Far Cry 3 reactions (spoilers)

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Vaas should have been the final boss with Hoyt being the mid-boss. Hoyt is just a thousand times less interesting.

Also the fact that Vaas gets killed in a cut-scene and you go after some other guy you've never met and don't care about. Hoyt was just a boring character.

Vaas was good fun and owned every scene he was in, but he only appeared in occasional cutscenes. Then you kill him in a silly QTE fight, then the game introduces some other boring prick you've never seen before and keeps bloody going.

See, I kind of saw Hoyt as a red herring. He's boring and inconsequential because he's boring and inconsequential. Jason is the real monster by that point, and Citra is the primary antagonist.

Then there should have been a final fight where you kill her and take the island instead of the piece of shit bad ending.

Also, while I understand what you're saying, boring and inconsequential is still a crappy way to go when the guy dominates the entire second half of the game, even if it is intentional.

 

[Callate]

I found it quite enjoyable, over all. The sense of planning out how you were going to take on a camp never got old- whether you watched the pieces neatly fall into place or watched it go to hell and improvised your way out, it was always fun.

The scripted scenes, less so. I appreciated the atmosphere they were trying to create, and (Robert Rath's well-considered criticism of same noted) thought the story wasn't bad for the kind of experience it was trying to wrap itself around. But all the sense of planning and execution tended to fall apart when one was thrust into the middle of larger mission areas with little or no chance to reconnoiter before engaging enemies, let alone the "everything is on fire and falling down" linear run sequences or the quick-time event fights. Though the cut scenes were well done, I would have liked having more player engagement with the story.

As far as the ending went,

Spoiler

I thought the Rakyat's transition from "your noble, mystical comrades-in-arms" to "bloodthirsty savages who practice human sacrifice" was more than a little abrupt. There are certainly segments through the game where one begins to wonder if these people don't have ulterior motives, but I was hoping for something a little more subtle and insidious. The Vaas/Citra dualism is an interesting idea that doesn't really pan out in most of what you see of them through the game. If a game really wants to engage insanity as more than a vague theme, I'd really like to see more of how the main character's whole understanding of what's going on around him is somehow wrong, more than just the occasional hallucination while interesting and apparently devastating things are occurring in real life. In some ways, it might have made for a more interesting ending if the Rakyat had packed a protesting Jason up and forced him to leave the island with his friends, him having fulfilled his purpose and no longer having a place among the more civilized "savage" people he had worked with.

 

[senordesol]

I simply couldn't get behind the 'theme' of the story (i.e. Jason becoming what he fights)...that just didn't make much sense to me. Everyone I was going after was a legitimate threat to me and my friends (and were just assholes in general anyway). Jason didn't go after defenseless civilians (rather: I didn't while I was controlling him). He didn't make slaves. He didn't even make his enemies suffer. He seemed no different than a young draftee separated from his unit; fighting for survival behind enemy lines.

To me: Jason had a mission, and had a clear goal: get his friends back. I actually respected him a bit more when he decided to finish the job and dismantle the entire slaving operation so no one would have to suffer what he and his friends suffered.

So the ending to me was just bizarre. Why would I kill the people I had spent so much time trying to save? What loyalty would I have to the crazy tribal lady who couldn't say 'hello' without drugging me? Everyone is free and all possible threats are dead: time to go home.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Then there should have been a final fight where you kill her and take the island instead of the piece of shit bad ending.

Also, while I understand what you're saying, boring and inconsequential is still a crappy way to go when the guy dominates the entire second half of the game, even if it is intentional.

Oh, I don't know. I'm getting tired of "final fights". While the "bad ending" could have been handled better, I didn't find it THAT appalling. There were no ghostly kids spouting exposition, for one thing.

I agree that Hoyt wasn't particularly well handled, although I think it was a case of subtlety gone wrong instead of lousy characterization.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Then there should have been a final fight where you kill her and take the island instead of the piece of shit bad ending.

Also, while I understand what you're saying, boring and inconsequential is still a crappy way to go when the guy dominates the entire second half of the game, even if it is intentional.

Oh, I don't know. I'm getting tired of "final fights". While the "bad ending" could have been handled better, I didn't find it THAT appalling. There were no ghostly kids spouting exposition, for one thing.

I agree that Hoyt wasn't particularly well handled, although I think it was a case of subtlety gone wrong instead of lousy characterization.

Ok, maybe not a final fight, but something where the player defeats or kills her.

Also, while I disliked it, I didn't think the bad ending was that terrible either until I read the writers comments on it.

As for Hoyt, I agree. Every scene with him, I felt like there was the making of an excellent subtle character hidden in all the blandness.

 

[piinyouri]

I really enjoyed it a lot. Only part I disliked was that you can learn almost all the skills. I really wanted to specialize and have one file that sneaks in the grass before taking out a alarm box with an arrow, another that uses quick gun play and sniper shots to even the odds, and a crazy ************ who drives jeeps straight into compounds and comes out shotgun blazing.

Also, I would like to go on record as saying I kind of liked how Vaas was beaten.
He's this monster that's tormenting you, possibly the dark reflection of yourself, and having him go in a QTE made it seem like you didn't actually kill him. Like you can't kill the evil inside.

I'unno, that game can be heavily interpreted, which is one of the things I greatly enjoy about it.
It's kind of artsy.

 

[daveman247]

Gameplay great, story was meeeeh. Its like the writers were not quite sure what they wanted the story to be about: Getting back your friends, mystical druggy tribal stuff or one mans decent into madness as he does what he has to do to survive. There were a few interesting parts such as Jasons friends being weireded out about all the killing and guns he has instead of the usual "my hero" stuff. But it didn't really develop that idea enough. In the end the story just became a bit of a muddled mess, they needed to focus on just one or maybe two things.
Most characters were bland and i can recall no names except Vaas who was supposed to be a major part of the game (like a main antagonist who keeps dogging you throughout the whole game) but instead didn't do a whole lot. The character did more in the marketing "episodes" for petes sake and was a whole lot more entertaining!

Also once again it suffers from the ailments of most sand box games. Lots of pointless sidequests killed the pacing of the story and the story missions were extremely linear as opposed to the rest of the game.

To be honest I found the story/ gameplay of blood dragon MUCH more memorable and fun (No dying from falling two feet for one). But that game was only four hours long so thats probably why (did not outstay its welcome).


They should have just focussed on the "relationship" between Jason and Vaas and Jason's fight to get his people back and cut the rest of the stuff. Then they could have developed the idea of Jason having to go "crazy" to win but alienating his friends in the process.

Oh also the co op and multiplayer was completely pointless and just "functional". They could have used that money to make the single player better :L

 

[Voulan]

I simply couldn't get behind the 'theme' of the story (i.e. Jason becoming what he fights)...that just didn't make much sense to me. Everyone I was going after was a legitimate threat to me and my friends (and were just assholes in general anyway). Jason didn't go after defenseless civilians (rather: I didn't while I was controlling him). He didn't make slaves. He didn't even make his enemies suffer. He seemed no different than a young draftee separated from his unit; fighting for survival behind enemy lines.

To me: Jason had a mission, and had a clear goal: get his friends back. I actually respected him a bit more when he decided to finish the job and dismantle the entire slaving operation so no one would have to suffer what he and his friends suffered.

So the ending to me was just bizarre. Why would I kill the people I had spent so much time trying to save? What loyalty would I have to the crazy tribal lady who couldn't say 'hello' without drugging me? Everyone is free and all possible threats are dead: time to go home.

The idea behind that was the length he would go to become a special "warrior". His friends were his only connection to normality, so ultimately it was a dramatic way of making him transcend his past. It's why in his drug trip Citra goes on about destiny and apparitions of his friends attempt to hold him back, to brainwash him into wanting to be special.

What's important to note is that the plot is a PARODY of the whole one-man-hero story. People commented about how racist it was for the American to save the local islanders, and being seduced by the native princess, and becoming the ultimate warrior, and that was the entire point. It was pointing out how insane those typical themes are, and how superfluous the whole "chosen one" plot point is. When you look at it from that perspective, the game is phenomenal.

 

[Strazdas]

You know, the more i hear FC2 fans hating it, the more i want to play it, i despise FC2 (and i loved the first one), so this may just go back onto my lists to get when i have time for them.

If you hated FC2 for the same reasons most FC2 haters do, you might well like FC3 as they obviously tried their best to listen to criticisms and fix those things. Possibly the reason FC2 fans hate it is that they didn't think it was broken to begin with, but that's another story. It's not like FC2 was faithful to FC1 either, so we can't really complain.

Hmm, i see, so yeah this looks more and more like a game i may jsut put on my list (not high up) on games id like to play when time allows.

 

[ERaptor]

The Gameplay was fun. Im a sucker for Stealth anyway, and crouching trough bushes and Fauna to release a captured Tiger with a well aimed arrow feeled really great. However, FC3 followed a trend a lot of games do, and it just assumes you like or hate characters without actually trying to deliver this feelings. Vaas was cool, considering how little screen time he got and still managed to be pretty universally liked says a lot about the character. However, Jasons "friends" didnt have the same luck. The game enver tried to sell them to me, to make me care. Jason himself changed to abruptly in my eyes, or maybe the transition wasnt handled well. But as @Zhukov mentioned, he hops around between "Oh noooooo" and "Fuuuuuck yeeeesss", and just gets batsh*t crazy towards the end.

Spoiler

I choose the..."Good ending" (I think it's considered the good ending, since you dont murder your friends and get killed after banging Ms. sudden sacrifice.), because it just closed the game better. However, i agree with most people that Vaas should've been the final thing, whereafter you rescue your friends and maybe Jason actually does some self reflection. The Story kept me interested to around where Vaas died. After that, i just wanted to save GF because im a romantic sucker like that. Also a bit dissapointed we didnt get some Snu-Snu in the good ending as well. I just murdered a metric fu*kton of pirates to save you, woman! Show some grattitude!

I also liked the hunting thing, but imho they shouldnt have made territorys for each animal. I would've liked a more fleshed out crafting system, which would allow using different materials than just specific ones for each recipe. Hunting felt too much like railroading trough an upgrading System that requires you to wrestle goddamn alligators.

Captcha: "tight lipped"
Wut?

 

[IronMit]

I was very impressed at the start, the stealth mechanics and setting is awesome. AI and options is great for an open world FPS, but they didn't do enough with them.
I quit once I met Buck (the guy that was apparently raping your male friend). I wasn't offended I was just bored.

New area, climb radio tower, go down, do pointless checkpoint mission, repeat

Liberate camp (actually fun), unlock pointless repetitive assassination missions or hunting mission.

Main campaign; Follow checkpoints, follow checkpoint, follow checkpoint, stretched out story with characters I don't care about.

Token RPG levelling system.
The game made me install Fallout 3 again...so that's something good.

 

[WolfThomas]

Now Buck was the real interesting antagonist.

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

I Like this game, even more so with the AMR. You can shoot through many people and still blow up a vehicle in one shot, or just bust out the RPG. I hate the story though. The drug trips are cool but pointless. Oh and whenever I clear an outpost and those NPC's show up, I go on a bloody killing rampage if I hear one of them say "who's the man, I'm the man".

 

[Buddahcjcc]

If you liked the game and/or really liked Vaas, check out the Youtube series where Vaas does his thing with the Mclovin kid.

http://youtu.be/V93nzCqMzBY Are the first few episodes I think

 

[Legion]

Surprised at all the hate it's getting here, I liked it quite a bit. Bit padded, certainly, but the minute to minute game play was smooth and fun, and I found the story line surprisingly entertaining. Superlative voice acting from a few of the principles, and a slightly offbeat (for gaming) Heart of Darkness story in which the "heroes" turn out to be arguably worse than the villains.

Fantastic use of music too.

The padding was pretty much my only major dislike. By the time I had gotten to the second island I had done absolutely everything possible on the first one. All collectibles, towers, outposts and so on. So the second island just felt like a chore because it was more of the same.

Although the outposts were always fun.

I didn't like Jason Brody, nor many of the main characters, but to be honest that kind of thing never bothers me unless the game is heavily story or character based. In FarCry 3 it just felt like the typical "Give enough story and characterisation to provide motivation, and that's it", and that worked for me.

 

[thehorror2]

I preferred Blood Dragon, to be honest. All the gameplay fun without the plot stupidity. (Well, there is a plot, and it IS still stupid, but intentionally so)