Sun, sea and sandbox
1. Finding out that our new hero is a wuss
In stark contrast to Far Cry 2s selection of battle-hardened mercenary gun-bastards, Far Cry 3s hero is as green as a seasick lime. Jason Brody is a young, out-of-his-depth American tourist having one hell of a disappointing seaside break. Stranded on what feels like a desert island holiday camp for the mentally ill, his friends are all either missing or dead, and he has no way of contacting home. His response? A whole load of whining and sobbing.
The opening sections of the game, set during Brodys initial escape from the pirate camp he wakes up in, are soundtracked one long string of terrified whiny yelps and proclamations of his own weakness. Its actually a smart change from the usual over-confident grit spouted by game heroes in the face of impending death, and probably a deliberate foundation for what we expect will be a slow-burning story of empowerment.
2. Discovering that our friends are hateful douches
At first its not easy to be sympathetic to Far Cry 3s main cast of good guys. In fact so loathsome is their initial introduction that the notes we wrote during the games opening title sequence genuinely cannot be published on this website. Why are they so horrible? Four words: SPRING BREAK BRAH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Introduced via a horribly upbeat montage of extreme sports holiday imagery, Brodys crew are immediately identified as the most standard-issue bunch of showboating college brats that the dark arts of extreme national stereotyping could possibly muster. We think the effect is intentional though, because the holiday footage immediately jump cuts to them having a much, much less fun time. Its actually quite effective from a dramatic perspective, but more than a bit sadistically cathartic too. For a bit, anyway. Which leads us on to our next point.
3. Suddenly feeling a bit sorry for our hateful friends
Yay! One of my hateful bro-friends is now in a bamboo cell looking all battered and sad. Oh wait, hes looking really sad, and not that bro-ish at all now. Oh hang on, this place is actually really scary, and that mad-eyed guy verbally torturing us is pretty well acted and genuinely a bit disturbing, and suddenly this all feels like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Hostel and can we get out of here now please?
4. Heroically fighting off the bad guys but then getting eaten by a Komodo Dragon while reloading
You thought the wildlife could be a hassle in Far Cry 2? Komodo dragons are total arses. Theyre vicious, theyre low to the ground, and they blend right into the grass, making an attack from them very much like being gored by your own lawn. Theyre all over the place in Far Cry 3, and they think nothing of slowly shuffling towards you while youre otherwise engaged with bigger, more obvious gun-wielding adversaries. And then theyll take a big bite out of your leg. And it will really hurt, and they wont even care. Arses.
5. Actually enjoying the car chases
Far Cry 2s car chases, although theoretically brilliant, were fairly horrible experiences in practice. However fast and evasive you managed to be, their incessantly aggressive Terminator-style AI would mindlessly chase you to the very ends of the Earth and smash the living crap out of you. Over and over, forever, until you were dead. It was like being bullied by a room full of anthropomorphised washing machines.
Well no more. Far Cry 3s driver AI so far seems balanced just right. Pursuers are aggressive enough to provide a thrill and demand smart driving, but are also plausibly flawed, falling away and giving up at just the point they should. Car chases now feel like the rewarding emergent set-pieces they always should have been, rather than the eye-rolling irritation they were.
6. Finding a lot of quite nice people around the place
Dont let the unhinged madness of arch-villain Vaas and his band of pirates completely put you off Far Cry 3s island as a potential holiday destination. While we were expecting an entirely brutal wilderness filled with murder and ribaldry at every turn, we rapidly discovered that the region is actually an area of long-standing contention between the pirates and a whole load of rather civilised folk who want them out.
For starters theres an entirely peaceful village, which is home to a lovely bunch known as The Tribe. You can hang out there, rest, and shop to your hearts content. In fact it feels so much like a holiday destination that we started to wonder if Brody could just leave his friends to their fate and stay there, free of trouble. It seems like a better plan, all things considered. And then theres the doctor we met later on. Hes a total 70s acid casualty, but a thoroughly nice chap, and very helpful indeed. Couple in all the various community notices and requests for help, and you have an area that feels a lot more friendly to exploration than Far Cry 2s realm of unending bastardry.
7. Being a murdery postman
Late mail is annoying. Mail theft is a crime. But you know whats even worse? When the postman delivers a parcel and then stealth-machetes you in the back because youve got a better gun than him, before zipping off into the sunset on the very same quad bike he arrived on. Not to mention when that departing silhouette is the last thing your dying eyes see, drawing cruel contrast against the hope it brought just moments earlier when you saw it coming towards you carrying ironically - the medicine you we so desperately relying on.
Note: There may have been a side-mission in Far Cry 3 which charged us with hurtling cross-country on a quad bike to deliver desperately relied-on medicine before a tight timer ran out. We may have completed the mission and collected the reward, and we may not be proud of what we did next.
8. Crafting a pig-skin wallet
All over the map there are icons representing animals indigenous to different parts of the jungle. After getting tired of seeing You cant carry any more money flash up on the screen we decided to do something about it, which meant hunting boars. After moving to an area of the map lousy with them, we took out our pistol and began taking shots at a nearby oinker, only to see it turn tail and run away. Another one we shot at actually did the opposite, and ran straight towards us. We shot it after taking a few hits, but were surprised to see the piggy give up such a fight.
After skinning it (and killing and skinning another) we went into the crafting window and looked through the wide range of options. Many things, from being able to carry items to having multiple weapon slots, are actually tied to crafting, incentivizing spending some time killing helpless animals for their hide. We found the wallet section and crafted a new one. Success!
9. Killing a dog for profit
Several, in fact. And it wasnt just the usual open-world equation of long, uneventful trek + random animal = inevitable murder. Dog destruction is actually a prescribed side-mission objective early on. Having completed the first real story-driven combat mission (a raid on a pirate camp), wed already had to increase the meat/lead ratio of one aggressive canine in order to survive. Wandering the roads surrounding the camp afterwards, we came across one of Far Cry 3s many mission-dispensing noticeboards. It turned out that a guy wanted a pack of wild dogs clearing from his land, and having already proven ourselves pretty handy at the old canine reduction business we signed up.
One odd point though. The note specified that it wanted the dogs killed in a very particular way. Namely with a shotgun that the poster had left near the objective. This guy didnt just want the dogs dead. He clearly wanted them obliterated. Our temporary boss was clearly a scary mental type, but we were getting a free shotgun out of it, so the dogs died.
