Outside of the story missions Far Cry 3 is dumb, boring & repetitive
So many people are saying this is the ultimate open world game but it's been done so much better before by Bethesda & Rockstar that it all feels a little yawnsome. Plus, this game is as dumb as the animals that roam the island. Do Tigers, Leopards & Dingoes really live on islands in the Pacific? Do wild dogs really take a full clip of AK ammunition to bring down? Does wrapping a bandage around your wrist really fix gunshot wounds? Best tell America if so. Do I really need a specific animal skin to make those dumb pouches? I mean come on. So tacked on that bit it's daft. In fact the whole RPG stuff feels tacked on. Just for the hell of it. Like I ended up having about 6 spare skill points before it actually gave me any skills to spend them on. You have to progress the story to unlock them, but it took forever for more skills to unlock.
Like FC 2 you take out enemy checkpoints but this time enemies don't respawn when you turn your back to fart this time. This brings a slight problem though as there are no more human enemies to fight in that area anymore. Just a few wild animals varying in annoyance factor. So unless you want to hunt out tedious collectables that chunk of land you cleared of enemies is now dead pretty much. You won't be stumbling across surprise encounters like you would in Skyrim or GTA. Nope, it's just repetitive mini games & challenges you've seen in a million other open world games like poker driving fast, shooting stuff & other familiar stuff. Very similar to Assassin's Creed formula. There's even assassinations to perform. First 3 or 4 are cool but they get dull fast also. Climbing radio towers is dull, doing animal hunts is dull, driving challenges too easy. And dull.
The story missions in FC 3 are what makes this game decent. Tense stealth situations followed by explosive gun battles & a bit of driving. There's a great early mission involving magic mushroom spores. Trippy. All feels a bit daft, wee college kid who's never even fired a gun before becoming Bruce Willis but as I say, this game is dumb.
Another thing that rubs me up the wrong way is how, outside of a main mission the game spams you every 2 minutes about where you're meant to go next even though there's a map marker. Literally every two minutes. I mean wtf? Am I retarded? Hand holding in games is one of my biggest hates. And no, there is no way to turn it off unless you use a mod on the PC version. If there is one yet.
A special mention has to go to the villain Vaas. He's the star of this game for sure. An unhinged loon who's not in the game enough for my liking. The opening scene of the game introduces you to Vaas & promises much but overall the game may have been better designed like Far Cry Instincts than having such a big bland world to stomp around in & lose the pace of the story. I just gave up on most of the side activities at around 40% & just did the story.
Graphically the game is ok. Bit of screen tear. Wasn't sure if my PC could handle this game on decent settings so I played it safe & got the console version. Not too shabby in truth. There's some muffled voice acting from NPC's. As if they're recorded in a really low bit rate but technically the game is moderately impressive..
I haven't got round to playing any online stuff yet. I hear it's also a bit disappointing. Too many other games on the go at the moment to give the multiplayer a decent flog here. In the near future probably.
2012 has been the year of the disappointment for me. Just not been as blown away by games as other people seem to be like Dishonored, Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3 & now this. Maybe some new consoles are needed to spark more innovation in games because FC 3 is a far cry from being innovative. It just borrows from all other games of it's type & does it mostly in an inferior way. Right, time to take this back to the game shop soon & get a trade in for Assassin's Creed 3 most likely. See if Ubisoft have messed that one up like I'm hearing.