Far Cry 3 is an open world first person shooter developed by Ubisoft and set on an unknown tropical island in Southeast Asia. It features Jason Brody, a young man who went partying with his friends and 2 brothers in Bangkok, and his journey from naive party animal to a warrior seeking revenge on those who harmed his family. Everything was going well on vacation until the group decided to skydive onto this unknown nearby tropical island and were violently kidnapped by pirates to be held for ransom and then sold into slavery. After seeing how psychotic the leader of the pirates was, Grant Brody, Jason’s older brother and an army reservist, decides they have to escape and while doing so is shot and killed right in front of Jason. The leader, Vaas, decides to play a game with Jason and allow him to make a run for it. He tells Jason that if he’s able to escape with the head start being given to him he’s allowed to have his freedom, but if he does the jungle will kill him any way. Jason is able to escape into the jungle and presumed dead from a fall but was saved by Dennis Rogers, a Rakyat warrior who promises Jason that he can show him the ways to become a warrior and acquire the strength to defeat the pirates and rescue his friends. Can you learn the ways of the Rakyat as Jason Brody and rescue your remaining friends and escape the island?

GAMEPLAY

Far Cry 3 starts off with a tutorial in the form of trying to escape from the pirate camp. It’s relatively brief and even though the game is open world, this sequence isn’t. This sequence highlights some of the stealth elements and how to distract guards using (an unlimited supply) of rocks directly built into the controls. Yes, instead of looking for an item to throw you can throw a rock with the push of a button. This highlighted the AI of the enemies briefly and how responsive they can be to different activities. Once the entire sequence plays out including the rescue by Dennis, you’re given immediate access to the entire open-world environment in this game. It’s a good thing because Far Cry 3 is a really beautiful game and the environment has alot of detail and since the game is just starting, you’re limited in what you have access to in terms of certain activities and weapons. One of the first things you have to do is climb a radio tower to disable it, which results in a portion of the map being revealed and a new free weapon available in all shops (and this occurs every time you disable a radio tower). However I felt the open-world environment didn’t truly promote exploring and as a result influenced my initial view of the game being uneventful after a few missions. First, the map isn’t revealed by just exploring areas so you can travel in different areas but none of it is recorded on the map unless you disabled the radio tower in the area. The second issue is the lack of interaction with other NPCs, or random encounters, made the available activities outside of the main quest feel lifeless. This was my initial view until I started focusing on just the main quests to advance the game and then the open world environment truly started to shine in the context of the story line.

Beautiful environment

Far Cry 3 takes a very interesting stance in terms of game play and its mantra is, if you want something in the game you have to go out and craft it yourself. You want a medkit? Well make one. Want to be able to carry more weapons or loot? Well make a new holster or rucksack. This is done by harvesting plants or animal skins in the open-world environment for the correct ingredients and then crafting the desired upgrade. This is consistent with the survival aspect of the story line. There are five different plant types identified by their color: Green for health items, blue for exploration boosts, red for combat boosts, yellow for hunting boosts and white for special effects. All effects are temporary except for the ones from the green plants because that heals your health. You can only carry a certain amount unless you keep upgrading your kit through collecting animal parts. Good thing the ecological system in this game is very much alive. There are numerous animal species and they all go about their regular activities and it’s possible to watch them and their behavior. It’s not rare to see dingoes or a pack of rabid dogs attacking something, a bear attacking a deer, or any animal in the sea going about its business. Obviously you would have to travel to different areas to see different species and crafting an item usually takes 2-4 dingo pelts, for example, with the later upgrades requiring pelts from more difficult animals or from a specific sidequest. And yes certain animals will attack you or flee from you naturally (you can use crafted syringes to modify this) and they will also attack any enemies in the area. So it’s also possible to stumble on a group of pirates fighting a pack of dingoes, a komodo dragon or any other predator in the area. And you can even use that to your advantage if there’s a trapped animal in a location you have to infiltrate. You can shoot the cage from a distance freeing the animal and watch the ensuing mayhem. I was able to do this when I was trapped in one gunbattle and not only did it turn the tide of the battle but was a lot of fun to watch too.

Speaking of enemies you do have to face a variety of them besides the pirate leader Vaas, who is a very believable antagonist and not even the worst on the island. If you played Far Cry 2 then you already know that you can encounter enemies throughout the open world environment and some travel on foot, cars and trucks, or boats. And if they see you they will engage you immediately. One much-needed improvement here is there’s no endless respawning of enemies in the same location every time you pass and if you unlock safe houses you’ll have Rakyat members assume the post and patrol the area instead. Even if you’re traveling using one of the various modes of transportation you’ll still be spotted and pursued. And the various patrols communicate so in some cases one group could notify another in the direction you’re heading so to put it simply, the enemy AI is pretty good. Thankfully the gun play is extremely solid and you have a slew of weapons at your disposal. You can carry a max of 4 different weapons plus explosives to be able to handle yourself in any situation. And that’s not all. Since you’re learning the ways of the Rakyat you have a tattoo that is representative of the particular upgrades you select once you level up to make Jason more capable in combat. The tattoo is divided into 3 main parts: A Shark for assault takedowns, a spider for stealth takedowns and a Heron for long-range takedowns. And you can see the actual changes to the tattoo on his arm during gameplay. And it’s all necessary because you cannot just run into battle with guns blazing because not only do you have limited health but you will be overwhelmed from all angles. So the various combat upgrades or sliding moves can make missions go alot smoother. You also have a camera you can use from long distance to mark and identify the different enemy types (heavy, assault, sniper, etc) and as a result plan on how to infiltrate a specific camp, for example. Stealth takedowns can be key because once you’re spotted the enemies make a run for the alarm so it’s best to disable the alarm system first…unless you actually want a raging gun battle.

This all sounds good but it’s executed even better than it sounds. However it’s possible to not know how enjoyable and intense this game gets due to the initial perception of the lack of excitement in the open world environment. And the story of having to rescue your captured friends and the portrayal of Jason improved drastically once other characters and storylines were introduced. For example, Citra, the leader of the Rakyat sends Jason on missions that are far more entertaining than the initial missions. And the story becomes more twisted as the history of the factions on the island is slightly revealed as well as the activities Jason and his friends got involved in before skydiving onto the island. Basically, the main missions and the advancement of the story are so much better than the side activities available. You have to explore tombs on some missions or in the case of one mission, use a flamethrower to burn the drug fields to provoke the pirates down the line. (Yes drugs are a heavy influence in this game from the syringes used to some of the “rituals” to help Jason become more of a warrior and he experiences hallucinations often during these rituals or flashbacks) Or another mission that’s completely stealth and you can’t be spotted once or you fail. The variety was very enjoyable and the game really shined during these missions. You can travel by land, sea or air (using hang gliders) to get to the different starting points for the main missions or you can fast travel to a location nearby and go from there. I found driving in cars or trucks to be more difficult than it should’ve been solely for the reason that the viewing angle in the car is so far to the left it just feels off and makes it harder to see the road when driving at higher speeds. So I was able to appreciate the open world more on foot. However later in the game you do get a jump suit you can use at any time and nothing was better than that. To be able to take a short cut when trying to escape from an area while avoiding enemy fire by jumping off a cliff and gliding at a high-speed is exhilarating to say the least. The story unfolds at the perfect pace and has enough twist and turns to be very satisfying.

CO-OP AND MULTIPLAYER

The co-op mode is a separate story with four different characters and takes place 6 months prior to the story in the main campaign and has its own cutscenes. It’s about 4 characters searching for redemption and working on a cruise ship until they’re swindled out of all they had by the captain and the pirates. So naturally they go after the pirates on Rook Island and try to disrupt their activities and reclaim what belonged to them. There are 6 missions and players can jump in and out at any point. This was pretty fun and there are friendly competitions in each area to see who can get the most points, headshots, etc. It doesn’t take long to complete all of them as it took a few hours but the replay value is pretty high.

The XP earned and loadouts are directly connected to the multiplayer mode and for some reason it was surprisingly well done to me. There are the expected match types but the maps are very well-designed with zip lines and strategic points for all player types. If you don’t like the maps you can design your own with the map editor but I had no problems with the maps. You can be revived one time without contributing to the opposing teams points. If you played any multiplayer mode then customizing your loadouts won’t be an issue as there’s the standard primary and secondary weapons, equipment, skills (weapon, hunter and support) but there’s also a battle cry. It’s a temporary boost that you can use that effects your teammates. So for example, you could help your teammates regenerate their health faster or be able to focus their aim better. It’s a great touch because if everyone on the team uses a battle cry around the same time it can definitely turn a match around. And you can also customize final moves. This is for the winning team and if you’re the leader there’s a cutscene of you and the other top 2 players talking trash to a captured member of the opposing team. You can either select a punishing move as part of the loadout or a mercy move and when you win this is what is shown. So if you enjoy trash talking after a match you’ll enjoy this.

There’s also a form of research referred to as Decoders. You acquire different items as you play such as flashdrives and when the match is over you can decode these items to get weapon mods or more xp. The time to decode varies depending on the item.

SUMMARY

Far Cry 3 is an exceptional open-world first person shooter and gets so many things right in terms of story and game play. Once you get past (or avoid) the perception of lack of activity in the open-world environment you can truly appreciate the beauty, depth and excitement of this game. The characters you encounter during the game and some of their activities are memorable. The action is extremely solid and the survivalist aspects of the game work very well. I did feel the excitement of discovery was lessened but once the game progresses and you get access to more things you can enjoy the environment in so many new ways. The multiplayer mode is very solid and offers additional hours of enjoyment and might be one of the most underrated multiplayer modes in recent games. I highly recommend Far Cry 3 for an exciting and unique experience.