If you want more Far Cry 3 then have I got a game for you!
Platform: PC (Mouse and Keyboard)
Time to Completion: 4.5-5 Hours
Date Completed: May 9th, 2013
Thoughts: Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has a lot of ups and downs. One moment I was enjoying my time listening to the one liners dripping with old action movie cliches, and the other I found myself just rolling my eyes and hoping the game would just get a move on already. While the high points of the game are pretty good, I found overall that I spent more time rolling my eyes hoping for the next interesting thing to come along then I spent enjoying the moment I was in. I don't think that this was the games fault exactly, but that it came so soon after playing Far Cry 3 that I just hadn't had enough time since I beat it for this to feel novel again.
The set pieces where the games "story" told itself were almost always fun and interesting to play, but the parts in between where you ran around from base to base killing guys to take it over is where the game dragged on for me. Sadly, that's where the meat of the time you will spend with the game is. Just like in Far Cry 3 the map you are on has a assortment of bases for you to run in, gun everyone down, and take control of. Doing this will then unlock one to two side missions you can do that when complete give you access to weapon upgrades that you can buy. These are the same style of side mission from Far Cry 3 for the most part and they don't really add much to the game. So unless you are trying to 100% the the game or the missions offers an upgrade to a weapon you use a lot you're safe to skip them and just move on. You will never miss anything of interest.
The leveling up and skill progression has been extremely streamlined compared to what you got in Far Cry 3. As your guy levels up you automatically upgrade into a new tier of powers that are a selection of the same powers you get in the base game without the ability to pick and choose what things you want when you want them. This fits the game well given it's short playtime, but if you are going into this game having never played Far Cry 3 then you will want to make sure to stop and read what you are getting as there is often no tutorial or heads up that you have access to new abilities unless you hit the ESC key and go read it.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is an odd game that I think anyone who enjoyed their time with Far Cry 3 should pick up if they felt like they wanted more of what that game had to offer, or if you wanted to play it but didn't have the time to invest in a twenty to thirty plus hour game. If however you felt like you had your fill of what Far Cry 3 had to offer in gameplay, then I think you can safely pass on this game as its over the top action movie cliches don't really warrant sitting through gameplay that really is just more of the same of what we got before with a neon recolouring.
