It's not the epic masterpiece it claims to be, but ignore the hype, don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.
The visuals are good, although a couple of steps back since Far Cry 2, lacking many of the impressive touches and special effects, such as dynamic weather conditions (no atmospheric storms and swaying trees!), collapsing buildings and cool physics effects. In fact, it's incredibly frustrating when you drive a big truck into a battered wirefence post and bounce back as if you'd just hit an oncoming juggernaut.
The gameplay is your typical shooter, but with side missions to disguise it as an open world game. The problem is, these side missions are damn tedious and in order to help you progress effectively in the game you HAVE to do them. They involve travelling to several towers to active your map, travelling around finding animals to kill to make wallets and pouches to increase your health, ammo and general inventory. And you have a few race missions and bounty hunter missions that have no relation to the game's story and are there as mere padding.
It seems like Far Cry 3 was trying to incorporate RPG elements, with skill points, open maps and so on, but all this falls flat on its face. The appeal of open world RPGs is that you feel like you're part of a functional society. In games such as Skyrim, Assassin's Creed and GTA, you can stand aside and watch people go about their daily business. It feels like you're part of a living breathing world that continues around you. What's more, you can interract with passers by and encounter side missions with their own characters and little stories.
Far Cry 3 doesn't do this well at all. You have your good guys and bad guys who all dress the same as each other and repeat the same lines ("It was beautiful once. It will be again...blah blah!"). You have some NPCs in the villages and can watch them walk around. I saw a pimp slapping around a hooker at one point, but I couldn't stop him or interact with them in any way. I couldn't even shoot him as my gun was forcibly holstered. These are important aspects of open world games in my opinion. I like to get involved in the world, even if it means killing an innnocent civilian and being chased by the cops or the villagers. Far Cry 3 lacks any significant decision making.
The AI in the game is much improved over Far Cry 2 and works quite well in my opinion. Bad guys will hunt you down if you give them reason to, they can be distracted by rocks or explosions and generally react in a believable way. It makes sneaking around feasible yet challenging.
The one aspect I really dislike about the enemy is the same issue I have in Far Cry 1 and 2 and also Crysis 1 and 2: they move too fast and take too many shots! I love being able predict where my target is heading, line up headshots and I take a lot of satisfaction from a one shot one kill strategy. Unfortunately, the enemy fly around unrealistically fast, back and forward, and it's very difficult to line up your shot. So when it comes to FPS playability, I much prefer the likes of Call of Duty.
As for the story....this is the part that irritates me most. When reading/viewing all the previews and listening to interviews with developers, we were lead to believe that Jason (the protagonist) was an everyman character like you or me. The idea was that he had no special skills or knowledge, and was just an average Joe caught up in a volatile situation. Developers even claimed that Jason wouldn't know how to use a gun and it would take him time to develop the courage and skills to get involved. This was a real positive aspect in my opinion, one that would help us relate to the character and add to the tension. That's what made Harry Mason and James Sunderland from Silent Hill so great. They were guys like you and me, frightened and bewildered by the situation they were in and so it was easier to put yourself in their place.
Frankly, I feel misled. There's a brief period during the intro sequence where you sense his fear and helplessness, but after that, he's just your typical action hero. He can fire whatever gun you give him, scale radio towers and expresses no real fear in the face of danger. In fact, you're immediately told that he's some kind of mystical warrior and you just know this is heading towards the old "his coming was foretold in ancient cave paintings" storyline. Oh yes, you have the all cliched tribes people, ceremonies and magic potions to go with it too, and off you go on a mission to fulfill their prophecy. Jason doesn't question this and accepts its his destiny and all that. Not only is it such a weak character development, but he expresses no personality or consistency at all. In fact, saving his friends and brother from torture and death seems almost like an incidental distraction before long.
The characters are mostly based on cliches and stereotypes - the love interest, the stoner, the mystical tribeswoman, the power mad crime lord and so on. The best characters in the game are the slave trader Buck and the much hyped Vaas. Their cutscenes are the highlights in the game. Buck talks to you like an old friend, then throws in a sinister threat from time to time to keep provoking you, while Vaas is cocky and cruel, and seems to take great pleasure from the suffering of others. Unfortunately, your final encounters with these characters comes as a huge anti-climax. They don't get the big showdown they deserve and are reduced to mere quicktime sequences, which steals away any satisfaction of beating them. There's not even a moment of reflection where you stand over the body and revel in your victory.
I have never encountered such an awful, convoluted menu system before. Crafting items should be a fun part of the game, but you have to find your way through several menus and each item has to be crafted one at a time. Selling your loot is equally irritating. Instead of selecting several items to sell, you need to sell them individually. Truly awful system that really pulls you out of the game.
I see this has come off as a very negative review overall, but all these bad points are really just counter arguments to all the positive and often misleading hype. As I say, it's pretty fun to play. Some of the special gimmicks the game offers, such as hang gliders, wing suits and parachutes can be really enjoyable, and there is a sense of satisfaction when you pull off a mission or take over a camp, especially if you can manage it without being detected.
I personally found this game too repetetive and boring to play for hours at a time and the story wasn't very gripping, but playing for an hour here and an hour there makes it a lot more enjoyable and after a break, I find myself itching to pick up the controls again.
Not a bad game at all if you want something mindless, unoriginal and shallow, but definitely not the epic masterpiece I was expecting it to be.