Zero Punctuation: Far Cry 3

[Something Amyss]

Loved the rose bush pruning and tactical mauling commentary.

 

[Casual Shinji]

A tiger with ties to Al Quida, now there's a thought. lol!

It's not just a thought, it's full blown duo on a magic carpet.

OOON A MAGIC CARPET RIII-*Crashes into large building*

That must've been one hell of a magic carpet then.

 

[1nfinite_Cros5]

Nothing wrong with mellowing out, Yahtzee. Just glad to see that there's more good games coming out and that you were one of the causes that steered developers in the right way with your industry connections.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

A tiger with ties to Al Quida, now there's a thought. lol!

It's not just a thought, it's full blown duo on a magic carpet.

...what? What is that from?

 

[Sacman]

Heh... actually sounds like my kind of shit...<.<

My friend was telling me it was really good earlier this week... I was skeptical... but now that I've heard a better explanation it sounds right up my alley...<.<

 

[Zealous]

After watching the Video Games Awesome guys play the game, I noticed a glaring flaw in the game that I kinda hoped Yahtzee would address: Every now and then, your cell phone will ring. Your character will immediately drop what he's doing, answer it, and agree to do whatever he's asked to do, which locks you into doing a mission. If, at any point after this, you set one foot outside the designated but unmarked "mission zone", you fail the mission. But it gets worse: Failing a mission has the same effect as dying, where the screen goes black and you reload at the last checkpoint with all your progress lost.

Maybe it's just me, but this seems unforgivable. I've never played any other sandbox game that forces you to follow the storyline at its designated pace without any sidetracking. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of being a sandbox game. I'd like to think Yahtzee would agree. Maybe he just never triggered it, but given his fondness for idly fucking around in sandbox games, that would surprise me.

Well actually that only happens for story missions. After completing the last one you'll usually get a phone call (or just directly talk to someone) and then you get a waypoint on your map. If you go to that waypoint then the mission will start and you'll usually have a limited space to play the mission through in. You can always just abandon the mission though if you wandered into the waypoint by accident.

I was surprised that Yatzhee didn't mention a point of critique I read in my game magazine, which is that while our hero gets a storyarc in which he becomes increasingly badass-yet-unhinged, the actual gameplay lets you mow down baddies from the word go. You may not have offscreen special forces training, but given how well the hero handles a kalashnikov at full auto he might as well. They made it sound like it would have been a good idea to implement the original Deus Ex's skill system.

One thing that annoys me is how the character is already a "badass" (unless he opens his mouth) in terms of gameplay right at the start of the game. After they give you a weapon you can just go in a random killing spree and easily make out of it alive, I would have liked to have the guns sway more and have an increased recoil at the start of the game and having the character being slower and more easily tired, etc... Then with the upgrades he would become more like the character that he is.

There's one mission where it reveals a bit of backstory saying that Jason is "a natural" at shooting and that he received practice with his older brother at a firing range. He's also an adrenaline junkie so he'd have a pretty good constitution and strength. Jason's problems with killing at the start of the game have to do with his disgust for taking people's lives not the fact that he was incapable of firing a gun. At least that's the way I see it.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Actually the first ZP in a long while that made me laugh. And it looks like I have a game to add on my wishlist.

 

[Remus]

We have no cassowarys here. Is it still a holiday if I just flambe'd a pheasant?

 

[franksands]

He is indeed becoming soft, he did even call BLOPs and CoD shooters isntead of spunk gargle weewee

 

[remnant_phoenix]

So I guess we can guarantee that Spec Ops: The Line, Xcom: Enemy Unknown, and Far Cry 3 will all be on his Top 5 of the year.

Also, every time he said "I am a banana" I was reminded of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuOvqeABHvQ

Ninja'd!

I was gonna say:

So, Spec Ops: The Line will be his game of the year, followed by Far Cry 3, then XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Calling it now.

Also, that'll be a kick in the teeth to the butthurts who said "Yahtzee just doesn't like shooters" after the MW3/BF3 getting "worst game" last year. His favorites include two shooters, with realistic settings to boot!

 

[The Great JT]

Far Cry 3 makes one thing perfectly clear: Games Need More Tigers.

 

[geizr]

That was actually kinda refreshing, to hear something that sounds more like a genuine critique of a game (like the original Yahtzee of the old days) rather than just a mouth-foaming nerd-rage rant.

 

[Beryl77]

Far Cry 3 was a big surprise for me. I didn't expect anything good from it, since I hated Far Cry 2 (although I did kinda like FC1 but never finished it). I was actually surprised that it was about to be released because I hadn't been following the news about FC3 at all. I knew nothing about it but I tried it when I visited a friend who already had it.
Great game, like Yahtzee said, Ubi fixed pretty much all the flaws that FC2 had.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Between this and Totalbuiscut's impression video it looks like Far Cry 3 would have been fun.

Unfortunately I'm all taped out for gaming purchases this year.

 

[Erttheking]

Well fuck, I was going to give this game a miss, but since Yahtzee liked it, what else can I do besides buy it?

 

[PotatoeMan]

I had the same tiger incident. Didn't like the repair kit taking up a weapon slot as you rarely use it but I guess there are enough cars around and the fast travel means you don't get stuck anywhere anyway.

 

[Spartan212]

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved this game. Jason and his friends were very unlikable to me, but at least they were somewhat interesting. The gameplay was just...fun. The pirate camps that had wild animals in cages were my favorite. Sneak up to camp, shoot cage with my silenced sniper rifle, watch a wild leopard start mauling everyone while I deactivated the alarm. Never got old. I do agree that the second half of the game wasn't nearly as interesting, but it was still very fun.

Also, on PC, I felt the driving controls were horrendous. I pretty much gave up on the supply drop missions after doing one of them

"Vaas was less of a boss fight and more of a middle-management disagreement". Best line ever

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

I really am the only person who hated this game. I've never played a modern military shooter so maybe this is good by comparison. Skyrim with guns this game is not.

No that would be fallout 3/newvegas with mods

 

[MorganL4]

I could totally see a game putting "Even Yahtzee liked it!" on the back of the box.

That would actually make me think about buying it.

I think a Facebook commenter had it right when he said:

"If I were a Farcry 3 publisher "I am a banana." -Zero Punctuation would totally go on the back of the box."

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

One thing that annoys me is how the character is already a "badass" (unless he opens his mouth) in terms of gameplay right at the start of the game. After they give you a weapon you can just go in a random killing spree and easily make out of it alive, I would have liked to have the guns sway more and have an increased recoil at the start of the game and having the character being slower and more easily tired, etc... Then with the upgrades he would become more like the character that he is.

That's more like YOU are the badass, not the character.

Making the character arbitrarily weak would be good in terms of artistic merit, but it won't garner any love from people just wanting to play the game.