Far Cry 3 - the definition of insanity!

Game is out on GMG...

First impressions were pretty good...

Second were not quite as good.

I thought it was going to be a big deal to shoot the first guy...but not really. From the first 40 minutes the story is underwhelming. I thought the "good times" were going to be interactive...not just one short cutscene. I hate it when games kill someone you are supposed to care about 10 minutes into the game, when no relationship with said character was even established...

Graphically...I would not be afraid to say FarCry 2 looked better. Or at least ran better at the same graphics.
And the HUD!
Oh my god, the HUD is so horrible. The minimap. The map. Ugh. Where it was almost perfect in FC2, it is horribad in FC3.
Still, I am looking forward to playing more once I finish Absolution tomorrow.

This GMG code seems to work for FC3 right now:

GMG25-G4VDR-0ZL4Q

Is the Green Man Gaming version for Far Cry 3 not for the US? I can't find it on the site. Only through a Google search can I get to it, and then it gives me no option to order.

On the technical points I agree with you Paul. The new map is a pale imitation of Far Cry 2's one (which might be my favourite map in a video game) and the graphics are a bit funky.

But I enjoyed the story for the first hour, except for the lack of control in many parts.

Uh oh, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

I've only played an hour. I was specifically trying to agree only that that the map sucked and I needed a new video card. No comment on game quality.

Well, the little things aren't what people were going nuts about. Eurogamer and RPS were crazy about what a great open world game it was, the exploration and sense of freedom. And both mentioned the first hour was tutorial bullshit that sucked.

It's just that based on interviews with Jeffrey Yohalem I expected something a bit more interesting, larger exposition, as he said, "shooting a gun for the first time will be a big deal", but then it really wasn't at all.
Maybe the story picks up later, but the intro is far less impressive than I hoped for.

Anyone know why Far Cry 3 is not available on steam in the UK? Is there some sort of legal case going on that caused this? Seems odd that it is only missing from steam here and not anywhere else.

No idea, but it's on the Irish store. Always nice when companies don't treat the Irish market as an offshoot of the British one.

It would just feel wrong to use a VPN/proxy to pretend to be a couple of miles over the water :(

Had my first "Far Cry 2 moment" about two hours into FC3. A lone pirate had tracked me down after I took out a checkpoint/roadblock, at which point he yelled "eat this motherfucker" and threw a grenade. Which promptly rebounded off the tree in front of him, landed at his feet and killed him. I think I looted a meth pipe from his corpse.

a) there is a TONNE of swearing in this game. Vaas is the best at it though.
b) Tapir murder is not only encouraged, it is essential for crafting. Because I'm a child, this continues to amuse me.
c) there's nothing like staying up until 0130 in the morning to make you feel your age. I'm knackered (but it was worth it!).

I did slightly recoil in horror when I saw the existence of a minimap in the videos. Far Cry 2's map was perfect.

The Rakyat people seem to have a lot of New Zealand Maori in them, both visually and audibly. It certainly makes a nice change from grating Australian accents :)

Ugh, yeah. Whereas Far Cry 2 was a fairly good example of a sober, unobtrusive HUD, FC3 throws everything at you and then some. It's not just the maps, but all the million UI elements that keep popping up all the time.

I'm going to keep playing to get to the good bits, as I've only played around an hour, but I don't really enjoy the constant explosion of information. I wish they had exercised some more restraint. Just let me explore the world and figure some things out by myself, I don't need all these support layers. Makes me really appreciate how Dishonored let you turn most markers off.

Not quite, the diamond marking was terribad.

Argh! You can't turn them off?!

That should be a Mortal Sin these days.

Btw, any reports of successful VPN use for unlocking in North America?

You can disable most of the map markers (loot, collectibles, vehicles, event locations) via the legend menu (Y on 360 with the map up). You're stuck with significant events, animal types and plants and certain locations though.

Spoiler tags in case anyone really wants to avoid me talking about dumb, non-important things.

Heh yes, it's very noticeable. I do a double take when one says "kia ora" or has an accent like Billy T James.

Nevermind...

I'll be your dog.

And I was just writing an extensive response. Before I noticed that the quote did not match the original written by you. Glad you found it.

Holy shit, I just watched that ad and man, they would not get away with that these days.

Thanks! Turns out GMG had run out of keys and thus hadn't actually given me one yet. I was just a bit uncertain if they key would really appear on my GMG list, as they stated that the capsule would only allow the download & not the installation. Figured perhaps it was hidden away in some Ubi file somewhere...

Anyway, it took so long that I didn't even have time to fire the game up before heading to work.
Oh well, its something to look forwards to!

Hang gliding is the best thing. It makes me want to go into some sort of tourist mode just so I can drift around checking out the island.

I'm guessing 'Rook Island' is a nod towards the actual Cook Islands in Polynesia.

Finished and a must buy IMO.

As RPS said, open world wise it's technically better and more refined than FC2. Very pretty engine, and runs at a good rate as well.

For the main story, there's a sense of the developers trying to have their cake and eat it. They can talk about desensitization and 'the abyss looks into you', but a lot of the missions are scripted to have 50 soldiers to run at the hero with no option but to mow them all down. When you're a helicopter door gunner and the soundtrack is 'Ride of the Valkyries' it may very well be that the implication is that it's only in the protagonist's mind but it's still leaning on that cliche and all the baggage it brings.

In another scene, the hero has to (QTE) torture a helpless prisoner, and asks himself 'What have I become?' This would be really interesting were it not for the fact that the game goes out of it's way to tell you that you're doing this because you're being observed by the big boss that you're trying to get in with. Thus you have no agency, either in the story or with your controller. What you've actually become is a breakpoint out of an endless loop. Also, along with the QTE's it should be noted that there's a fair amount of instant-fail 'you got spotted' on the main story path.

In the end, though, what most disappointed me about the plot was that I think they flubbed it. The first half is properly weird and interesting and has an edge that kept me guessing (are we in an Animus? is this a fever dream? am I a sleeper agent? are we being capital-p Punished?) The second half feels like Uncharted left overs.

So...have you played yet ? I am about 6 story missions into the game (just saved Liza) and so far it is not bad, but not that great either (story I mean). Especially the transition from normal guy to killing machine was just too damn quick.

For the game itself, I like it a lot, despite many issues with HUD/UI and some lacking features from FC2.

I'm interested to see the story in action. I feel a lot of games try to pull off film and book stories, and they don't translate well to gaming. Especially rescue or revenge stories. In a film I see inside the head of the hero and he tells me why he wants to save the girl, so even though I don't know her I learn to care about him, and so I'm backing him to succeed. In a game I am the hero, you can't tell me how I feel, so you need to build that connection in the first place. Games almost never do and it's why these stories fail over and over again, they keep trying to tell me I should care and that's not how it works!

It's why something like Mass Effect 2 worked so well, the game built the connection between you and your squad before asking you to risk their lives, so you gave a shit if they died. Or why Clementine in The Walking Dead works and the kid in Mass Effect 3 does not.

Great post. Sadly, from what I played, it falls into that exact trap. It wants to make you care by killing someone, but it fails completely because there was absolutely no connection made since the exposition was few minutes long.

I loathe when games do this. If you want to make me care, give me longer exposition, dammit!

The correct method is to give no exposition and no QTEs, and make a Far Cry version of Saints Row in the jungle.

I disagree, I would like to see completely hardcore survival-based immersive FarCry game with no arcade bullshit, no overcrazybearing GUI and no repeating "quests" and "activities".

What's the multiplayer like?

I haven't touched the multiplayer, but my excuse is that I'm on 360 and because it's not out in the US yet, there's no-one on my friends list available to play it with.....

Actually we're not that far off from each other.

However, quests/activities could use the Skyrim model of randomization, except instead of collecting dragon testicles and narniaroots you would have assassin targets (like FC2) and rescue missions and stuff.

I'm sneaking up on a radio tower when I come upon two guards sitting there bullshitting.

Guard 1: Hey, if you could pick a way, how would you want to die?
Guard 2: In a big fucking explosion, I wouldn't want to see it coming.

So I threw a primed grenade between them.

Game owns.

The competitive MP is utterly standard.

The Co-op is fun and surprisingly varied, but there seems to be a high drop-rate in public games - not sure if it's people crashing or just leaving.

One of my problems with the number of activities and the way the game prompts you to do them is that I end up quickly jumping from activity to activity without taking enough time to appreciate the good parts of the game. It shows that they were worried that someone would get bored or be left without knowing what to do next. It's a shame because it goes against the systems-driven nature of the game.

And those systems are there. It's a scary moment when the game's most formidable enemy, a bear, unexpectedly attacks a rebel from the treeline. It's great when you're doing an assassination mission, and you don't know how you're going to get through the guards to kill the captain with your knife, and suddenly a rebel group appears and distracts the pirates, giving you the opening you needed.

I'd also like the hunting to take more time and require additional tracking. One could learn about the general location of a certain animal by talking to NPCs and then have to look for them over wider areas. Good hunts have occasionally happened, such as when I forced myself not to use the animal tracking potion and was able to find some Komodo Dragons by listening to the sounds they made.