I came into Far Cry 3 without any expectations. I played – but never finished – Far Cry, and I never even started Far Cry 2. Far Cry 3 had me hooked within the first few hours, and quickly became one of the best games I’ve played in a long time.
Gameplay
Far Cry 3 is an open-world first-person shooter. As you play, you slowly unlock an arsenal of weapons from which you can carry four. These weapons can also be upgraded with various attachments – like silencers, scopes, or extended magazines – so you can customize them to fit your play style.
The game is played in a jungle, and you spend a good bit of time just running from one place to another. The jungle is filled with animals – some dangerous – that you can hunt and skin. You use animal skins to upgrade your equipment, then to sell once your equipment is fully upgraded.
Initially, much of the map is hidden. You slowly reveal the map by activating radio towers. The radio towers are like small puzzles – you have to find the path to the top of the tower to remove a jamming device and reactivate it. It’s usually not difficult to find the correct path, but it’s a nice change of pace from the rest of the game, and you’re rewarded with a quick overview of what’s in the area when you reactivate the tower.
There are also enemy outposts scattered across the map. While these outposts are in enemy hands, you’ll see enemy jeeps and patrols in the area, which will attack you on sight. Once you clear an outpost, however, these patrols are replaced by allies, who will come to your aid if you enter battle nearby. Clearing an outpost also unlocks it as a fast-travel location, so it’s usually a good idea to clear them soon after finding them (if only to make getting around easier). Clearing an outpost also rewards you with a decent bit of experience.
While the game encourages being stealthy by rewarding you with extra experience for stealth kills or clearing an outpost while remaining undetected (if you’re detected, you’re only given a third of the experience), playing the game loaded with RPGs and light machine guns is just as viable, and sometimes much easier. Running through the game mowing down enemies with a hail of gunfire is probably going to slow down your progression, though. I played the game with a silenced sniper rifle, crossbow, silenced SMG, and silenced assault rifle – if at all possible, I killed everyone without being noticed. The AI is a bit dumb, so they can be eluded fairly easily, but there are times when they’ll immediately spot you if you poke your head out. These times were few and far between, however.
The AI will react fairly well to your actions. If you leave a body in the open, someone will notice (“Is that a body?!”) and start investigating. If you headshot the person standing next to someone, they’ll immediately go on alert (“Holy shit!”) and head toward the source of the shot. You’re given the ability to throw a stone as a distraction from the start of the game, but I rarely used it, preferring to snipe from a distance instead. However, you could probably make use of the distraction to get close-range takedowns throughout the game, and there are a few missions where you’re required to use the stone-throw ability,
With each level you gain, you earn a point to spend in the skill tree, which is split into three sections focused on certain abilities – takedowns (stealth melee kills), guns, or survival. Nearly every ability in the tree is useful, and by the end of the game it’s easy to acquire every skill. Some skills unlock new abilities, while others simply make existing abilities stronger or add convenience (like auto-looting enemies when you use a takedown).
Graphics and Sound
Far Cry 3 is gorgeous. The jungle is a beauty to behold, with a full day-night cycle. The game is played entirely from a first-person view, even when driving and during cutscenes. It’s a good thing, too, because your character looks like a total d-bag. (My reaction when I saw my character in the game’s “handbook” was: “Oh god, that’s what I look like?”)
The sound is equally fantastic. I’d often be sprinting through the jungle then suddenly stop and crouch when I heard the growl of a tiger nearby. Enemies will shout to their comrades when they see you or find something suspicious. Music cues are also used well, making it easy to know when an enemy or animal knows you’re around.
Summary
Far Cry 3 was fun to play from start to finish. The game is structured and paced very well – there was never a point where I was bored. The gameplay never felt repetitive, despite doing the same few things over and over again (like outposts and radio towers). There’s plenty of extra things to do (hunts, assassinations, challenges, and random side quests) so you can always take a break from the story. In fact, I spent the first several hours of the game just hunting and upgrading my equipment. As a whole, Far Cry 3 is a fantastic game that I could recommend to almost anyone.