So I got Far Cry 3 on PC for Christmas (at a deep discount; $7.49 on Steam) and I thought I'd give it a little review here.

As you can (probably) guess from the title, there's a lot that's derivative about the game.  However, in this game's case that's a strength, not a weakness.  

Pop quiz: a crazy CIA agent will help you free your sibling(s) if you perform a series of fetch missions for him; in the meantime, you can roam around gaining territories and increasing faction standing with others.  Now did I just describe Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or FC3?  Trick question: it's both!

FC3 takes us on a trip to an unnamed and fictional island near Australia, where a group of hedonistic US tourists (of whom you are one) of the Beautiful People set play and party.  Drinking, partying, engaging in extreme sports - all is well on the emerald, sun-dappled seas.  That is, until your group falls into the hands of an insane modern-day pirate/white slaver named Vaas and his group of completely ruthless henchmen.  An extensive cutscene (rendered with the eye-poppingly gorgeous Crytek engine) shown on "your" cell phone details the events before and leading up to your kidnapping; the phone's video pauses and the image is pulled away from line of sight by the aforementioned Vaas who implies that he's already killed one of your companions and promises a dire fate for everyone else unless you all behave.

From that point we're led on a tutorial as your character's brother (who, as it turns out, is ex-Army special forces) leads you on an escape which goes awry as he is mortally wounded by Vaas.  You're then given a "thirty second" head start at which the game rapidly throws different control combination instructions at you as you scramble through the jungle to try and escape the completely unhinged Vaas and his henchmen.  

Eventually, crashing through the jungle, you're found by a friendly local (Dennis) who tends to your injuries and offers to help you rescue your friends and along the way teach you a Maori-like "warrior's code", implying that there may be more to it than just that.

Here's where the game's RPG elements kick in: as you learn different jungle survival skills (what plants to manufacture into drugs that can heal you, enhance your perceptions enabling you to better hunt people, animals and more plants, what animals are good for skinning and so on) a "tatou" that Dennis put on your arm while unconscious begins to fill in with more designs.  Dennis explains that this means you're heading further along the quasi-mystical "path" to becoming a true warrior, while at the same time he dispenses practical information such as where to find Vaas' allies, and so on.

Eventually you meet a deep field CIA agent, Huntley, a rough approximation of Johnny Depp's "off the books" field agent in Once Upon a Time in Mexico.  He's so deep and so far off the reservation it leaves you unsure whether he IS a CIA agent, WAS a CIA agent and is no longer, or is neither but just a little mental but with good resources.  Regardless, Huntley helps you collect the pieces to lead you to your friends, one by one.  Of course, Huntley doesn't do so out of the goodness of his heart: you've got to do a few things for him, as well...

At the same time, Dennis is more and more interested in growing your warrior abilities and eventually introduces you to Citra, a mysterious and conniving woman who leads the island's native tribe of Rakyat warriors against Vaas and other criminal elements.  She strongly implies Jason is a warrior spoken of in old legends and that if he can pass various tests he will guide the tribe to ultimate victory...

With all of these elements in play, the game shifts between a sort of cargo cult mysticism and hard-boiled gritty paramilitary adventure set against a jungle backdrop.

The first and most notable story element in the game, at least from a personal standpoint, is casting you (Jason is your character's name) as a sort of reluctant hero.  Not reluctant to save your friends, but reluctant in how.  It doesn't hinder you in the least, in fact it's just background noise and the occasional bits of dialog in cutscenes, but it's clear from the get-go that, unlike the players of most modern FPS'es that Jason is not okay (initially) with killing people.  And later when he rescues his friends (typically bracketed by great violence), they're shocked at how easy killing comes to him, and note that he's changing...it doesn't ultimately affect the game's outcome but it does make for a different tone to most other games.  Even the relatively "benign" physicist, Dr. Gordon Freeman, whom you portray in Half Life (and associated games) is, for all intents a hard boiled killer, and no-one seems to care.

But ultimately the scripted dialog and cutscenes don't really reflect any difference in gameplay, but it is interesting to note.

Speaking of gameplay elements, let's talk about those.  As noted, there's a lot of side-quests both self created and game related to choose from.  You can hop onto an ATV or into a truck and trigger a challenge to deliver food or supplies to someone who needs them in a limited amount of time, or you can similarly engage in a boat, ATV or car race around the island for money.  If you prefer more martial pursuits, Vaas' men control various outposts scattered across the islands; attack these and kill the defenders and you'll claim that place and the surrounding countryside for your own.  This has the added effect of meaning fewer random encounters with pirates on the road and in the country, making travel safer.  It also makes these outposts quick-travel spots and opens up trading posts where you can sell various bits of junk you loot from the fallen or find lying about the island (who knew there was a market for plastic eyeless doll's heads - $5 each at the trading post!)

Another challenge are the various cell phone towers through the island.  Vaas' men have put jammers on the towers, rendering them unusable to folks.  Ignoring the fact that two cell towers could cover the whole island (maybe 3), there are 18 of these scattered around.  Your task is to climb up to the top, destroy the jammer, and reestablish the phone link for the villagers.  As you do this, it unlocks free firearms for you to use (as the arms trade can now be conducted more easily, apparently).  These are FPS platforming tasks, and while not fun the unconventional movement abilities of your in-game avatar (explained below) make it interesting enough.  Once up, towers have guide-wires that you can zipline down to make a quick exit.  It's not just fun; if there's enemies conveniently located along the wire's run you can gun them down as you slide by, or drop onto them for a silent kill!

At it's heart, Far Cry 3 is a first person shooter.  Run and gun.  Since they were first created, FPS's have had a challenge of inventory management, even if it was just finding enough bullets and rockets and other munitions to use to bring the enemy down.  This is where Far Cry 3 hits a big snag, for me.  To carry more than a single firearm and small load of ammunition (and more than a few "inventory" items like plants, animal skins or loot), Far Cry 3 requires that you kill a certain kind of game animal, then craft its skin into a larger weapon holster, rucksack, ammo belt or grenade pouch.  The kind of animal determines the kind of item you can use, and you have to make smaller ones before you can make larger ones.  Two goat skins make a holster you can carry two weapons with, but two buffalo skins are required to make a holster that can carry three, and so on.  Likewise, inventory bags (rucksacks) have to be made of increasingly rarer and harder to kill animals.  As my friend Scott who was playing asked: "I have $1500, I can buy any gun I can think of, and this island is littered with military surplus.  Can't I just buy some ALICE gear?!" and I agree with him.  I understand that the game has skill trees and crafting and that sort of thing, but restricting the carry amounts based on the animal types you can kill is...wonky.

Speaking of wonky, the controls for the game are ... weird, to say the least.  Yes, WASD, space for jump, C for Crouch.  Jumping and climbing are actually fun; short cliffs and steep hills that would normally mean "go find another way around" or "you can't go this way" in Half Life 2 or even the more flexible Skyrim are usually surmountable with some climbing.  But things like throwing a grenade are bound strangely, as are zoom controls for sniper weapons, and the fast save and load keys are completely undocumented: I had to google "fast save mod for far cry 3" before I found out it already has a fast save feature.  It's just never discussed, and indeed the game presents it that you can only save in-menu, and load from the main menu.

Another problem is immersion (and more and more FPSes are doing this too so I'm not just addressing FC3 here): the game does its best to present the world as a living, real place and your interactions with it on the majority as sensible and logical - and yet you're constantly bombarded with on-screen icons, "radio messages" and achievement flags.  When I'm belly crawling through the jungle to silently kill a couple of Vaas' men so I can take their outpost for the Rakyat, I don't really need a postcard sized blue banner to pop up and tell me I've unlocked SILENT KILLER.

Still, those are minor, surmountable problems and, at least on the PC mods exist to change or eliminate some of those (I'm playing a "vanilla" install currently, however).  

In the overall I like Far Cry 3, and would recommend it if you like an action/exploration FPS with sandbox or open-world and RPG elements.

The worst part of FC3 are the "story" missions. I suspect they were farmed out to a different company.

It's open world sandbox style play, just like the original, is the best part of it. It's what makes the series FAR superior to HL2 and D3.

And Blood Dragon is AWESOME!!!

Nice review.  I know nothing of the franchise, and didn't pick it up when it went on sale.  Might now, though.

Far Cry 3, while a bit uneven, is worth the price of admission.

For what it's worth, I also found the excessive achievement system jarring at times. There's a ftp video game, "Achievement Unlocked" that mocks well the apparently-necessary achievement system of games.

Like the Quake series, I think the "Far Cry" name just sort of covers the whole "Here's our family of premier, technologically slick FPSes", e.g., there's no relation between the three.