This is the best thing since Skyrim
By now you've probably heard an awful lot about Far Cry 3, but I should go ahead and qualify this review:
I never, ever, ever write user reviews, but sitting there in my basement listening to the electro-orchestral beat pound into my headphones as the credits scrolled up my screen, I thought "my life has been improved as a result of playing this game." If you have played Far Cry 2, you know about what to expect in terms of style. The difference here is that the gunplay is tight (this is as good as it gets outside Call of Duty or Battlefield), the world feels alive, the outposts are now enthralling side missions, there are even more goodies to collect, and the story is flat out fantastic.
If you haven't played Far Cry 2, then imagine any other open world FPS and you've basically got it down pat. You are set in a big open world and you have a set of story missions that you can tackle just about whenever you feel like doing so. These form a pretty typical single player campaign, and there are lots of run of the mill side missions (go here, kill that, hunt this animal with this gun) that pad out the action nicely when you want a break. What really carries this incredible package is that the voice acting, the character animation, the scene setting and storytelling all combine to deliver what is, bar none, the best story in a game so far this year. In fact, the story is so good that it includes one of the greatest storytelling missteps in just as long and somehow manages to recover spectacularly from this monumental idiocy. And if that sounds like a criticism, rest assured: it is not. Far Cry is to storytelling what Skyrim is to exploration, and you should experience it as soon as possible.
My own playthrough lasted around 19 hours, having completed a significant proportion of the side missions, collected about half the relics, grabbed most of the other collectables, and I was able to end the game without ever getting that familiar "Wow I wish this would just be over now" feeling that so often happens to me in open world games. I played on a mid-end PC (the default options set just about everything to "high" and the framerate stayed well above 30 - this game looks unreal and runs well), and I did so on the highest difficulty. My one criticism of the game might actually be a strength, and that is that for an experienced FPS gamer, Far Cry is going to be very easy, and you are going to love it anyway.
