I've never played either of the first two Far Cry games. So it was quite a surprise to me that I found myself so anxious to play Far Cry 3. I think what really drew me towards it was Vaas, the manic pirate boss. Vaas is one hell of character to be sure. I like insane characters a whole bunch, especially when they're as unpredictable as Vaas can be. So with the impression Vaas left on me, I picked up the game expecting a great game. What I got, was an ALMOST great game.
The game opens with a music video of Jason Brody, the main protagonist, and his friends from California doing all sorts of island activities. Hang gliding, surfing, swimming, etc, etc. It closes on a skydiving trip in which their landing zone becomes a kidnapping scene. It's then revealed that Vaas was watching all of this on Jason's tablet (which I guess he brought skydiving with him) and him and his brother are held captive inside a cage. Vaas goes on, in his roundabout way of speaking, to say he plans to sell Jason, his two brothers, his girlfriend, and his two other friends to buyers around the world. Jason's older brother Grant, who's a Navy SEAL, helps Jason escape the cage after Vaas leaves and they sneak around to try and find the others. Unfortunately, things go wrong and Grant gets shot and killed by Vaas, who allows Jason to run into the jungle saying if it didn't eat him alive, he would.
Jason manages to dodge bullets and death long enough to get rescued by a man by the name of Dennis, a soldier of a rebel force fighting against Vaas and his pirates to reclaim their island. Dennis gives Jason a special tattoo called a "tatau" which is suppose to give Jason the strength to save his friends if he walks "The Path Of The Warrior". He teaches Jason to hunt and gather useful plants and how to craft the things that will help him and sends him on his way. And thus the game really begins.
Being a first person shooter the main mechanic is shooting things and it's done about as well as it can be done. Combat is trying at times as Jason is slow to reload any gun, regardless of whether you have the skill to reduce the reload time. Enemies also seem to have the deadest eyes south of Africa. They could be standing 100 yards away with a shotgun and someone how nail you in the head and do maximum damage. You also have a knife for melee but I don't recommend using it. AT ALL. Jason will drop everything to swing that knife and if clicked multiple times, will take his time swiping the blade several more times than necessary before stopping. And there's absolutely nothing that can break the animation.
You initially start out with one weapon slot, two throwables, and two ordinance slots. That is not NEARLY good enough to get through the game. I ended up hunting down all the animals necessary to craft the bigger rucksacks so I can carry the maximum of four weapons. In fact, most of my start game time was spent hunting down every animal in the game for the skins I needed to make the biggest packs for loot, weapons, medicine, throwables, ordinance, and arrows. Never bothered with anything else.
You can craft all kinds of chemicals to temporarily boost this and that, but it's not worth the pack space to carry all those extra leafs. Skills are either extremely helpful or horrendously unnecessary and you have to buy the bad ones to get to the good ones. Driving is sketchy but bearable and boats are practically useless if you're smart about avoiding sharks.
With missions, the game has a difficult time of properly and clearly telling you you're objective. Sometimes the prompts were so slow, I had completed three goals and failed one before the last one was updating. The pause menu got on my nerves immensely. Ubisoft decided it wanted some Facebook esqe "info wall" where you can see what your friends are doing in the game. Thing is, if it can't connect to Far Cry's servers, it throws up a "Wait hang on..." message and doesn't let you continue unless it connects or after five minutes doesn't. Ever. Single. Time. You pause. There is no way to shut it off either.
Story wise, the story stumbles between being good and bad. The premise is a good one. Even the plot points are good. But one thing constantly stands in it's way of being great, Jason Brody. Jason Brody has been awarded the title of "Dumbest Video Game Protagonist Of All Time" from me. This little twit is a horrible character. He starts the game out so gun ho about saving his little brother and other friends but when he does and gets told his little brother is dead, he turns to these Rakyak tribals and embraces the craziness they've been spewing since the beginning and promises to lead them into glory like a true warrior. This pasty white daredevil frat boy from Santa Monica becomes the idol of jungle warriors and the bane of the South African pirates. The way Jason is portrayed by his light toned voice and his completely comfy background doesn't help give credibility to him being this mighty warrior or fearful ghost wiping out the pirates. Even the nickname they give him doesn't sound threatening. "Snow White". Yeah, pretty boy certainly is the fairest of them all. A real LA Rambo. I'm not saying he needs to be voice by David Hayter and be as ripped as Ryu but the character needs to seem believable and Jason as he was, is not.
Another problem I had with the story was the antagonists. Vaas isn't actually the head honcho of everything. He just runs the pirate army. Hoyt is who he answers to and his the ringleader of the slave trading/drug smuggling/whatever going through the island. They build up how Hoyt is crazier than Vaas but when you finally see him, he's actually really tame compared to Vaas. The thing is, Vaas is the one guy that's talked about killing for pretty much 3/4 of the game. Vaas was the one who kidnapped your friends, Vass is the one who puts them in danger, Vaas is the one who challenges you. They built Vaas up as the main antagonist, but when you finally get to kill him, it's not enough. And then, boom, you're off to kill Hoyt next. To me, Vaas should've been the final person to face. Not Hoyt. Hoyt was nothing more than a criminal kingpin with an anger issue. Vaas was fucking nuts. And more connected to Jason than Hoyt. They seriously underutilized Vaas' characters.
Overall, this game could have been really great if it weren't for some of these really easily avoidable flaws. It made me think of how Dead Island should've been but wasn't. Not to mention, there's far too much dubstep in the soundtrack.
Final Score: 4/10
