Far Cry 3 - the definition of insanity!

I appreciate this sentiment, but how many people just bought Blacks Ops 2? Have you been on YouTube and read comments lately?

Let's face it, the customer is an idiot, same as ever.

Five quick things.

1. I cannot decide if I should have Subway for lunch, or go home and finish a bag of Ruffles while sitting alone in the dark.
2. The Wanted Dead (Assassination) missions require you to kill the commander of each camp with a knife. At first, it is difficult, but once you obtain a silenced sniper rifle and one or two improvements on your takedown ability, it is fast and easy. The missions are to allow you to practice silent takedowns of all targets at an enemy flag base without penalizing you 1000 xp for being seen or getting overwhelmed by a triggered alarm. The same way the hunting missions are there to teach you how to use certain syringes and the camera, the Wanted Dead missions get you to practice other skills.
3. If you think that sneaking up to four guys, throwing a rock so they look the wrong way, jumping off a toolshed, stabbing two of them immediately, putting a knife through the chest of a third, and then stealing his knife to pin it in the forehead of the last enemy isn't fun, you're playing a different game.
4. Setting up a silent attack on a base takes a lot more time at first, but once you master the skills, you can do it in almost the same amount of time, but you get a lot more experience. The game doesn't just reward you for effort, it rewards you for developing skills. Maybe that is a metaphor for sending out resumes to prospective employers like Charles says, maybe not.
5. I have decided to finish the bag of Ruffles.

Thanks, Charles. I'm glad there are people like him working on games I like to play.

Whenever you do get around to playing it, you're in for some pitch perfect villainy with one Mr. Vaas. The writing, voice acting and animation work done for him sets a new standard, IMHO. To think we've been blessed with both him and Tiny Tina in the same year...

Finished the game. Except for those stupid-ass relics and one not driven vehicle (where the hell can I get an APC anyway?) I have done every single quest.
Great game, but I cannot help but feel slight disappointment over the story. If only Charles didn't hype it so hard here.

Guess who thinks you're wrong:

See, that's how I know I'm right. I find Tom's writing interesting at times but I never agree with him on anything.

The funny thing is, I agree with him on Handsome Jack being awesome, but I think Vaas is the same level of awesome (good writing, good delivery, he's just far more menacing than Jack is and a lot more real), but I agree that he tends to monologue a lot when trying to kill you, and goes heavily Bond Villain in his methods. Between him and Handsome Jack, there's a lot more awesome character writing this year than I'd expect from shooters.

Bros 'til the end:




in a situation that got wildly out of control:

The first time I encountered those cassowaries - an animal I have literally never heard of until this game - they were in a pen at some random roadside encampment. The game hadn't explained the whole "shoot the cage and release the beast" thing to me yet, so I thought the pirates were keeping a pet turkey or something. On a whim I shot the cage open and the door opened up. "Hooray!" I said. "I am the freer of weird turkeys OH MY GOD WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ATTACKING ME BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!"

So yeah. Fuck cassowaries.

No good deed goes unpunished.

The first time is a good deed. The second time is an act of evil when you unleash the beast on the pirates.

The cassowaries are the ones that started the fight, actually. I was starting to stealth up to a couple pirates when they got attacked by the birds crossing the road, and then immediately afterward was just a train of pirates rolling up in jeeps and getting out going "That's a lot of bodies!" before dying to my failed chained takedown attempts.

Okay. From here: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/734046-Mods-for-Far-Cry-3 I downloaded the Compilation mod 1.3 and used the patch.dat and .fat files from it to remove icons from enemies when they've been tagged with the camera, unlock all attachments for all weapons, remove the minimap and make the health and armor bars 30% opaque.

Then I used a hex editor to make the changes described in this post to my FC3.dll file (b/c I'm running dx9), removing the glow from every usable item in the world (dead bodies, plants, usable boxes, etc), and removing the 'see thru walls' effect you get from tagging enemies with the camera.

I just added the hex edit from THIS post to remove the objective reminder from the HUD.

Now I can use the camera to scout and not have it tag enemies and make the game crazy easy, I have to actually pay attention to the world to identify usable and interactable items, and the HUD no longer intrudes on me while I explore. :)

You did all that and you're only 3% of the way through the game. Congratulations.

edit: Funny thing about the soldier highlight... I find it's just as easy to focus too much on the highlighted enemies and disregard any reinforcements or enemies you've not tagged, leading to death.

I may actually be down for unlocking all attachments for all weapons, assuming that means I can further upgrade the Signature weapons?

I like the feature of putting away the weapon after doing some things, but it also puts it away after doing a Takedown, which I found out wasn't particularly convenient in the middle of a fort attack that went badly.

Oh god this was me so much towards the end of the game. I was just like "I know there's probably more dudes out there but they must be behind something because I've definitely tagged everyone. Let's jump down... and yes takedown that guy... What? What fucking alarm!?" and there's a heavy just grinning malevolently (I assume, behind his mask) as he revs up his flamethrower/machine gun.

Ooh, it's fun. I just started a new game and am plowing thru the story (am like 6 missions in), not doing radio towers and not taking outposts. It's fun to live in a dangerous world, and to not go nuts crafting everything I can right away. Having limitations (only 2 weapons!) is enjoyable.

New Game + should start at the hardest difficulty with all of the weapons in the game removed except for the default pistol (for the guys you just can't reach) but with all your takedown abilities unlocked. Hell make it so you can only get syrettes from stealth takedowns.

I would be more inclined to start over on a harder difficulty right now if I could skip the fucking cutscenes.

You can switch difficulty at any time, you know.

Forgot about that. Thanks.

I think I'm burned out on this game. It's....troublesome. They have such a fantastically realized world that every time I look up from a relic hunt I'm floored by a wide grassy flood plain, deer hopping across it, or a waterfall coursing past several rickety bridges that the local population probably really needs in order to survive. There's incredible coastlines and huge cliffs with inset caves and deep forest and precarious hillsides and all sorts of other amazing looking things.

But the way you interact with the world is frustrating. Clearing the enemy camps means there are very few enemies in the world after that. Doing the missions means I have to suffer through some of the worst, most pathetically told story I can remember, and some of the worst 'gameplay' moments I can imagine. Another sequence where someone else drives and I shoot enemies? Really? I've been doing this in games for years, and now you've got me doing it twice within four missions? Jesus.

Just being in the world is good enough, and if they'd given us a better bunch of reasons to be there, I'd be happier. What if you cleared the enemy camps and the enemy presence dropped off, but there would still be enemies around? Then you could never quite relax, even while trucking through familiar territory. What if enemies tried to retake their strongholds, and you could fight them off or have the stronghold fall?

I guess I wish the game were more systems driven. As it is, it feels like a fantastically beautiful world in which to use some great toys, but a world that's just a backdrop for another story about stupid young people and power fantasies.

Outside of the story there's not much reason to exist in the world, aside from the moment-to-moment action stuff, which is great. But then it's over and you've cleared an area of enemies and have to trek off into the distance to find more. Hunting items is diverting but not deeply satisfying, and requires me to spend time in the awful map and not in the world. The genius of the previous game was that, even when hunting the stupid diamonds you were in the world. You had to look at the world around you for all your clues. You had to navigate it, paying close attention lest you drive off a cliff, so you could get from one area to another. Simply getting around it was a big part of it. But in this one, you just look at the map and point yourself toward the waypoint flashy-thing and get there, eventually. I find myself navigating the way I do when I'm annoyed and late and using Google Maps on my phone. Every building and landmark on my path is just another thing that's not where I want to be. And that's the core problem, I think. This game doesn't want you to be enthralled with where you are. It wants you to be following little glowing carrots around, not being immersed in the muck of where you are.

I liked the chase scene on the boat, actually. I wish that had lasted a couple minutes longer.

I just rolled credits on FC3. I picked the "left" ending and youtubed the "right" ending.

I'm not a fan of the southern island. When I first got there it was more difficult than the north island but once you do the spoiler and get the spoiler, there's very little challenge just driving around anymore.

It returns, fortunately. After the end if you keep on playing the spoiler doesn't work any more, so driving is much more hazardous, but you should be using the spoiler like a man anyway because driving is for chumps who can't spoiler.

So this is damn interesting. After I posted that screed last night, I said 'eff it!' and went back in to try and play the game I wish it were. I decided I would only use the big map when absolutely necessary, try to orient by landmarks, not clear pirate bases, and not climb the towers. I went from the Doctor's mansion on the hill over to Citra's Temple, through much pirate-controlled territory, and had a freaking blast!

I got in lots of random little firefights, some of which were over really quickly, others of which snowballed into crazy conflagrations with grenades flying and multiple levels of reinforcements arriving. I had to run away a lot and recover. Having turned off item glow I really have to pay attention to the environment to find green herbs for health syringes, and I managed to edit the .dll file to remove all the XP popups, so I don't know if I've killed a dude unless I see him collapse or make my way to his cover spot and find a body. Staying out of the map means I use it to make sure I'm pointed in the right direction, then I move through the world until I'm lost again. This is very easy to do, but it means I'm paying a lot of attention to roads and landmarks and terrain features. It's become an immersive traversal game, much like FC2, and dammit, I'm having a freakin' great time.

Here's the .dll edits to remove XP popups:

Search for hex value 40 58 00 50 00 55 00 49 00 42 00 61 00 It's at offset 015D3300.
For all the XP related stuff in the right side, change the name by one character. I put X's at the end of every value, so they look like this:
@X.P.U.I.B.a.X...X.P.L.e.v.e.l.U.p.T.e.x.t.I.n.t.e .r.a.c.t.i.o.n.T.e.x.X.....X.P.L.e.v.e.l.U.p.T.e.x .X...X.P.B.o.n.u.s.K.i.c.k.e.r.T.e.x.X...X.P.K.i.c .k.e.r.T.e.x.X.....X.P.B.a.X...X.P.K.i.c.k.e.X.... .X.P.L.e.v.e.l.U.X

Well... yeah, how have you not been having that kind of gameplay before? That situation has nothing to do with opening a map or being a UI purist.

but but my precious ui fluids

Well, if you're systematic about clearing strongholds and opening territory, you spend most of your time on friendly ground by accident. I thought I was just being thorough! (Also, the story missions are stupid and boring, so I put them off for as long as humanly possible.) Let's not forget hot tempting fast travel is. I think now that I've reached the second island I'll be putting off the stronghold missions as long as possible.

I'm keeping most strongholds on the second island open, entirely to use them as tatau-growing farms. The plan is to come in now and then, viciously murder all but one or two hapless natives, then fade away again. Then just do it all over again later on, in a cycle of violence and victimization that speaks to how deep the writing is about such issues. (Occasionally I'll mutter, "curse my college loan debts!" as I work my machete neatly in between some heavy's vertebrae, in order to make sure I retain the plight-of-gen-Y angle.)

Also its pretty hard not to kill all the outposts since that is by far the most fun part of the game.

First impressions:

• I love the way the game starts. Its so refreshing to play a shooter (or any AAA game really) where your character is not "Blake Gravelvoice McTough".
• The cars feel like I'm driving on ice (They were bad in FC2 too). Time to break out the xbox controller just for the driving sections.
• The setting feels more familiar than FC2's Africa.
• The immersiveness of FC2 is completely lacking. I can see why people are comparing it to Skyrim, because like an RPG, FC3 brings the game mechanics into the foreground, whereas FC2 tried to keep mechanics in the background. Neither is necessarily better, its a design choice. I'm just disappointed because I enjoyed FC2s immersion so much.
• I feel like FC2's unique voice has been traded in for something much more familiar, but still well produced.
• I'm enjoying the game. I'm a sucker for open worlds of any kind.

This is pretty fucking sad, how they scaled back the graphics/level design/object density compared to their marketing videos:
E3 video:


Actual PC ultra settings gameplay:




Video comparing the two, notice NO FUCKING HUD POPUPS:

Where did you get those comparison shots?

That 2nd picture is suspect, the mountains in the background should have a depth of field if they were on ultra.

I have a feeling that Ubisoft broke the "Vegetation" and "Environment" settings on the PC. These two sliders are inconsequential to anything visually. I'm not sure why they did it. E3's demonstration was almost certainly played on a badass PC. It's a shame, that really thick vegetation would have been nice and it's definitely the most optimized graphical part of the game.

I thought this at first but you might want to give it some time. FC3 doesn't have the awesome river canyons but I think once you come across certain scenes at certain levels of ambient light from dusk/dawn, you might reconsider how much you feel like you're in a tropical island.

The water in particular is just gorgeous on the rocky beaches.

You can turn off DOF and still keep things on ultra with an .ini tweak, though to leave out that detail is certainly misleading.

Heavier vegetation would certainly be neat, but then again there are definitely still places in the game where the vegetation is very thick. I fail to see how "level design" suffered. I suspect that if it was kept that thick throughout, they'd be getting blasted for making their open-world shooter just a series of green tunnels. That may be true-to-life, but it's not very much fun to run around in.

Graphics may have been "scaled back" but the game still looks terrific on the highest settings. Get the right combination of light and location, and it's drop-dead gorgeous.

It is from ubisoft forums, and depth of field or not, the density is scaled back, and it is a shame.

Anyway, interesting article about the story on PA Report:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...ad-writer-explains-the-deceptive-nature-of-th

I still feel they failed in their goal story-wise, but it was an interesting attempt at least.

The Destructoid response isn't the most well written, but I agree with the substance. http://www.destructoid.com/far-cry-3-the-creative-failure-of-industry-commentary--240819.phtml

I think the writer must have thought all gamers are idiots. When I first ran across Citra I didn't think "wow I really want to bang this chick", I thought:

1. Gross.
2. Why is this warrior woman in a miniskirt and halter top?
3. Great another femme-fatale love interest, how original.
4. I hate this game.

The writer also says that we're meant to experience the game as dude-bro, but dude-bro is horribly written and voice-acted, and I want just want him to shut up already. Attention videogame writers: if you want me to identify with your character, at least make him tolerable. Although I'm not sure why a writer would think I'd want to play as one of his characters anyway: I don't play videogames so I can pretend to be in a lame movie.

Last night I did a few side missions, all of which were horrible, then killed outposts for a while which, was super fun and awesome. The gun play is really great and the firefights are more interesting than in FC2 because you have a much wider range of motion and means of attack.

I haven't finished the game yet, so I haven't read the article, but if I'm supposed to find Far Cry 3 provocative and deep because I banged the hot chick that I'm supposed to want to bang, while repeatedly shanking the villain I really wanted to shank, then that's kind of pathetic. It's also sad for anybody that didn't "get it" because it's pretty heavy-handed.

Oh, and apparently to be deep and meaningful, you need to make pop culture quotes from a movie that a whole generation is not going to remember clearly. OK, you got me! I'm walking on televisions after getting seduced by the temptress and stabbing at her brother while watching him bang his sister. So deep, so edgy!

I'm being a bit cynical and hyperbolic, though, and again I have not read the article so I'm just being reactionary against other reactionaries for the sake of it. It's OK, it's not terrible, but it's not acted well. I don't feel convinced hearing someone's voice coming out of my field of view that is just so... not anyone I ever knew. The whole frat-bros thing seems stereotypical, and maybe it should be, I don't know.