[Aptorian]

EDIT: Was the Far Cry 3 thread, now changed to a series thread.

While there has certainly been a lot of promotion and optimistic gossiping going on about this game. Early reviews of the game are surprisingly positive. Like, this could be a game of the year sleeper hit in the making.

Eurogamer 10/10:

http://www.eurogamer...ar-cry-3-review

Rock-Paper-Shotgun: Wot I think

http://www.rockpaper...-single-player/

PC Gamer (89/100):

http://www.pcgamer.c...r-cry-3-review/

--------

I both loved and loathed Far Cry 2. It was a great open world experience, very pretty and the shooting was fun but there was so many other things wrong with the game. This time around it sounds like they've fixed all the bad and amped up all the good. An open world FPS game that is innovative and challenging? Well, I'm giddy with excitement.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 27 March 2018 - 07:24 PM

[BlackMoranthofDoom]

I can't wait for this game. Far Cry 2 was a hit and miss to me, but this one seems to rectify most of the issues I had with the game (re spawning enemies at checkpoints, malaria...). The hunting especially looks very engaging with the various wildlife.

[Illuyankas]

I'll be cool with it as long as it still contains DEADLY AFRICANIZED WATER

[Aptorian]

The deadly Africanized water returns in a new form in Far cry 3 as demonstrated by Total Biscuit . (Jump to 21.05 in the video for a great moment in video gaming)



In fact watch the whole thing, it's great. I don't agree with his desire for more STALKER'ish gameplay but I think his view of the game is spot on. The is a Skyrim type game with guns and amazing character development.

I seriously cannot wait to play this game. If the people who always bitch about brown and derivative FPS gameplay and boring linear military shooters don't go out and support this game they officially lose the right to ever express their opinion about a video game ever again.

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 28 November 2012 - 06:14 PM

[Avatar]

Quote

While there has certainly been a lot of promotion and optimistic gossiping going on about this game. Early reviews of the game are surprisingly positive. Like, this could be a game of the year sleeper hit in the making.

My idea as well. For now, it looks like a great mixture of sandboxy fps, nice story elements and cool, trippy atmosphere. I think this game will be a winner.

[MTS]

I decided that I would wait until the Steam Christmas Sale to see if I could maybe get it a bit cheaper, but after watching that I'm struggling to not buy it immediately, it looks amazing.

[Aptorian]

Buy it via Greenman gaming and you can get it 25% off.

[MTS]

Noo, don't say that...

[Kanubis]

Oh dear, my poor ageing PC hits minimum requirements but falls just short of recommended... in the past I've always treated recommended as the 'real' minimum.

To chance it or not...

[MTS]

Ok so I caved, and I played it for a good six hours tonight.

It's awesome. At this point I would say it's definitely worth buying, as it's just crazy fun. All the bad stuff from Far Cry 2 is pretty much gone - you can actually play a stealthy character, and yet the AI seems fairly intelligent on what's supposed to be 'Normal' mode, making remaining undetected not difficult but at least a challenge. You also get a lot more experience in side missions for doing it as well, which is nice. From what I can gather so far there actually seems to be a compelling and engaging story as well, and there are stories attached to each of the side missions too, making me care much more about what's happening. They've fixed the issue of travel as well, where you're not traveling for ten minutes through scrub to get to a mission and getting ambushed every five metres by patrols. Travel is easy and more importantly it's fun, largely because the environment is so gorgeous. I'm glad I got a decent computer for this, because the graphics are just amazing. Nothing quite like watching a tiger kill a goat and then casually maul you to death in DX11.

It does do this annoying thing however where black squares randomly pop up and obscure my view, and for some reason sometimes I'm constantly surrounded by about five metres of shadow even when I'm standing in the middle of a field with nothing around me. It's also crashed a few times, so I'm hoping those get fixed in a patch. There was a day 1 patch but I'm not sure Steam or UPlay actually ever downloaded it, and I can't seem to find any way to update the game through either client, but anyway.

Reviewers keep referring to this game as 'Skyrim with guns', but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I'd probably say it's more of a less-ridiculous version of Just Cause 2 with slight RPG elements and the wildlife mechanics of Red Dead Redemption. In any case, this game is awesome, definitely a contender for game of the year.

This post has been edited by MTS: 30 November 2012 - 06:10 PM

[Traveller]

Crap, every time I think I've decided on a game for Christmas, a new one comes out that looks even better.

I haven't played the previous games, but the reveiews that I've seen so far look pretty enthusiastic about this.

[Aptorian]

Story time.

So, I'm on my way to liberate an enemy stronghold. I'm making my way through jungle terrain, keeping an eye on the mini-map not really paying attention because ever since I abandoned my vehicle (which got damaged in a fire-fight, that's another story) I have been hounded by packs of dingo's.

I crest what I think is the top of a hill and suddenly find myself falling over the side. I'm thinking, fuck, I am going to take fall damage and the dingo's will finish me off. Then I realise I didn't stumble down a hillside. I fell down a hole. Into a massive cave. I'm free falling for what feels like a minute, must have fallen at least a hundred meters. I splash into a small lake and find myself surrounded by insurmountable cliffs on every side. It's getting dark and I have no idea where I am. Fuck. So I swim around a bit and find some scaffolding that I climb to find a bunch of dead villagers lying scattered outside a temple entrance.

Inside the temple I find a Relic and 5 chests. Sweeeet. From the temple a make-shift gangway leads to the cave exit. And that's when I realise I have made a short-cut and have somehow managed to get myself into the pirate stronghold with out being seen. And to my left is cage with a big angry bear! I shoot an arrow at the cage and high-tail it back into the cave, anticipating the terrified screams of my enemy. And sure enough gunfire erupts. Then out of fucking no where a pit bull flanks me and starts tearing chunks out of me and he brought a friend with him. So, I am circle strafing these two dogs and then I run into the fucking bear! Fuuuck me. And then fortune strikes. All of us are standing right next to a oil drum. So I point my gun at the barrel and pull the trigger, get blasted off my feet and I'm seconds from dying and I get the "stronghold captured" message. Victory! Fucking awesome.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 19 March 2018 - 01:28 PM

[MTS]

I finished this game tonight. Wow, what an ending. The story really made this game come alive. Games like Skyrim, Just Cause 2, even the Assassin's Creed games, while crafting beautiful, expansive worlds that are immersive as all hell, often fail to connect on the story front, and so really just leave me cold. Then they're just pretty sandboxes that I play in for a while. I don't understand how people could put 100+ hours into something like Skyrim - I really couldn't have cared about half of the stuff that happened. Oh, there were some awesome, awesome quests, and the lore is fantastic, but they were generally anomalous rather than the norm, and what I felt they should have focused on - the civil war and the diplomatic pressure with the Thalmor - was sidelined by all that boring dragon shit. Mind you, the gameplay was great, but it wasn't enough to be a game where I didn't just complete it and move on, and I doubt I'll ever go back to it (maybe I will before the next game).

Far Cry on the other hand, while the whole revenge arc was a bit trite, I ended up being really invested in the story, and so actually cared what happened. Vaas was a fucking fantastic villain, one of the best video game villains I've seen in quite a while. The bit where he's talking about the definition of insanity was just a perfect piece of writing. As such I felt Hoyt was a bit of a letdown, but oh well, his sections were at least entertaining because of Sam. I had a bit of a double take when you first meet Willis, as he's voiced by the same guy who voiced The Jackal in Far Cry 2 (also a fantastic character) and thought The Jackal had relocated to Rook Island.

Also, the parts where

Spoiler

You kill Vaas and Hoyt I felt were not the greatest parts of the story, as they were just so unbelievable. I mean, Vaas plants a machete in your chest, and then you fight him with what seems absolutely no handicap and win, all while under some bizarre acid trip. Similarly, at the poker game with Hoyt, Sam got a machete in the neck, you just got your left ring finger cut off and then it goes into a trippy sequence where Hoyt for some reason fights you rather than just stabs the shit out of you. Then you come to and there's blood all over the room and five dead guards with P416s litter the room. When the fuck did that happen, and how did Jason not get riddled with bullets the second he stabbed Hoyt? For a game that's so focused on immersing you in the world, those parts really took me out of the game.

I really liked the tatau concept in this game though, filling it as you gained certain skills was a really good indicator of progress and a visual reminder of how much Jason is changing with every tattoo he gets. Also it looks fucking badass when it's complete.

I'm a little disappointed they did away with the hand-held map and the manual fixing of cars, now you just have the regular menu map and the magic repair tool, which I felt weren't as cool. I also wish you weren't able to see enemies through walls once you tag them, it made the game way too easy (although hopefully they removed that feature on 'Hard' mode).

Anyway, one might say the side-quest stuff is horribly repetitive, like the relics and Lost Letters, but I never found that to be the case, probably because I never focused on doing each type of quest all at once, I kinda did everything as it came, which gave a nice variation in the gameplay I thought. My favourite part of the game was liberating outposts and doing the Wanted: Dead quests. Doing everything undetected turned out to be fairly easy - just get a sniper rifle with a sound suppressor and scope and you can snipe them from 100+ metres away without them ever knowing you're there. That was boring though, so most of the game I tried to get up close and personal, and only used the bow and arrow and my knife (easily my favourite weapons in the game). Made staying undetected much more of a challenge, and I tried not to let the animals loose, as they'd leave nobody for me. Makes for some awesome moments in the game - I remember one time doing a Wanted: Dead quest in a Japanese bunker. All the guards (five in all) were protecting the outside from the front, while my target was in the bunker itself. I snuck around the back of the bunker, dropped into a side room from a hole in the roof, waited until he waltzed out to the entrance, creeped up behind him, stabbed him in the back, then took out his pistol and shot all five of his guards in the back before the knew what was happening. Badass.

[MTS]

Also, this game has made me want to play Far Cry 2 again.

[Trull's son]

Finished the game a few hours ago. MTS sums it up nicely. The ends were really awesome. An awesome FPS with an excellent story, atmosphere, memorable characters, and action. Can't remember the last time I've had this much fun playing what seems like a polished and well rounded piece of art. Showing, rather than telling, made this game for me.

[Mentalist]

Aptorius, on 28 November 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

The deadly Africanized water returns in a new form in Far cry 3 as demonstrated by Total Biscuit . (Jump to 21.05 in the video for a great moment in video gaming)



In fact watch the whole thing, it's great. I don't agree with his desire for more STALKER'ish gameplay but I think his view of the game is spot on. The is a Skyrim type game with guns and amazing character development.

I seriously cannot wait to play this game. If the people who always bitch about brown and derivative FPS gameplay and boring linear military shooters don't go out and support this game they officially lose the right to ever express their opinion about a video game ever again.

There ALWAYS needs to be more S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-like gameplay. it`s the law.

This, however, seems to encapsulate a number of things S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (and its`Deep Silver cousins, Boiling Point and Precursors) have aspired to get right--namely, a world to explore that exists without you. The animal AI Ubisoft concocted is the closest we`ve got to the AI LIFE system from GSC.

I fully agree that it would probably be better if the player DID suck with guns at first--the very reason S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was so compelling is precisely because of those early levels where encountering 3-5 bandits means a deadly game of cat & mouse around a giant boulder or a wrecked car, or some other piece of cover you sprint to while being chased, as you count every shot of the sawed-off shotgun, budgeting shots and reload times. All the while, the world could not care less whether you exist or not. ANd going back to the same area mid-to-late game when you're all kitted out, and same bunch of bandits feels like child's play.

FC3 looks like it wants to convey the same attitude--and they've certainly got the exploration parts right, it would seem. But if it was going for more immersion, (which is what all the promo materials suggested) then the desire to provide a badass hero power fantasy experience really dilutes that.

I do intend to pick it up this Christmass, along with Dishonored. but it does seem Ubi came just short of pushing into something downright groundbreaking, but played it safe, and ended up with a "merely excellent" title instead, to quote TB

[MTS]

Mentalist, on 06 December 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

Aptorius, on 28 November 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

The deadly Africanized water returns in a new form in Far cry 3 as demonstrated by Total Biscuit . (Jump to 21.05 in the video for a great moment in video gaming)



In fact watch the whole thing, it's great. I don't agree with his desire for more STALKER'ish gameplay but I think his view of the game is spot on. The is a Skyrim type game with guns and amazing character development.

I seriously cannot wait to play this game. If the people who always bitch about brown and derivative FPS gameplay and boring linear military shooters don't go out and support this game they officially lose the right to ever express their opinion about a video game ever again.

There ALWAYS needs to be more S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-like gameplay. it`s the law.

This, however, seems to encapsulate a number of things S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (and its`Deep Silver cousins, Boiling Point and Precursors) have aspired to get right--namely, a world to explore that exists without you. The animal AI Ubisoft concocted is the closest we`ve got to the AI LIFE system from GSC.

I fully agree that it would probably be better if the player DID suck with guns at first--the very reason S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was so compelling is precisely because of those early levels where encountering 3-5 bandits means a deadly game of cat & mouse around a giant boulder or a wrecked car, or some other piece of cover you sprint to while being chased, as you count every shot of the sawed-off shotgun, budgeting shots and reload times. All the while, the world could not care less whether you exist or not. ANd going back to the same area mid-to-late game when you're all kitted out, and same bunch of bandits feels like child's play.

FC3 looks like it wants to convey the same attitude--and they've certainly got the exploration parts right, it would seem. But if it was going for more immersion, (which is what all the promo materials suggested) then the desire to provide a badass hero power fantasy experience really dilutes that.

I do intend to pick it up this Christmass, along with Dishonored. but it does seem Ubi came just short of pushing into something downright groundbreaking, but played it safe, and ended up with a "merely excellent" title instead, to quote TB

That's actually the thing that bothered me most about the story. The way the game flows at the start the others pretty much treat you like you're Rakyat-Jesus or something, and it's relatively easy to kit yourself like some spec-ops hardass if you know what you're doing. The whole mechanic of certain weapons being free forever each time you climb a radio tower kinda took the challenge out of single-handedly taking on a psychotic, entrenched pirate organisation with no prior military experience, training with weapons or survival skills, which is exactly what you're doing. How are these stores making any money if they're just giving you weapons for free by the way? You get the sense (and at one point are explicitly told) that Rook Island is some anarchic backwater and yet it's stupidly easy to get supplies. You also go from freaking the fuck out when you stab a pirate to casually being able to murder five people single-handedly. It would have been good if you were horribly inaccurate with guns until you had actually had some training with each type of weapon. They already had the sharpshooting challenges, why not incorporate that into the story?

The first time I really noticed this is was

Spoiler

In the early game when Dennis says he's gonna teach you how to be a warrior, but he barely tells you anything, and like a mere hour after meeting you sends you off alone to assault an outpost guarded by six pirates with AK-47s, and only after you start the assault will the other Rakyat jump in to help. Realistically, 99 times out of 100 Jason gets shot immediately and Dennis goes 'woops, maybe I should have done that myself.'

It would perhaps make more sense if Jason's brother Grant was the protagonist, as he actually has military training. Jason, on the other hand, really only knows how to skydive and rock climb. It really goes past the point of immersion-breaking in the bits I mentioned earlier, and some of the later missions feel like they belong in CoD the way they're basically just scripted action sequences rather than tense bits of action where you could die at any moment. So that was disappointing. The interaction with your friends as you're changing is perhaps under-utilised as well I thought, but overall I thought it was one of the better stories I've seen in a while, and despite all that is still an excellent title.

I just realised Total Biscuit said pretty much everything I just did. Oops. Well, he really hit the nail on the head.

This post has been edited by MTS: 06 December 2012 - 12:36 PM

[Avatar]

I've been playing this for some days now, and man this game is FUN! I love sneaking around pirate strongholds, fool the guards by throwing rocks and dragging their bodies out of the way. I love the amount of freedom the game gives you to work out a situation. It quite feels like the first Far Cry as well (never played FC2,) all these cars and boats that you can find around you and you can use if you want to. And much better then FC1: story! Very well done, it reminds me of Alex Garland's the Beach, one of my favorite books and movies.

Going back and play some more now

This post has been edited by Avatar: 10 December 2012 - 09:07 PM

[Silencer]

Started playing this last night, it is pretty damn fun. I agree there is a considerable amount of dissonance between "Oh GOD you just killed a guy!" "HOLY FUCK I JUST KILLED A GUY!" for the first ten minutes, and then immediately after that basically becoming a vicious Angel of Death, potentially killing hundreds of people (seriously, where does Vaas get all these guys?) with nary a flinch or second thought.

But still, good fun. I'm trying to do my first playthrough primarily stealth. I've already got the bow, so this should be...interesting. XD

[MTS]

Avatar, on 09 December 2012 - 06:03 PM, said:

I love the amount of freedom the game gives you to work out a situation.

I know, and I just love the unpredictably of each situation. I remember doing one outpost where I was able to just pick people off from a distance with the bow. One guy wandered off to take a piss and I lined up the shot once he was out of sight of the others. Aimed for his head so at the very least it would hit his chest and just as I let fly he dipped his head to have a shake and I missed. I had to sprint through the bushes to the other side of the outpost to avoid being spotted.

In another I was just picking people off from a copse of trees and the only reason I was spotted is because a random patrol drove past an a parallel road and managed to spot me from there. As there was no other decent cover I had to shoot them all with my pistol.

Also, despite having experienced several of them I still just about have a heart attack whenever I'm attacked by a crocodile. Once I was collecting a relic in a cave with a croc out the front that I didn't see amongst some lillies. Stabbed that thing to death, ventured into the cave where I thankfully spotted another that I picked off with my pistol. Picked up the relic and swum back out where I was ambushed by another crocodile at the entrance! Freaked me the fuck out.