love most of the characters though, and I appreciate what the writer was going for (even though he *is *an insufferable, self-important prick). I did kinda dislike the “white man’s burden” feel of it all and how the Rakyat are characterized in general, but in retrospect I think it can be argued a large part of it is actually them cunningly taking advantage of Jason instead of being genuinely helpless, and manipulation on whatshername’s part ; so it’s all good. I also think Jason’s transition period from scared white boy to mystical murder machine could have lasted a little longer than 20 minutes, but I understand why it didn’t (gotta appeal to the average gamer fast, frontload dat action).
I found the second island fine. The outposts were more heavily guarded, as the privateers are better organised than the pirates, but this just was balanced out by the improved weapons you could unlock (FYI, you can take out a heavy with a sniper shot to the head, once you have the most powerful sniper rifle. Alternatively, its a lot of fun setting a bear on them). Hoyt wasn’t as good as Vaas admittedly, but that’s only because Vaas was so enjoyably insane.
About the only thing I didn’t really like was the quick time events during boss fights (Quicktime events are garbage and if I ran the world, they would be banned). Fortunately, they only crop up in four or five places, so they didn’t spoil the game too much
I played and finished it. I found the mechanics of the second island to be fine and managed to get cassowary-jumped just as often as on the north island. But, yeah, the story drags a little with Hoyt after being exposed to Vaas.
The plot was fine. I mean, the premise was good but, as said, you had very quick transitions to keep it moving along. And the innate silliness of “My girlfriend is kidnapped by pirates! Gotta save her… right after I hunt this tapir. And those deer. And the mystical one-horned water buffalo…”
I kind of wish there was a mechanic by which the pirates/mercenaries would reclaim bases. Once you clear an island, there’s not really anything else to do. I realize that the game is “done” but, in an open world sort of setting, it’d be nice to see that sort of dynamic element.
I actually had the same problem with Red Dead Redemption. The plot dictates that you should get through everything as soon as possible in order to rescue the people you love, and yet you’re to hunt beaver skins.
Actually, that would be great. Also, it would be good if the pirates for sick of you taking over their bases, and started planning ambushes to take you out
I also finished it last night and liked it okay, but not as well as it seems to be received by the general populace. I found Far Cry 2, despite its repetitive gameplay, a far better “Heart of Darkness” story and better told. The basic plot of this one had potential, but I thought it fell down on a lot of levels:
[ul]
[li]Jason goes from newb to bad ass way too fast[/li][li]If this island(s) is so dangerous, why is the first place you end up a town of people sitting around partying? Why not take your friends there as it seems a lot safer?[/li][li]While Vaas was a great character and killed off too early, why does he show up as an ambush like every other mission in the first half of the game? Guy must be fucking psychic.[/li][li]Considering Vaas seemed to know everything you were up to and you know the bad guys have video of you coming to the islands, infiltrating their organization by just wearing a different uniform seems like a dumb idea.[/li][li]The big final plan is to blow up the communications satellite dish, blow up the reservoirs, and then sit down and play poker with the Big Bad Leader? Really? Can’t imagine how that could go bad.[/li][li]Various other mission irregularities that just didn’t make sense (like pretty much the whole Buck sideline).[/li][/ul]
So while I saw a lot of potential for a great narrative, what resulted was more of a trainwreck and I’m not even considering genre tropes like delaying oh-so-important rescue missions for character development side quests. I thought the writing and plot could have been a lot tighter and felt a bit let down, though I enjoyed the game enough overall.
I bought if for my daughter for Christmas (she’s a gamer - she’ll kick your as at Black-Ops too) and I watched her play it for about an hour. I was very impressed. I’m thinking of picking it up for myself.
Here’s the thing though - I liked Far Cry 2 well enough, but it got too tedious to me where every goddamned mission I was assigned I had to travel across the entire map and get into 27 firefights with random thugs on the way. Sure you could fast travel from bus depot to bus depot, but if I recall there were only like four in the whole game. It friggin’ drove me crazy.
Is there any sort of “fast-travel” type shit if *Far Cry 3 *to avoid the Bataan Death Marches just to get to what you have to do?
Yes, you can fast-travel to any outpost you have cleared of enemies and also a few mission hubs.
Here’s hoping your daughter isn’t 12 and playing violent video games.
And yes, the whole respawning bad guys and constant checkpoints made Far Cry 2 beyond tedious. This isn’t the case for Far Cry 3.
First, you can clear out an area of bad guys, and although you might encounter a random patrol here or there (easy to avoid - but why would you, it’s fan to plan ambushes!), bases are secured once captured.
Also, there is plenty of room to avoid most outposts, unlike the mostly mandatory checkpoints in Far Cry 2, and finally, there Is fast travel available as well.
Well, she’s 20 and playing violent video games … for at least the past eight years. Sorry to send you into the vapors. But thanks for the info - I just may need to drop some coin on it.
Meh, violent video games 8 years ago aren’t all that to get worked up about. pixelated textures on crude polygon models.
It’s not my business, you know your daughter best. I personally wouldn’t let my 12 year old play modern violent video games, unless I felt he understood the context well.
There’s numerous fast travel points as you clear bases but I found driving around to be pretty enjoyable sometimes. In FC2, enemy cars were tenacious and stayed glued to your ass short of you going off a cliff or ATV’ing through the dense jungle. Enemy vehicles in FC3 can be outrun or forced off bridges, etc. Seeing a jeep coming at you was more cause for excitement than exasperation that you were going to have to stop, get out, shoot two guys, etc.
Oh, I don’t know. It seems pretty common for men to get sidetracked or even getting lost in a never ending quest for beavers.
I’ve been playing FC3 for 2 weeks and find it fun but very difficult even on easy setting
I think liking a certain game is something subjective. Far Cry 3 it’s cool but I think they tried to put in too many games modes in it. You can go GTA style and roam the island doing side quests you can go COD4 style and enter a big firefight, you can fly etc.
I think it’s better if a game is specialized in something… just my opinion.
I must join the others in disagreement. The second island, while certainly less diverse environmentally and with stronger enemies, still offers me plenty of fun. I haven’t finished yet - I’m dragging it out as much as possible. Gotta finish the Tatau, right?
In fact, one of my favourite moments happened while I was scouting an outpost before taking everyone down. Hidden in the bushes waiting for the sniper to turn around in his tower, I notice three dingos start stalking up the stairs towards him. Sure enough, they kill the sniper and get everyone else riled up. They actually managed to take out a regular trooper and a heavy before getting mowed down. Made my job that much easier.
I’m close to finishing this game now. I’ve been milking it by doing all of the blue tasks before doing the last two (I’m assuming) big tasks.
One problem I’ve had with this game is the saving feature. I’ve had it suddenly lose large chunks of progress. At one point, I just started from scratch, but I had that a couple times afterwards too.
I ended up getting a secondary entertainment source playing concurrently. Unless there’s dialogue, I’ve got the sound turned off of the TV and I’ve been watching all of the episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” on Netflix. I dunno why, but I love grinding out the little missions but it’s boring to me if that’s the only thing going on, especially if this is the 2nd time I’ve done it.
I found the saving pretty good personally. It seems to save when ever you start a new task, so if you end up dead, you don’t have to traipse all the way across the map again.
I was running out of things to do, but I found a hack (for the PC version) that lets you reset all the outposts on the map…
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/739422-MOD-Enemy-retake-the-Islands-experimental!
Seems to work fine, if anyone is interested
I’ll have to check into that outpost hack. I’d been milking a few outposts I left on the south island just for the fun of messing with the enemy but being able to revisit up north would be nice.
There’s a DLC bundle out now to give you all the perks of the deluxe version and which includes “six single player missions” but I can’t speak for what they are or if it’s any good.