Thompson

Far Cry 3

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Started playing this finally. Quickly succumbed to the left-sided vehicular perspective frustrations the idle thumbs guys mentioned. never not hilarious.

 

4QHM7iL.jpg?1?1771

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Started playing this finally. Quickly succumbed to the left-sided vehicular perspective frustrations the idle thumbs guys mentioned. never not hilarious.

 

4QHM7iL.jpg?1?1771

 

Yessss! I want to go back and play this with all the new patches and mods, and the first person driving was one of the best parts of this game. I remember driving off a cliff, into a tree, the windshield cracking as I was stuck and thinking "OMG I'M IN JURASSIC PARK!" it was AWESOME! Speaking of which, where's my Jurassic Park game using all this stuff?

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The verticality of the game's landscape continues to surprise me. I was exploring around the crest of a mountain range and ran into some brush which happened to be obscuring the edge. I promptly tumbled off and fell hundreds and hundreds of feet into a hidden body of water deep within a ravine. I then scrambled up some scaffolding and a super tall ladder and stumbled upon an enemy camp buried into the side of the mountain. The sheer variety of the game's topography often reminds me of minecraft (the only other game in which you'll be running along and then tumble down a ravine suddenly)

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I couldn't be terribly arsed to read through much more than the last few pages of this thread, but am still quite sure that I'm beating all of the dead animals and broken records with clods of silt packed around hard mud.

 

So tell me. Is this game kind've mired in shit? Because I feel a bit crazy about all of this and I hope this doesn't start some kind of terrible feud. I'm not sure about the tenor of conversation on the quality of the game, but I hoped that the Thumbs forums would have some reasonable responses in mind.

 

Is it just me or does this game have some good ideas for how to improve upon Far Cry 2, but serves to undermine itself at every turn with its bullshit gratification system loops, its spoiled dedication to the first person perspective's immersive qualities through every damn flashing corpse and objective beacon, and its runaway Yale writer who thinks good storytelling starts and ends with creating meta-commentary by flying naked above his Pacific Island funhouse sprinkling writing devices like so much confetti?

 

But man, I had to stop when I started torching a pot farm. I stopped and decided to go read Wolf Hall. Because when I'm not enjoying the repetitive nature of the game itself, I'm tossed headfirst into this storm of bad writing and worse dialogue that has been trying to wink with increasing density at me all game.

 

So, should I push forward to the end of this frustrating experience, or just be happy in the knowledge that Hocking's ideas went somewhere, and maybe they'll get it right next time?

 

And let me make it clear that there is a lot that the Far Cry series does that I'm a fan of, but maybe that makes for a more disappointing experience.

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Ubisoft are weird. Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed 3 both seem to me like really great games that somebody has draped a wafer-thin layer of poop on. It's a weird situation where there's a super fun time to be had if you just plunge in there and get some poop on you.

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Stephen your thoughts have indeed previously been hashed out on the forums and in the podcasts (see: "Lacks Restraint" episode") but I enjoyed your very accurate and colorful nailing of the game nonetheless.

 

The writing reeks of the inside of a failed creative writing major's mind. And despite the writer having constantly griped in interviews that people 'don't get' the meta/explicit narrative that unrestrained violence corrupts, that stuff seems absolutely slathered on during the missions (and conspicuously absent outside of them). You go from the silent hunter (at least the way I was playing it) to being a loud douchebag yelling at his siblings and loved ones to "steer straight!" the instant you hop into a vehicle for a canned turret sequence - even before enemies appear.

 

I will echo that there are truly amazing experiences to be had in the game, such as what I previously posted. It's a beautiful island that's fairly fun to explore. From the windy loneliness of the mountaintops to the bays and waterways replete with buried treasure and sunken ruins full of sharks and manta rays; everything is stunningly realized albeit in a polished and superficial way. (skyrim's equal i think)

 

I plan to barrel through whatever missions exist between me and the wingsuit and then I'm turning on enemy base respawning and allowing the game to serve as a violence sandbox similar to its predecessor.

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I found even the exploring to be kind of lackluster. The game doesn't really let you explore: every point of interest is labelled on the map and minimap, and is explicitly pointed out by the dumb Assassin's Creed swoop-cam. I guess you could just not climb the radiotowers, but then the map becomes pretty useless and just navigating around becomes a challenge. What's the point of searching for buried treasure or sunken ruins if a. they're pointed out to you and b. they don't contain anything interesting or useful? 

 

One really weird thing about FC3 as opposed to FC2 is the game's relationship to violence. in FC2, there's really no reason to go out of your way to kill anyone. Practically all of the checkpoints can be avoided or sneaked past, and for me a large part of the game was planning routes by which I wouldn't be detected (and therefore would avoid combat). By contract, in FC3 you are given explicit incentives to kill things: you gain experience from killing enemies and capturing checkpoints. In FC2, violence is therefore a means to an end, while in FC3 killing guys is the main attraction. 

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I don't necessarily agree with that. In FC2, sure you could sneak past checkpoints, but what "ends" were you shortcutting to? The weird plot that I had no interest at all in pursuing? I may have missed the point of FC2 but for me it was about the violent and often messy interaction between your character and his environment. I do agree that that's far more nuanced than the very gamey unlocking of bases that FC3 offers but I don't see it as a violence vs non-violence comparison.

 

As for the environment, stuff like the ravines and some of the underwater stuff were not highlighted in my map. If you bought the treasure maps from the weapon vending machine, sure it'd pretty much show you everything but you can just not buy those maps and still have a good portion of things remain unmapped. The towers highlight bases and item crates... they don't reveal relics or anything that's not a base afaik.

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The game was free for PSN+ users, so I gave it a go... After being the only person who LOATHED Blood Dragon and after feeling dissatisfied with almost every AAA game I've played lately, I thought this would be a game I'd play for a while just so I could say I gave it a fair chance.

 

I'm glad the game just threw me into a wild after a brief tutorial, and while I don't remember anything more dangerous than a Zebra in Far Cry 2, the wildlife in 3 sure makes the game a whole lot interesting...

 

I was taking out the guards in an outpost with my sniper rifle only to have a nearby tiger take everybody out... Man, those tigers are amazing, in a way, the wildlife makes this a better horror game that most AAA games and it's also a better stealth game than Assassin's Creed, which is weird since it copied the "climb tower to get map" mechanic and they are both Ubisoft games.

 

I did my first rare animal hunt today... the golden tiger, and it was the most amazing thing ever, trying to keep him in sights and yet not close enough to get eaten alive by him.. Of course, the place was also filled with normal tigers.

 

Is the bow supposed to be for stealth masters? Because it's range sucks and I always end up using a silencer with my sniper rifle. I also like that so far getting the loot is no longer as annoying and in 2, at least so far it isn't. I sure hope there aren't any loot chest that can only be accessed by glider...

 

I don't know how I got so many "perfect stealth" outpost takeovers... OK, two of them were thanks to tigers, but when it's just you and you pull it off perfectly? It feels awesome! :3

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I did my first rare animal hunt today... the golden tiger, and it was the most amazing thing ever, trying to keep him in sights and yet not close enough to get eaten alive by him.. Of course, the place was also filled with normal tigers.

I'm a ruin this for you (in spoiler tags):

hunting becomes completely trivial when you realize that the animal repellent that you can craft doesn't actually make animals run away from you, it just makes it so they won't ATTACK you

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^ CHEATER MC CHEATERSON. Huh, I never knew that

I did love the stealth in this game I thought it was really well done.

If I remember correctly you can upgrade/get better bows later which have better range

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I remember the bow being one of my favourite things (from closer range). I don't remember any animal repellent.

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I think I recently unlocked the animal repellent, but there is only one bow with a few attachments for now... Unless you unlock one by completing side missions or finding collectibles? I just unlocked a sniper rifle with explosive rounds, which doesn't sound stealthy, but useful non the less?

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Hunting didn't do it for me at all. I loved clearing out the outposts, though. Especially the latter ones. Climbing to a good vantage point, shooting the tiger cage open to cause havoc, and sniping the remaining enemies one by one without them even knowing what is is going on felt incredibly rewarding. Thinking back, that was the only part of the game that I really enjoyed.

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Yeah, I'm not that far in the game, but I'm almost upset when I have to stop "fooling around" and play a mission because I can no longer spend skill points until I play more missions.

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Ok, the last two hunting trials were AMAZING! FOUR jaguars with a bow was intense and the undying bear was terrifying! They practically program it so that it sneaks up behind you!

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Yeah, I loved clearing outposts with the bow. There is one in particular, that backs up to a gold mine, and has a river down a hill in the front, where I stood on the big rock in the river, and silently arrowed every guard from 60-80 meters. Took almost all my arrows, but felt like the most beautiful, most expensive shooting gallery. 

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I'm pretty sure people say that hitting sharks in the nose or eyes will make them go away, way before FarCry 3 existed?

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'In case of shark attack, punch shark in nose. If that doesn't work - poke shark in eye with stump.' -Letterman joke from a long time ago.

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