Far Cry 3 - the definition of insanity!

I think my least favorite constrained mission overall was the bit a distance into the second island where...

Yeah after he got plastered at the first site I left him farther back so he could provide overwatch but not be close enough to take any sustained fire. Any time you have to escort anyone or anything in that game it's a real crapshoot whether they sail through or die instantly.

My review/screed, enlarging on my beef above:

It's a mediocre game overall.

It has some amazing open world emergent moments. Tigers attacking pirates, animals intruding on your careful plans, pirates fighting with villagers, and some awesome sights. Some waterfalls and tucked away little fishing cabins are just wonderful for what they evoke.

It has a god-awful UI, intrusive and demanding and insulting. Press E to harvest. Yes, I know. Press R to reload. Really? Is that why my gun stopped firing? Go to the next mission point, or just explore the island. Really? Is exploring the island STILL an option? You only told me 90 seconds ago that I could do that! And 90 seconds before that. And 90 seconds before that. It doesn't trust that you can make your own fun, or remember what you're doing in a game.

And the missions are utter shit, for someone who likes open world games. I approached the Medusa like a stealthy badass, got through the whole mission without a hitch, listened to the radio message and when reinforcements showed up, I thought, 'shit! I better leave!' and dove off the side into the water, swam to the beach, shanked the last guard I'd missed, and ran off down the beach as the reinforcements arrived. I congratulated myself for being an awesome stealthy person and then a mission popup said YOU ARE LEAVING THE MISSION AREA. What? I intercepted the radio transmission. I got the intel I needed and now am heading back to talk to my buddy. Why is this still the mission area? Oh: I check the menu screen and the mission prompt says 'Eliminate the reinforcements'. I can't leave, stealthily and in character with the rest of the mission. I have to kill all the guys who just showed up. Never mind that it's early in the game and I'm not yet a murdering wild man. I'm just a dumb kid on a vacation gone wrong, in way over my head. So it's not in character for me to kill them. And further, they have no further information for me. These enemies aren't standing between me and getting away.

It's just one of those points where you have to kill a bunch of guys. For no reason at all.

And hey, there's nothing wrong with being asked to shoot a bunch of guys in a shooting game. I can already hear the stupid whining that 'oh, you don't like being asked to shoot guys? talk about missing the point...' Missing the point is being mad that there aren't realistically represented caliber markings on the sides of the guns. The game's not about that. But being forced to complete a mission a certain way in an open world setting is stupid. There are so many other verbs I've been given that saying I can only use one, and only inside the arbitrary framework you've just now designated? Bad design. I need to totally disregard this big open mission area that's wide open and non-restrictive? Bad design. Bad, insulting design.

Make me infiltrate a base, clearing out necessary guys and accomplishing my goal. Then have me fight my way back out (the ONLY way out) through the newly arrived reinforcements. Whatever. If that's the experience you want me to have, DON'T show me the open world around me and then say YOU ARE LEAVING THE MISSION AREA. Design the mission area correctly and I won't want to leave it, and won't even think I CAN leave it. It won't bother me. I'll know I'm just playing one of those levels where you don't have that much freedom. But they don't want to limit themselves in their design and not use the big, open-worldiness of what they've built: "look! It's set right there in the game world, no borders, no limits, no load screens, nothing!" But then they have a particular play experience in mind. Only one. This is a stealth mission, followed by a shooting part. Nothing else will do. They can't be bothered to allow me to play with it the way I want to, the ways it SHOULD work, in the big, wide-open world they gave me. So they hamstring the player with artificial and arbitrary boundaries. It's terrible, backwards, hypocritical, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot design.

Outside the main missions there's a lot of fun to be had. Knocking over strongholds and just trying to navigate the world is amazing. (when it's hostile, that is. There comes a point when you've knocked over all the strongholds and removed all the enemies from the world. Yep, they went the other direction from Far Cry 2 and allowed you to eliminate all the human threats from the world, permanently) Stalking animals, coming across random firefights, discovering a cave system, finding a hang glider; all awesome. But then they went and stuck a bunch of 'press the forward key' Call of Duty missions in that open world, and decided to treat the player like the average CoD player; they think we're easily distracted, very stupid, and they only want us to play the exact missions they've designed.

It's summed up by my experience with the Medusa mission above, but there's one other moment that stands out. There's an early-mission QTE that has you edging across a burning beam: It says 'press W' up on the screen in big letters. You know. The forward key. That you've been using to go, you know, forward for the entire game.

I guess the game is just so good ala Mass Effect 2 that people will just be crazy and nitpick it to death. I'm sorry for you.

Well this game is sorely lacking Clint Hocking at the helm.

The point of the game? You guys might want to try and find it. :)

Please enlighten us, oh wise Markel.

I won't argue against the pop-up aspect of the UX being annoying (I've been critical of it in the past), but looking at it I actually think there are reasons it's there. Nitpicking the "open world" stuff (which I think is very well done), as Adree said, is going to be a pastime for some people.

I had hoped that people would be more talking about the themes and about what actually happened in the game, because damn it, that stuff's important. That The Line has received a ridiculous amount more dissection and critical discussion that FC3 is a bit of a crime.

I published a post about this at length yesterday, so it's probably better to just direct you there.

I understand and appreciate that Yolheim was going for something grand with his narrative. I have a few problems with it. Namely I do no think it is:

A. Well done
2. Particularly intelligent or interesting

It's nice that its got everyone pulling out their metaphorical decoder rings, but honestly I don't think it really earns the scrutiny it's asking for or receiving. Firstly, the mechanics and the narrative are completely divergent. The player derives most of their pleasure and entertainment from exploration, driving, and combat. The crafting, looting and upgrade mechanics are thin and facile so we can just skip their relationship to the narrative because I'd be putting too much thought into some things that were clearly developmental after thoughts.

So, the game looks to critique other games, as well a present a story of its own; fine. Yes, games can be incredibly shallow wish fulfillment - why is this critique being made inside a video game? Why are you examining shallow wish fulfillment while shallowly fulfilling my wishes?

The truth is games would do better to break away from these problems by actually breaking away from these problems. Yolheim is no Andy Warhol, he's a decent writer whose scripts would be a welcome addition to any episode of Law and Order or in any number of mediocre comics where readers mistake references to substance as substance itself. I heard the game trying to tell me there were "clues" as Yolheim put it, but why shouldn't I dismiss overplayed, overenthusiastic Alice in Wonderland references out of hand? How many times have I seen this before? Why shouldn't I dismiss extended cut scenes of puppet monologues?

Sure, the writing for those monologues is decent, and the animations are pretty good, but I'm still watching an inexpressive 3D model gesticulate while listening to an overly long speech. This is not gameplay, this is not interesting, this is not what games do best. Why don't you criticize other games by simply making better games?

I disagree with the critics who say he should have made the exaggeration thicker, I think he either shouldn't have bothered, or found a game with mechanics that support his writing better (see: any game with interactive dialogue.) In this game, the player is constantly interrupted from the substance of the game to watch speeches that have exactly no effect on the context or mechanics of the game. You watch a dialogue, you go back to hang-gliding. You watch some puppet sex so you can hopefully unlock some more outposts to topple.

It's frustrating, and fails to acknowledge what the actual game I am playing (not the movie I'm watching in between play sessions) is good at. I mean, how insane is it to set up a villain as good as Vas, and have him dispatched from the story without utilizing anything I have done in the game for the last 8 hours?

I think this is the folly of highly authored experiences in games. Unless you can sync them well (see: the Walking Dead) they fall utterly flat: Unless you're Markel. Caveat: to each his own.

I think my main issue is that people are attacking Far Cry for the story while ignoring the game and I don't often see that type of criticism directed at games with stories that are just as weak or much weaker than Far Cry 3.

I think there's so much focus on the story because, certain people in this thread hyped the story, and the marketing in general hyped the story. Also, the game it self manages to make its very irritating story unavoidable and impossible to ignore (no skipping cut scenes, etc.) Usually people don't spend time on stories that don't even try or games with stories that are pretty honest about being weak (just cause 2 etc.)

To me, that makes it fair game. I'm really impressed with a good deal of the open world gameplay, full of warts as it might be. I just wish they'd paid somebody else Yolheims salary to flesh that out even more.

My problem is with the story missions and they way they conflict with the open world of the rest of the game. They're so unpleasant to play (compared to the free-roaming awesomeness of the rest of it) that I hate the story by association.

Far Cry 2 and 3 are very different games, but I feel the same intent behind them. In both games I feel like the people making it have huge ambition, not just to make a great game but to push the boundaries of what first person shooters can do. Both games stumbled, in completely different areas. But I wholeheartedly applaud their ambition and I'm ready to try anything else these guys come up with.

I think he's rightfully slamming the mission structure for not letting you think outside the box. If I want to swim a mile out of a cove to get to safety, risking getting attacked multiple times by sharks, then let me do that, or let me turn around and fight through the 30 dudes that the designers just spawned for me.

Though it's kind of funny that he failed a mission because he got rid of the popups which update you on what to do.

Yeah I just never ran into those invisible walls except on some of the Gamestop monkey missions.

So: reluctant protagonist comes to enjoy the violence, and quest giver is manipulative/unreliable.

You really think people missed that?

I think people aren't giving it the attention it deserves.

I think the whole story is misconceived. It is a 100% linear story set in a open-world game. This never really works, c.f. GTA4.

I felt the game was forcing me to do really stupid stuff. I don't want to run scripted missions for an racialized femme-fatale sex pot, and I certainly don't want to see her naked or whatever. I don't want to kill people or animals for no rational in-game reason, as the game's mission scripting forces me to do. I don't think it is fun to blow up jeeps in yet another stupid turret sequences. All of this doesn't make me question whether or not games are too violent. It makes me want to turn the game off, and play a game that doesn't feel like its pandering to me.

It's very strange, because apparently the writer wanted to make a game about how far people were willing to go to be entertained. But I found nothing at all entertaining about the story and the story missions. So the whole premise of the game collapses on itself.

After finally finishing this game a couple of hours ago, I have to say I agree with John Walker's interview on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. There's a lot of interesting ideas with regards to Far Cry 3's plot - or, rather, the writer seemed to have a lot of interesting ideas - but the game itself failed to convey them to me.

It not only failed to convey them, I think this was just a bad type of game to explore those ideas with. I would much prefer serious story without stupid tropes/cliches. The fact that those cliches were exaggerated and intended is nice and all, but I would much prefer the game without them.
The basic story setup - ordinary guy gets to an island, his girlfriend gets kidnapped, he decides to save her - I like, but if it was done differently I would like it much more.
For example I have the issue with the whole transformation into a warrior...one day I am shitting myself while my hero brother kicks ass, next morning (literally) I am killing with a machete 5 guys at once without batting an eye.
Why could not they have include some training before the action? And make the transition into warrior slower and more deliberate, and even then make the first few kills impactful? The "what have I become" line Jason says felt so god damn stupid when I already had bodycount in over thousand.
And why did the locals have to be so cliched? I know,it was intentional and all that....

When they first announced the story setup I was excited, because it was what I wanted when FC1 was announced - but FC1 descended into mutants and usual cliche about saving the world bullshit.
FC3 is closer, but again they had to include some kind of meta commentary and criticism of other games by including stuff that is stupid about them, which is fucking stupid in itself, and a huge shame.
And even then, that intentional point still failed to be really conveyed.

Of course, besides this there are myriad of actual game design problems with this game, like DoomMunky summarized.
Worst thing about it all is, it is still my favourite shooter this year. Because it can be fucking fantastic when it wants to be. It's just that quite often it doesn't want to.

So is the mission to

the lamest mission in the history of gaming? The fact I'm doing it in an open world makes it even more insulting.

Thankfully its over quickly and not very difficult?

If you played the AC1, it should be _very_ familiar.

Except in AC1 it made sense, since you could do it from rooftops or walking through crowds, not crouched behind some boxes like an idiot sticking his head out so that you "keep him in sight." Just stupid, stupid, stupid design.

I got this for my son for christmas from Steam and we can't get it to work. There are several weird things occurring here:

1. It's only Single Player. He can actually play multiplayer although it will crash every 45 min or so.
2. He selects new game, selects Savegame1 and selects the medium difficulty. It then spins icons and crashes with an exception of c0000005
3. We've upgraded video drivers to the latest. (The card is a nvidia 9800gt, so only capable of Directx9, which Farcry 3 correctly assigns to it)
4. I swapped in my video card (EVGA GTX560Ti) which is DirectX 11 and instead of crashing, it just hangs
5. He's posted on their boards, someone said it was memory and to test memory, so I did that test - everything was fine.

He's running Windows 7, 8gb RAM, 9800GT video card, Core i7

We're basically stymied. He looked into getting a refund and neither Steam nor ubisoft will grant one b/c of digital goods.

Any suggestions? He's really disappointed, been watching videos for the past month and really bummed he can't play it.

Is this the only game that happens on?

yes, all his other 50+ games work fine

I'm pretty sure these motherfuckers are the ones who actually killed Kennedy, too. Or they were the ones who ordered him killed.

True tiger story: I'm scoping out this pirate camp, working my way up a hill opposite it to get a good vantage point. Spending lots of time with camera and/or scope. Growl growl. Shit OOPS tiger, 3 o'clock. OK, back down the hill. Get a good idea to rock lure the tiger into the camp. Backing down toward entrance, tiger looks interested, backing down. Growl growl WTF TIGER 5 O'CLOCK DANGER CLOSE. I'm like, fuck, clever girl.

Managed to avoid tiger #2 and get tiger #1 into the camp, where much hilarity issued....especially when I freed tiger number 3 from the cage therein. Understandably feeling all bad-ass after that.

OK I need to vent some frustrations.

I'm loving the takedowns, knife throwing and bow. They make me feel like a predator. I enjoy avoiding guns as much as possible because the knife and bow are so badass.

I give you Calvin and Hobbes.

That reminds me I was going to post this picture I took of evidence of a Rob Leifield shout out:

Picked it up yesterday on a friend's recommendation, naturally a couple of hours before it was discounted on steam.

Generally I'm quite impressed with the environment and running around doing my own thing, but I'm finding it hard to argue with a lot of the criticisms raised about the plot, characterisations and quests themselves. I like the moments of random hilarity and that sometimes you're left to your own devices to figure out how you want to approach a given quest but I find myself taking a break from the quest lines to go and do random stuff instead happening far more frequently, but it sounds like I should stop clearing camps if I want anything to have a break against soon. Having to use a knife on the noble savage quests I'm fine with but elsewhere the restrictions placed on you in this great open world seem rather arbitrary if not downright silly at times. The medusa quest mentioned previously is a good example.

In places I can see what they're trying to achieve, I think, but even taking the interviews into consideration, it's hard not to stick this firmly in the Avatar category of 'social commentary'. I think when everyone misinterprets your 'message' to the point that you have to explain it in interviews then you probably have to regard that you failed to put it across properly.

The crafting does really, really, suck even if you ignore the horrible UI. But as a rich, whiny, white kid I think I'm within my rights to expect that my noble savages should be going out and making me sharkskin wallets and syringes while I get on with the important job of single handedly saving their island. I'll even pay for them, it's not like there's any shortage of money lying around the place

I just finished the game and... yeap, this is it.


On the other hand, I actually liked the ending mission, I thought it was fun, though the second island never really even got going before you end the game. I actually liked all the gung-ho missions with Sam.

I got this around the new year and have been avoiding this thread for fear of spoilers. I'm a few story missions away from the end, but I've certainly put in enough hours to comment. I didn't play Far Cry 2, if it matters.

Overall: Got it for $40 during the steam sale and have gotten more than my money's worth. Don't expect much replay value, but glad I got it.

Honestly, the only reason that bugged me:

Yo, I started this.

What's Good: I like the basic explorability of the island. I like some of the deadly animals. I like that I want to do more of this.

What's Bad: That first hour is a runny bowl of shit. I don't seem to be able to carry a whole lot of bullets until I go kill enough of a particular kind of animal. I'm pretty sure that I'm not getting anything for these goddamn lizards that I'm having to kill because they keep flopping down on top of me but some skin that I'll have to sell before I can use it to clear out space.

What Could Improve: I get that they don't want skin and herbs to stack. I think it's dumb, but I get it. However, the arbitrary nature of what you can build (bullets ONLY go in dog/goat/pig/whatever) could be very easily alleviated by doing what pretty much every game with a crafting system does and having your basic skins reduce down to intermediate building elements. Hell - you can even still make the requirement that I kill a bunch of buffalo, but by saying I need coarse leather instead of rough leather, it smooths over that severe disconnect I get when this game tries to tell me that it's only okay to put medicine in a pig. It's like kosher survivalism.

You want to "improve" the crafting system by adding intermediary resources?

The easiest way to improve crafting is to remove it.

I'd like to alleviate some of the painfully arbitrary sensations that I get trying to figure out why only goats can contain flamethrower ammunition. Although I will totally eat my words if goats start exploding at random.

Oh yeah, and I'd put in an actual save system like a game that encourages you to sneak around really ought to have in the first place, but I'm sure that countless thousands of people have already complained about that.

I take it all back. About the crafting, anyway. That part is super dumb. The save system still isn't quite granular enough for the game I think this keeps wanting me to play it as, but the crafting is dumb as hell. Because I went out and got those boar skins. Oh, I did it. It sucked major, but I did it. And then I fucked up a shark. Six of them, in fact, which I assume is impressive because I can't fight underwater at this point so I had to either run them over with my jet ski a couple of times or squat on a tiny rock by that shipwreck on top of the relic I wanted and shoot them with my highest-powered rifle, which is not particularly impressive at this point. And now everything but the Wallet and anything made out of Leopards seems to be maxed out (all materials come from Hunting quests). Also, for as much trouble as I went to to kill that white tiger (yo, he was bogarting my buffalo), it's a shame I don't at least get a different kind of skin. I don't know if they're harder than the regular tigers, but it sure seemed that way. Though eventually killing him by throwing him a grenade to fetch was quite hilarious.