21 January 2013
By Tyler Demshki, Staff Writer
The Far Cry series, developed and published by Ubisoft Entertainment, drops the protagonist into an unfamiliar environment. In the first two installments of the series, this environment was a mysterious island and Africa, respectively. Now, in Far Cry 3, the locale is the Malay Archipelago and the protagonist is a little different. Instead of a former marine or a grizzled mercenary, the player controls an adrenaline junky, rich-boy teenager Jason Brody. But perhaps some context is needed for this.
In search of some thrills, Jason and a group of his friends, including his older brother Grant, take a skydiving trip while on vacation in some islands in the Pacific Ocean. However, things quickly take a turn for the worse as the skydiving trip leaves the group scattered on a pirate-controlled island, where they are quickly captured by the insane pirate leader Vaas, who plans to ransom them to their parents and sell them into slavery. After being told this, Jason finds himself imprisoned, along with his brother, and quickly stages an escape. Things don’t work out, however, and Grant is killed while the pirates chase Jason into the jungle. Things look bleak for Jason, but he is rescued by a man named Denis Rogers, who explains the island’s situation. The pirates are suppressing the natives, the Rakyat, who are desperately fighting back. Rogers, feeling compassion for the Rakyat, tries to help them and introduces Jason to them. Because Jason escaped from Vaas, he is seen as a symbol of hope for the Rakyat and is inducted into their warrior force in order to fight Vaas and rescue his friends, despite the fact that he is an inexperienced teenager.
This contrast is actually one of the main themes of the game. As the player progresses further and further into the plot, they see Jason morph from a naive thrill seeker into a hardened killer. This change is highlighted both by Jason’s dialogue, which starts out frightened but gets more vicious as the game progresses, and Jason’s poor friend’s reactions to his violent tactics. Couple these with the insane antics of Vaas, and it is clear that insanity is a major theme of the game.
One of the game’s biggest attractions acts as a slight deterrent to this theme, though. Far Cry 3 is an open-world shooter, and while this can often bring hours of fun to creative gamers, it does create some inconsistencies. This is because, if the player so wishes, he or she can cut down swaths of pirates using a flamethrower, a bow and arrow and a machine gun, all before he or she has done a single storyline mission, even though Jason is supposed to be an inexperienced teenager.
This is an acceptable break from reality, though. While limiting what the player could do early on would increase the immersion of the story, it would also detract from the gameplay. The developers obviously felt that it was not worth it.
Along with the game’s single player, there is also a multiplayer mode. It is fairly standard fare, with Vaas’s pirates and the Rakyat fighting each other in various game modes, complete with load-out customization. Some would accuse the multiplayer of being derivative of other large players in the FPS industry, such as the Call of Duty franchise, and, while they would definitely have a point, the multiplayer is polished enough to be enjoyable and comes with one addition that makes it stand out from the crowd: a custom map builder. This allows players to create their own playable maps and enter them into online matchmaking, where others can play on them. This feature helps Far Cry 3’s multiplayer stand on its own and enhances what is already a solid, if not fantastic, game mode.
While Far Cry 3 may not be as hyped as some of the industry’s titans, it is still worth a try for any gamers looking for great value. With a compelling, open-world single player, a fairly decent multiplayer and a well-implemented map editor, Far Cry 3 is sure to occupy hours of gamers’ time.
9/10
Courtesy of i.telegraph.co.uk and media.pcgamer.com