Far Cry 3 Review 

  

I am generally not one to move around virtual worlds indiscriminately killing animals as they harmlessly trot around, unless they provoke me, I generally let them be. And so it was. As I levelled my shotgun at his large Goaty head, he looked at me with his big sad Goaty eyes and bleated, probably his last bleat. My mind wanders in situations like this, they say that the eyes are the window to the soul. Were he to look into mine, would he see a monster, a creature without any moral sense of right or wrong – Is this what I have become? After endlessly slaying pixelated enemies, did I have any compassion left?, any dignity? I shot him in the face anyway, after all I needed his skin to create a bigger weapon holster. Welcome to Far Cry 3.
Far Cry 3, a huge open world first person shooter by Ubisoft, begins when a groups of friend’s vacation to a tropical island goes horribly wrong. Landing on the Pirate infested island after a skydiving trip, you Jason Brody, will start up in a bamboo cage with your brother while the Pirate leader Vaas watches your video on the stolen mobile, no doubt plotting to do unspeakable things to your bottom while asking you to squeal like a piggy. Luckily, with help from your older brother, you break out and eventually escape the camp, your brother is shot during the breakout, you manage to get away and so the game really begins.
Essentially you start off on quests to rescue your captured friends as you change from a terrified tourist into a gun toting killer, all the while building up a series of tattoos as you learn more skills. The game progresses as you slowly distance yourself from your friends, but using guns, grenades, machetes, and several drug induced hallucinations, the game becomes about killing the antagonist Vaas, the pirate who captured you and Hoyte, leader of the privateers in the southern island (that will be unlocked as you work your way through the quests). As with other Ubisoft games, large portions of the map start blurred and detail is not shown until Radio towers are found and activated.
During the game, you earn experience points which can be used to learn a number of different skills such as increasing health and enemy takedowns you will also be able to increase the weapons, ammo and money you can carry by hunting animals, skinning them, then crafting items, such as ammo pouches. Plants can also be collected and drugs created that heal, assist in hunting, combat and so on as you learn more. The variety of Weapons is more than adequate and with each weapon you can customise it by buying suppressors, extended ammo clips and scopes.
The islands are vast, really vast and transport is provided with a series and assortment of vehicles scattered throughout, though fast travel to locations is provided as you capture and unlock enemies camps.
Altogether there are a rather generous 38 missions to complete, plus numerous side quests and a number of collectables including relics which are small statues, letters of the lost which are remnants of a Japanese occupation during WWII and memory cards which provide information about the local drug trade. Good luck in collecting all of these.
Downsides to the game, and call me petty, but there will always be some. Once again in a game, save points are a bit of a pain, you cannot save while in the middle of a mission but rely on checkpoints, and any restore forces you back to the nearest Radio tower or camp, which can be frustrating. There is a definite lack of blood and limb detachment during combat, it would be nice to see some arterial spurting and broken bodies with the odd leg or arm blown or shot off and if you like that sort of thing, you won’t find any level bosses, personally I hate level bosses so no problem there for me. The above said, Far Cry 3 is graphically superior, smooth and almost entirely without bugs, there really is very little to its detriment and I would have very little hesitation to recommend this game.