Far Cry III

penny arcade report with far cry 3 writer

Some interesting thoughts about the story and the writers intentions. ( spoilers in the article)

From the article it seems the writer intended far cry to be on some level a critique of a standard video game/machismo action hero tropes among other things. For me it wasn't pulled off convincingly and it came across as hero fantasy, probably more unrestrained than normal due to the writers intention to show it up and counterpoint. Instead most of the counterpoint got lost (or its "subtle") and your left with a story that's more silly than most.

but overall loved this game and want more!

Just finished this. Third night this week I'm up at 2am+ with work in the morning due to the game.

Fucking loved it. Vaas is one of my favourite video game villains of all time, up there with Kefka and GLADOS.


Tip for anyone trying it: Screw the collectibles / side quests unless you find it really fun. You don't need half of it to max out on XP, and the signature weapons are sidegrades. Just do the dumb crafting shit, radio towers for map coverage and ~half the outposts for 1500XP (undetected) and porting around.

Despite the story being somewhat predictable and cliche filled, I enjoyed it immensely due to the visceral way it's told and some great characters.

Signature weapons are all upgrades over their base model, and you can unlock a number of them before you would the normal gun.

My biggest complaint about the game is that the "bad" ending I chose was well... shitty.

They are overall upgrades, but the inability to customize them makes most of them no more useful than the base weapon. It's certainly nothing that is needed to beat the game.

If you're collecting everything you can unlock them earlier on relative to the story, but you can just advance the story instead in approximately the same time.

Elerion_sl said:

They are overall upgrades, but the inability to customize them makes most of them no more useful than the base weapon.

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You realize they come fully upgraded, AND have better stats than the base weapon right? Signature weapons are ridiculously OP, once you unlock a sig you'll never use another weapon in that class, except for the shotgun cause the SPAS is slightly better.

Gavinrad_sl said:

You realize they come fully upgraded, AND have better stats than the base weapon right? Signature weapons are ridiculously OP, once you unlock a sig you'll never use another weapon in that class, except for the shotgun cause the SPAS is slightly better.

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The pistol: Good, but the only reason to use a pistol is to headshot people from stealth, and the regular weapon does that just as well.
The SMG: Good, but I never used an SMG due to not seeing a niche for it, but there may be one.
The shotgun: Worse than SPAS.
The assault rifle: Lower damage than ACE, but has the bonus of a silencer. Silencer was great on the F1 early on for an all round weapon, but by the time I got this, 99% of my stealth kills were done with sniper / takedown / pistol anyway. ACE is just as good at regular gunplay.
The LMG: Might be good, I rarely used LMGs since assault rifles are better for all round gunplay and launcher/explosives are better for tough targets.
The sniper: I can't think of a single reason to use an unsilenced sniper in this game.
The tanto: Cute, but melee damage is only relevant if you're fucking around.

Don't get me wrong, the signature weapons are cool, but none of them struck me as significant upgrades from the base weapons. At least in the weapon classes I used. There's no reason to go around doing boring sidequests just to get them. If you're having fun with the sidequests, they're a nice bonus.

You also get the signature weapons significantly earlier than the other high end weapons of the class. I had the Bull shotgun unlocked very early on the first island, the SPAS isn't unlocked until you're partway through the second island. You're right about the sniper rifle, I never used it. I also never used an LMG. The pistol was good because in addition to unlocking it super early, it had a red dot scope, which I couldn't add on to any of the other pistols.

I guess a tiger should be able to take 40 rounds to the head! Why not! Just had to vent my frustration, how fucking retarded

My preferred tiger hunting weapon is a tanto. You guys are fucking pussies.

Cutlery_sl said:

My preferred tiger hunting weapon is a fucking jeep.

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Haha, tried that and it is quite satisfying now

I enjoyed this game immensely, defiantly did not see that ending.

How do I edit posts with that spoiler button?

The sig LMG is beast, kills everything including entire missions and camps before having to reload.

Yasp_sl said:

I enjoyed this game immensely, defiantly did not see that ending.

How do I edit posts with that spoiler button?

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[*spoiler]Spoiler text goes here[/spoiler]

Delete the asterisk.

Just finished this gem. Aside from the ending(s), which I thought were good-not-great, the game was stellar. If your rig can run it maxed, it is a sight to behold.

The last set-piece mission was fantastic.

I only got to see a few minutes of a friend play the game, but it looked like a blast and incredibly brutal at times. We played some co-op, which was fun but uninventive and downright annoying at times (e.g., Mariokart minigame of getting the most mines before the other player).

Just got to the second Island and I absolutely love this game. I don't often enjoy shooters all that much, but this is such a fresh take on things (for me, anyway).
When I saw the co-op option I was excited, thinking that it must have been a second player dropping into the single player. When I played co-op I was really disappointed, as it lacked everything that made single player fun for me. Anyway, I'll probably wrap it up in the next day or so and then hope for some good DLC.

Teddite_sl said:

Just got to the second Island and I absolutely love this game. I don't often enjoy shooters all that much, but this is such a fresh take on things (for me, anyway).

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Yup. FPS have gotten a bit stale on the SP front, but ubisoft really nailed this one. The narrative isn't groundbreaking, but it's good and interesting. Vaas, Dennis, Hoyt, Citra, Sam...the other characters are super good, expertly animated and add a lot to reinforce the narrative.

Once I got the kriss and m4, the game was super easy but it was easy the whole time. I hope the mod scene gets a hold of this game; so many things you could do with the island and characters as is...

Creating a second save game so that you can go back and mess around in the game world again without doing side missions and/or clearing camps gives the game alot more replay value.
There are few things more satisfying than gunning down a car load of pirates while they drive along a road.