Far Cry 3 review
Far Cry 3 provides a fascinating journey to the heart of darkness in an ambitious and exciting open-world shooter.
Formats Xbox 360 (tested), PlayStation 3, PC
Developer Ubisoft
Publisher Ubisoft
Released 30 November 2012
Developer Ubisoft
Publisher Ubisoft
Released 30 November 2012
In the build-up to the release of Far Cry 3, Ubisoft's superb open-world shooter, there was an almost unwavering focus on the sociopathic tendencies of Vaas Montenegro. Far Cry 3's psychotic villain glowers at you from the game box, he pops up in video trailers waxing lyrical about the nature of insanity before doing, ooh, horrible horrible things. But while Vaas is one of the best video game baddies in some time, with fabulous dialogue performed with unsettling verve, he is not the star. The island that lies behind him is.
Rook Island is a magnificent creation. The lush foliage of the Pacific island's heart is bordered by golden sand and crystal-blue waters, the kind of idyllic setting that recalls rum on the beach and dips in the sea. Go for a paddle around Rook Island, though, and you'll get eaten by a shark. Dally on the beach and you may end up kidnapped by a gang of pirates. Go for a stroll in the jungle and you'll see lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Leopards prowl the verges of the dusty roads that sprawl through Rook's foliage, pouncing on a group of pirates travelling in a rickety truck. Rabid dogs chase pigs across the tundra. Which made me wonder, are there really pigs in the jungle? Maybe not, but given that the only way to make a new holster for my pistol is by skinning a wild goat, I didn't think about it too much.
Far Cry 3 is a video game happily indebted to systems rather than reality, but doesn't let that stop it creating a world that teems with life in an ecosystem that is fantastical but believable. Hunting gives you the most obvious peek into the behaviour of the island's fauna, as you collect (entirely arbitrary) animal skins to craft new items, travelling halfway across the map because you heard there was a rare tiger to be hunted and skinned. Good luck with that, and remember that tigers usually come in pairs.
Letting yourself loose across Far Cry 3's huge map sees the game at its very best, as well as hunting and exploring off your own steam --finding caves, nooks and crannies harbouring goodies-- Ubisoft provide a vast amount of tasks and missions. One of the main attractions is securing 34 pirate outposts scattered all over the island. The setup is always the same: reach the outpost, eliminate the pirates within. It sounds incredibly repetitive on the surface, but each outpost is defended differently and, more importantly, the land around it is never the same. The outposts throw up some terrific tactical quandaries. You are equipped with a camera, which you can use to tag bad guys, allowing you to follow their movements through walls. Then you face the choice of how to approach the encampment: all guns blazing, sniping from distance, or sneaking in and using a machete to keep things quiet. The different layouts, enemy formations and locations of alarms forces you to think on your feet and approach each outpost as it comes. Alternatively, a bear could happen upon the area at the same time, mauling every pirate in sight and leaving you to wander in and secure the area once big grizzly has got bored and returned to the treeline.
It's a enviable skill of Ubisoft, subtlety altering your mindset and providing the tools to execute your plan. And the action itself is fantastic. One of the game's best aspects is simply how you move, a sense of weight and inertia enabled by a decent line in climbing and the ability to brusquely enter into a slide, whisking between cover to flank unaware pirates. Clear an outpost undetected, and you will earn more XP to upgrade your skills. The abilities you learn further bolster your arsenal, allowing you, for instance, to creep up on a bad guy, take him out silently before whipping his own knife out of his pocket and throwing it at his still turning partner. It's a skill tree that adds layers, rather than enforcing what's already there, and its generous, steady drip-feed encourages you to seek out tasks between the main missions. You'll be planning your route via as many sidequests as possible; climbing radio towers to reveal more areas of the map, taking on jobs to deliver medical supplies using an ATV, hunting notorious pirates. It's a clever, compelling array of distractions, dragging you from Far Cry 3's narrative path.
It's an interesting tale, however, a journey into a heart of darkness inspired by Conrad and Carroll. You play as mildly obnoxious American frat boy Jason Brody, a thrill-seeking jock holidaying across the South Pacific with his two brothers and a group of friends. Looking for one last adventure before heading home, Jason and pals take a sky-dive over the supposedly uninhabited Rook Islands, not realising that the area is in the midst of a brutal civil war between the native Rakyat and the pirates and privateers that have turned this slice of paradise into hell. Captured by Vaas and his mercenaries, Jason and his brother Grant manage to break free of their cell. But only Jason makes it out of the camp. A quivering, terrified wreck, Jason is taken in by the Rakyat and is trained to fight.
It's an intoxicating opening, slightly contradicted by Jason's immediate proficiency with firearms. But Far Cry 3 doesn't look to waste time before throwing open Rook's treasures, instead throwing in some wilfully daft mysticism about magical tattoos giving Jason his powers. What's compelling about Jason's story is that his sense of empowerment as a character dovetails superbly with your own as a player, as you dutifully unlock new powers on the skill tree. Beginning as an unsure fumbling ninny, a few hours in Jason is handed a flamethrower and tasked with setting a marijuana farm alight. While an enemy pirate is engulfed in flames, the poor soul running screeching as the land around him burns, Jason yells "I LOVE THIS THING!" An uncomfortable nod to you, because you love it too, and the game asks you to look closely at the gun in your hand.
The story missions are far more scripted and linear than the open exploration allows. For the most part this is a well-judged split between cinematic action and open-world traversal, setting you clear objectives to move the story along. Jason is initially searching for his surviving friends, but the island tempts him with a will for power. Far Cry 3's themes are thick with Nietzsche's philosophy, pitting Jason and Vaas on opposite sides of a bloody land grab. It's a concept that serves the game well, you question Jason's motives and it feels like the game is building to a great revelation.
But it never comes. What does disappoint with Far Cry 3 is that it has a confidence to build this fantastic house of cards, even willing to shuffle the deck two thirds of the way through, but doesn't have the gumption to knock it down when it should. As the game reaches its denouement, the silly mysticism takes centre-stage, allowing the game an escape route from its dark heart. It rubs off on the later story missions too, running out of ideas and relying far too heavily on turret sections, quick-time-events and Alamo style shootouts. The game's characters, setting and themes are fantastic, but they end up inhabiting a plot that ends up a little aimless and muddled.
A shame, but the anti-climactic denouement cannot completely take the shine from a wonderfully polished piece of work. An ambitious, flexible and exciting open-world shooter that offers some of the most interesting action you'll find all year. A competent multiplayer and four-player co-op round off the package, though they both focus on the shooting-gallery style of play which doesn't do Far Cry 3's systems justice. Instead, this is a game far more at home in the jungle, with you in your own company, armed with a bow, stalking your prey in the unpredictable tangle of foliage. Leaving you to do things your own way. Before that pesky bear turns up and spoils all your fun.
