I wanted to talk a bit about the ending. Jeff commented on some of the weird stuff going on in the story. After hearing the crew talk about it, all throughout my playthrough I was seeing things that fed into the idea that something is seriously wrong with either the character or the world you're in. I saw plenty of things that got me thinking we were gonna have a Tyler Durden moment, or maybe they were going for the same hero fantasy that Spec Ops did, or maybe something even further out there. I finished the game, and nothing. They played it completely straight, which leaves me confused as all hell. So here's some of the observations I found throughout the game that kept me thinking this is the way they were going. Please clarify any misunderstandings I have, or if you're in the same boat as me, add things that you also thought were out of place.

• Quotes between missions frequently reference forgetting who you are
• Buck mysteriously teleports around the island to meet you at mission objectives. The story draws attention to it, but never explain it.
• The second dream sequence has characters flickering between Citra, Vaas and Jason.
• Most characters in story mission disappear as soon as you are done talking to them. I would say this is just it being a video game, but Jason makes to this being odd the first time he meets Sam.
• Jason's friends gather things together and board the boat to leave, yet days later (Sam says there will be a few days before you can execute on your next mission) Citra and her clan capture them at the Doctor's house.

I could just be reading into this too much, but I'm wondering if at some point the story was going to go another way and for some reason they decided not to. Anyways, discuss!

It seems like they never address the magical stuff , especially in the Buck sequence. The way Jason is holding the compass and it starts glowing/burning, but Buck seems completely disinterested and then teleports again. I wonder if the teleporting has something to do with Jason being so messed up by the drugs that Citra has given him that he is losing parts of time/his mind. I never noticed Sam disappearing, but at the big action sequence with the 4 explosives I did see him drive away.

Also, the two endings are weird. The first one, which if you ask me is the only one to choose where you save your friends seems ok, but choosing citra and her kind of drug-raping you for a baby seems totally nonsensical.

@ddaydj: Buck has put a tracker on you, he directly says it. You can teleport around the island too with fast travel, it's just assumed you got there in some time, so did he. Guess Jasons friends actually decided to show some solidarity and wait for him.

@GunstarRed: No magical stuff, Jason is just drugged the fuck out almost the entire game, people are constantly giving him shit and he isn't helping with all those syringes, then at moments of rage instead of a blood haze he gets drug haze :P. My theory is that the tattoos are made with some kind of laced ink, that also slowly secretes chemicals into him (hence it's perfectly explainable why might make someone more deadly, pain numbing for example is a side effect of many drugs). Citra is kind of insane much like her dear brother Vaas.

As for Jason, well Jason actually got a taste for and likes killing, he said as much in a side conversation with his brothers girlfriend. Dude bro is a short step from descending into darkness himself, later half of the game is just him killing people for the sake of vengeance. So yeas in a way something is seriously wrong with Jason. As for the island everything is wrong with it, most people on top are on drugs or insane or both, and killers and murderes to boot. The islands (if you read the drug formulas that reinforce the shroom cave sequence) are basically also home to naturally occurring perception altering substances even in their raw form.

The whole Buck sequence made me a believer for a while, Both with how he's always there and gone and always having a lecture, and the fact that you're climbing deep inside these caves with big chinese buildings. Not to mention the magical seal and the fact that it's a fucking guy called Buck with a big buck and his name tattoed on his chest. All of it was just too stupid to be real. But I guess Jason being drugged out his mind sorta explains it (if only they made it a tad more clear that was the reason).

I never felt that Jason was going insane though. He was on the edge for sure, but all the way up to the end choice he's doing it all out of compassion for his friends and the tribe not just because of blood lust. I think Jeff was spot on with the description of these being people with nothing in their lives, and it's not that he necessarily enjoys the killing, but he enjoys doing something meaningful. There's no point in the game where he's all "whoa! killing these guys is awesome!".

@Ares42: I agree with you in that Jason is indeed walking on the edge, that was my conclusion too. But as far as enjoying killing he mentions it in a side conversation with his brothers girlfriend (i forget her name) when talking specifically about how killing feels. And several times in the game he is shouting with joy at the destruction around him after killing a whole lot of people. (or while)

@Tennmuerti: Did he really ? I guess it might just be my shitty memory playing tricks on me =) I know exactly what you're talking about with that conversation though, and I just interpreted it differently. The story felt more of a "boy becoming man" thing to me, especially with how the GF situation turns out. The end choice is also pretty much a straight up "go back to your empty life, or stay on the island and be an important man" choice. Ofc Citra just backstabs you, but the way they portrayed the characters up to that point it's a choice between vacuous shallow friends and a woman that gives you purpose.

@Ares42:

Yeah, I would have stayed with Citra as the game was going up to that point without looking back. But not at the expense of innocent lives, past friends at that, no matter if they're shallow or not. That was the line.

(also kind of showed right there and then how fucking bonkers Citra was)

As far as the choice to go away, i disagree that it is necessarily empty. It's left pretty open ended as to how you will continue your life. It might not necessarily remain empty for Jason after such a catalystic changing experience. He might fall into a depression rut like some of the badly scarred war vets. Or he might seize his new found confidence, power and ability and apply it somewhere, like go into army like his brother and with those skills of his he would go far. Who knows.

@Ares42 said:

The end choice is also pretty much a straight up "go back to your empty life, or stay on the island and be an important man" choice. Ofc Citra just backstabs you, but the way they portrayed the characters up to that point it's a choice between vacuous shallow friends and a woman that gives you purpose.

I'd say it's "succumb to your violent urges, or try to live past them". While Jason certainly grows throughout the game, he also becomes as batshit as his antagonists are. It's simply a different type of insanity. And Citra doesn't really betray you - she simply seals the deal on preserving the legacy of Jason as an ultimate warrior.

The game is pretty much Heart of Darkness from Kurtz' point of view, who is ironically fighting another Kurtz-like figure. Though your interpretation probably is valid, since you could argue that Jason's growing loss of humanity is simply his real self finally emerging.

@Tennmuerti: Well, that's sorta what I was saying. Neither of the choices turn out the way you think, but when you're standing there making the desicion, what did the choices represent ? Did you really feel like your friends were people you wanted to save ? or as you say yourself was it just a default reaction of "I don't wanna be evil and kill people".

@Ghostiet: If Jason really became insane during the game there wouldn't be a choice at the end. If the purpose of the story was to show a man going from a normal life to insanity it would just cheapen the whole story by ending with him doing the "sane" thing and being all reflective about it. Especially if the friends portrayed in this game was supposed to be the ones that pulled him back in.

@Ares42: He's hellbent on revenge and later on becomes more and more ruthless - he points this out to himself after torturing Riley. And while "insane" wasn't meant to be taken completely literally, there is something to it, since there's a certain parallel with Vaas. It's at least implied he went crazy due to Citra and the tribe's mentality. I don't think this interpretation cheapens it, since it's pretty much stated that even if he saves his friends, he's still an irreversibly broken man that will probably have to struggle with this new-found nature. He's cracking throughout the game. It's your choice whether you should fall through, or at least gasp for a bit of humanity.

Still, I'm not calling your interpretation invalid. To me this insanity line of thought was obvious, but when looking at it from the perspective of choosing between a moral, but ultimately shallow life and a savage, yet apparently satisfying one makes sense. And they both compliment each other, I think - after all, insanity is relative.

@ddaydj: Maybe they'll have some DLC that reveals the dark truth behind it all.

@Ares42:

Oh the second reason for sure. Just don't dismiss it as a pedantic default reaction. They were people who did nothing to deserve to be slaughtered. Their friend status is almost negligible tho it does reinforce some human feelings.

The other choice would be Jason becoming an irredeemable piece of shit bloodthirsty murderer ^.^ (instead of just a bloodthirsty killer, which is a significant difference)

@Ghostiet: @Ares42: You're both correct in a way. It's a story that shows a man discovering himself but also certain darkness is part of it (insanity/ruthlessness/joy at killing, call it what you will) , and going to the brink with it. That brink being the end choice.

@Ares42: On the flip side one can argue that if Jason was perfectly sane then there would have also been no choice at the end.

Having just completed it, I think the writing was not a strong point for the game. It's going to be a wall of text, deal with it.

The story felt like they ran out of time, money and ideas, all at once. It starts off alright, with you being captured with your scumbag rich kid friends, by a seemingly enormous local gang of pirates. How the gang actually got to the island, and how they thought the island was deserted is beyond me. A lot of that whole story doesn't add up in any meaningful way, and ultimately, it's not important. Vaas, the leader of the pirates, introduces you to his own little slice of paradise. Vaas, as a character, is fantastic and well realized, which is a shame, because he doesn't actually get much air time before he's killed off and replaced with some other schmoe.

I wonder why both cover art, marketing efforts and so much communication around the game focused so much on Vaas, when he ultimately plays such a small role. It's a real shame, because he's actually a great character. This is also considering that you never really get to care about Jason's (the protagonist) friends or brothers. You simply aren't given any incentive for why it's important to save them, or given any emotional investment in them, as you don't even get to meet or interact with them before you're all kidnapped. You start the game off thinking they're a bunch of scumbags, and it sort of just continues down that road.

Regardless, Jason starts off as a whiny, incapable rich kid who got in too deep. His brother, a real bro, actually says "This is what they teach us in the military bro." as one of his first, and only, lines. I wonder if Jason and his brothers and friends, were thought up so that some target audience that's not me, could identify with the main character and his friends. I sort of feel like that's the answer, but I never identified or emphasized with Jason throughout the game. Regardless, the game quickly goes down the racist rabbithole, both in the sense of terrible Alice In Wonderland quotes, littered across the game for no discernible reason, or a reason that may have been cut some time during development, but also in the sense of the enemies being "dark skinned pirate dudes with bad accents on a tropical island who smoke meth and kill people for fun." In contrast to the all-white cast of young, adorable, heroic American tourists.

Along with that heroism, Jason also quickly develops into a genocidal mass murderer, because of his sweet tatau, given to him by Dennis, a friendly US Marine who is apparently also a mechanic from Liberia, who can't really ever get his story straight. Ultimately, it's unimportant, because Dennis is quickly discarded as a character with any real connection to the story.

Everyone with a skin colour other than brite-white is portrayed in some sort of horrible fashion, in that they're either uncivilized, poor, barbaric, drug abusers or all of them. It's pretty gross. The exception, naturally, is Citra, the young uncivilized and barbaric drug abusing leader of the local fucking tribespeople. However, not wanting to alienate the players, her dark skin colour is offset by her looking more or less like a white person in the middle of a bunch of tattooed Samoan dudes. She is also given blue eyes, to ensure that the player feels comfortable and white throughout. It's a bit gross, too.

Anyway, as things start popping off, and you get your sick tatau (urgh) you are tasked with finding your friends, enlisting the help of some weird drug abusing white guy who is of almost no consequence to the entire story. With regards to the other white people in this story, they're all mercenaries, but unlike the local pirates, they aren't stupid, or drug abusers. They act more professional, are tougher to kill, and looting them grants you luxuries such as "Toothpaste" or "Chocolate bar" rather than "Meth pipe" or "Cocaine packet." Again... it's... sort of icky. Your friends are total dudebros that you do not care for, and as you assemble them in a cave without access to food or clean water, they sort of just start smoking cigarettes and fixing an old boat to "get off the island." - which makes perfect sense, considering you have a fucking phone, a black credit card and a tablet computer. You have every fucking reason, opportunity and ability to call for help or get off that island. But no, the tatau wants you to stay and murder the locals.

As the story progresses, and as Vaas is killed in a sort of drug-induced cutscene press-X-to-win kinda deal, you're left wondering if that's really it, or if you just had a dream. You sort of hope his death was just a dream, because it was a pretty unimpressive way to go. Unfortunately, it's real. You're left to deal with some guy named Buck, who wants you to go on a weird Tomb Raider-y mission to find a secret Chinese compass infused with WWII magic, which is weird, because the island was apparently under Japanese control - regardless, it is eventually revealed to you that Buck is some sort of weird rapist, who raped your friend, and confronts you with his pants down, and an explicit desire to rape you as well. It's... yeah.

Regarding that point, saving your friends, you have no incentive to save them, as I said before. None. Furthermore, saving your friends releases these dumbfoundingly horrible sequences with dubstep and poorly written-and-executed wisecracks that go against the whole tone of the game. First your friends are all like "Oh, bro, this is some terrible shit, I'm going to break down crying!" - the next, they're all cracking wise and murdering people while fistbumping and highfiving. Then when you end the mission, they're all sad and scared again.

Ultimately, the final boss, the mercenary leader, is finally presented for you to kill in another press-X-to-win cutscene. The boss, a guy in a nice ladies blazer, gold chain and Hawaiian shirt, is sort of presented here and there, and you aren't really given much information about him, nor reason to feel anything but indifference about him. Maybe disgust, by virtue of him being so poorly written. The thing connecting you to him is eventually also some... CIA-guy in a suit someone took a piss on, with awful wispy facial hair and dumb lines. That guy was awful. Anyway, it ends up in a poker game, where you, and some German dude named Sam who has an iron cross tattooed on his chest (what the fuck) who is either delusional or a Marine, or both, play for about 500 dollars. Because poker. With a fucking mercenary warlord and two other random dudes. Similar to every other character in the game, the German dude isn't given a lot of context or meaning, and is just there to poorly read German lines and shout "BLITZKRIEG!" every once in a while. Again... urgh.

Anyway, the goal of the poker game is eventually to do as the game prompts, which is simply "PRESS Q TO BET LIFE" - doing so a few times means you get a finger cut off, and... then you enter another press-X-to-win cutscene where you kill the mercenary captain. This prompts you to become a warrior of the previously mentioned tribe, get a final tatau, do some drugs and choose between slitting the fucking throat of your girlfriend with an ancient Chinese knife that maybe is from World War II but maybe not and maybe it's Japanese but nobody really knows except Buck who was a rapist that you killed for being rapey and sending you on dumb quests and oh god, and just, uh, reuiniting with your friends, while the tribe just whines at you and says "Please don't go, Jason! :("

Oh, and uh, the ending where you slit the throat of your girlfriend, you are granted a dumb and toe-curlingly bad and awkward first person sex scene, after which you are promptly killed.

Whatever ending you choose, you are simply dropped back into the island with a small notification box that says "CONTINUE EXPLORING ISLAND?" with the only real option being "Yes."

-

What does all this have to do with... well, with anything? What's the deal with the Rorschach stuff, the weird dreams, the drugs, the implication that you are Vaas, and in reverse? The only way that story could have made any sense, was if the ending revealed that you're some sort of coma patient on tainted drugs in the Matrix.

Unfortunately, you get the weird first person sex scene instead.

I had some fun with that game, but the story and context was just... man. They shouldn't have done that.

@Incapability Nice writeup!

I have a feeling the problem is there's a disconnect between some of the incredibly well done characters in the game, and story being generally poor quality. Looking at the performance done by Vaas and some of the lines you get from him, its easy to assume that that level of writing will apply to the game as a whole. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. Most of the things that could lead you down some alternate, bigger picture narrative really end up just being the cause of poor writing and video game cliches.

As I mentioned in another thread, I didn't really find the story to be the big hook, but rather the presentation. I critized the story for the stupidity of Buck and the big underground chinese buildings earlier, but they both look really great. And the weed-dubstep and the ending helicopter scene are just hilariously stupid. Most of the drug scenes also look really great, not to mention the warrior fight. And ofc basically every scene with Vaas. The game just looks and sounds great, which also creates the disconnect of "look at this stupid thing we did" combined with a story that seems to take itself seriously.

I really liked the story but felt that it dissolved somehow at the end. I have no idea where else they might've taken it but I felt a bit disappointed nonetheless. If it wasn't for the fact that Citra brought your friends I would've followed Citra.

I feel that it was really disappointing the way you finish off both Vaas and Hoyt. I would've liked to get into their heads more, seeing how interesting of a character they both were, most specifically Vaas though.

Also, the only real magical shit was the compass, which I have no idea what to even think about it, really.

Man that ending totally saved this game for me, the fact that I could murder my friends in cold blood and then watch the main character die was all I really needed to cap it off.

After thinking about it for a bit I have come to the conclusion that Farcry 3 has too many characters.

They are introduced then disposed of so quickly without us ever getting to really know them, worst part is that they are all pretty interesting. Vaas was also criminally underused.

Also what was up with the "knife fight on dance floor in space" for all your bossfights? I could never quite comprehend that.

Maybe playing it straight was the way to go. Just leave the weirdness in the game unexplained. Like how a character levitates in the air for a few seconds randomly (only experience with the game is the QL).

The ending suuuucked. Like, it left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth from the end of the fight with Hoyt 'til the "press mouse1 to save your friends or mouse2 to stay with the obviously insane Citra."

It might be a graphical glitch, but at one point, in the cave, your friend in yellow was flickering very noticeably while he sat on his little rock. I thought that was the game sort of saying "none of this is real; you're dreaming." And then the ending basically said "NO JUST KIDDING EVERYTHING WAS TOTES SERIOUS MAN YOU SAVED EVERYONE AND HAVE A MAGICAL TATTOO!!"

Also, what the fuck, Dennis? You gon' stab a brother just because he's said THE ENTIRETY OF THE TIME YOU'VE KNOWN HIM that he just wants to save his friends, and then finally gets a chance and DOES? You crazy.

I guess that's the message of the island, though. Everyone is insane.

Hey everyone, there's a wiki task right now to provide the Far Cry 3 wiki page with a detailed plot synopsis. If you completed the game go ahead and and try and accomplish it if you have the time.

Also we need more character pages.

@ZombiePie said:

Hey everyone, there's a wiki task right now to provide the Far Cry 3 wiki page with a detailed plot synopsis. If you completed the game go ahead and and try and accomplish it if you have the time.

Also we need more character pages.

Forgive me for asking if this is covered elsewhere, but I could not find it.. how detailed can I write the plot synopsis? Spoilers included?

After all the alluding to there being a twist and there ends up not being a twist, is the worst thing ever.

Key problems:

• They killed Vaas way too early. This is actually doubly a problem because they showed his death in a demo at E3 this year, What with it being a tripped out druggy dream sequence, I assumed it was in Jason's head (especially with that great little jump-moment where after Vaas has died, his eyes fix on you, all lightning fast). In a game full of interesting characters, Vaas was the tour-de-force and really should have been (or at least remained) the main threat. Maybe not the big bad, there's something fitting about him being a henchman, but perhaps after killing Hoyt, facing down Vaas again would have added some more satisfaction.
• They never expand on the Fight Club promise. This has been brought up plenty of times, and rightly so. It's a prevalent theme whilst Vaas is alive, so much so that it feels lazy for the writers to pass it off as Vaas being crazy, combined with the drug induced stress of Jason's mental wellbeing. This leitmotif was engaging mostly due to the strength of Vaas as a distinguished character (finding similarities with such a captivating monster is both appealing and horrifying) and when Vaas left the scene, so did the story's main strength.
• With Vaas no longer a threat (which is a fucking poor truth, but whatever), we get to focus on the second most interesting character; his sister Citra. Citra is fucking great. She's down with the people, enigmatic, sensual and empowering, both as a woman (having the strength to lead and support her people) and as a guide to the player (in the ways of the Rakyat/tatau). So what do they do? They turn her into a fucking psycho bitch. At the end of the game, she kidnaps your friends and demands that you kill them. And if you do, she roofies you to get pregnant before killing you, like some slinky ink-blotted praying mantis. As the key representative of the Rakyat tribe (the tribe who you have been helping and helped by, the representation of freedom and strength and the sole opposition to the chaos you've been fighting throughout the game), her actions infer that everyone in that tribe is crazy. That the tatau you've assembled throughout the game is merely a big sign that is there to broadcast the message: "Hey, I'm a crazy person! If you're also a crazy person, maybe we could fuck! Unless you're a crazy person I don't like, in which case I fully intend to shoot you in the face!" Dennis' actions in the 'good ending' certainly don't do much to suggest otherwise.
  They singlehandedly demean Citra and the Rakyat so much in a matter of seconds. It might make more sense if she were pushing you towards this absurd path throughout the rest of the game, but she actually does very little pushing. She never asks you to abandon your friends. She never asks you to kill Vaas or Hoyt. She asks Jason what he'd like and provides appropriate spiritual dream-training and opens up new skills to make Jason's plan a possibility.

The moral of the story seems to be 1) Don't kill off your most interesting characters until the end. 2) Follow up on your thematic implications. 3) Boobs are not a satisfactory substitute for a coherent narrative.

@murisan said:

The ending suuuucked. Like, it left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth from the end of the fight with Hoyt 'til the "press mouse1 to save your friends or mouse2 to stay with the obviously insane Citra."

It might be a graphical glitch, but at one point, in the cave, your friend in yellow was flickering very noticeably while he sat on his little rock. I thought that was the game sort of saying "none of this is real; you're dreaming." And then the ending basically said "NO JUST KIDDING EVERYTHING WAS TOTES SERIOUS MAN YOU SAVED EVERYONE AND HAVE A MAGICAL TATTOO!!"

Also, what the fuck, Dennis? You gon' stab a brother just because he's said THE ENTIRETY OF THE TIME YOU'VE KNOWN HIM that he just wants to save his friends, and then finally gets a chance and DOES? You crazy.

I guess that's the message of the island, though. Everyone is insane.

Yeah those flickering NPCs are bugs in the engine but they kinda worked for awhile in the game.

Im kinda okey with the Citra ending, the Save Your Friends one was dumb i felt.

Anyway the game wasnt about the story so much and more about the island itself for me so kinda whatevs on the whole story imo.

Your character was actually indoctrinated the whole time.

Jason actually died when he fell off the bridge into the river at the very beginning of the game.

I just finished the part where you kill Vaas, and can anyone tell me what the fuck happened there? I mean, I walked into the last room and he stabs you in the chest, quite visibly.

After that I have some nuts dream sequence where I kill Vaas something like 12 times, and then I wake up in Citras temple.

What the hell happened? I mean the dude stabbed me pretty good. Shouldn't I be dead?

@Chris_Woods said:

I just finished the part where you kill Vaas, and can anyone tell me what the fuck happened there? I mean, I walked into the last room and he stabs you in the chest, quite visibly.

After that I have some nuts dream sequence where I kill Vaas something like 12 times, and then I wake up in Citras temple.

What the hell happened? I mean the dude stabbed me pretty good. Shouldn't I be dead?

Vaas kills you about four times. Video games.

I ended up feeling pretty darn close to what Brad seemed to think about the game in his review.

The game's story went all the way downhill after Vaas got wiped. I mean it wasn't great before that but at least every time I got to see more of Vaas I had some interest in it. Buck was also a really damn good character as well until they just randomly throw the rape card and kill him with a QTE like every other main bad guy. I never ever cared for any of the MCs friends, fuck I didn't even know what Riley looked like up until the point in the prison where you beat him up and all the time before that he was one of the biggest concerns of the MC because of the whole little brother thing and all of the people do really seem like the worst kind of trash! I didn't want to be as negative as the GB guys were. I wanted to give the game a chance to make your friends seem more likable and give them some depth other than "hey we're a bunch of rich white kids and I dunno, I guess we need to get off this island and this one guy is really high all the time isn't that funny" but no. Nothing.

The ending sucked fucking balls as well. Typical 2 choices with different cutscenes but neither does anything to wrap up the game or give anything to think about except "well that's another video game in the bag". It really felt like they just did that so they could say their game has multiple endings. It had no build up and no it made no sense to have you choose between the two. I felt an especially big disconnect with it since when I left my friends in the cave it seemed like they were ready to leave in a couple of hours or a day at most but then somehow they're still there in the end when multiple days have passed? Whatever happened to having one well thought out ending in a video game? It feels like every game I've recently played has had an ending where you basically choose one of two buttons to press and then you get a cutscene. After that you go on Youtube to see the other ending.

I never liked Citra or any of the jungle people, I didn't want to help them in their civil war thing and the game didn't give me a good reason either. Only jungle person that was decent was Dennis but even he went to shit after about a third into the game after the MC meets Citra and Dennis gets drunk and does his stupid speech. Every call you get from him after that is some stupid patronizing shit how the Rakyat are my family. I got this sweet tattoo on my arm and I can kill anyone and anything, why would I need these people who camp out in this temple? I'll just go get my friends and that'll be that. Maybe I should just stay on this island, join with the privateers and get fucking paid. When I got the privateer suit I actually started thinking about stopping the story there and just imagining that I forgot about my friends and everything and just stayed on the island doing fun stuff like jumping off radio towers and gliding forever with my wingsuit and then maybe go play a round of poker.

I guess it just feels like they wanted to do a greater story but then had to do an open world game because that's what Far Cry has been in the past and then they had do deal with characters that would disappear right after you turned your back on them and the MC being a whiny cunt but still suddenly killing 100 dudes without any trouble. Too bad because the open world part of it is golden. Easily the best time I've had with an open world game in a long time. It's just unfortunate that the last thing that I experience in this game is that worthless ending.

Urgh... the ending just made me feel dirty somehow and I didn't even choose the one where you end up banging Citra.

I wish the game would be nothing but clearing outposts. Just different sized outposts with different types of enemies. Big outposts with less dudes and smaller outposts with more dudes and vice versa. Outposts that are inside a mountain. Outposts that are on a remote island with snipers and heavy guards watching it and you need to dive down to an underwater cave to get into it and then sneak out or else the bad guys will blow the cave system you're in. Outposts outposts outposts.

@xMrSunshine said:

I wish the game would be nothing but clearing outposts. Just different sized outposts with different types of enemies. Big outposts with less dudes and smaller outposts with more dudes and vice versa. Outposts that are inside a mountain. Outposts that are on a remote island with snipers and heavy guards watching it and you need to dive down to an underwater cave to get into it and then sneak out or else the bad guys will blow the cave system you're in. Outposts outposts outposts.

Sorta sad, but I kinda feel the same. I do think it would get tedious without any breaks though. Imo the game should've been outposts, towers, rakyat challenges (although without the seperate loading and stuff, just events in the world) and deliveries, and just tons of them. They might not all be as strong (although I'd say they are all more than competent), it's the perfect variation of stealth, platforming, action, and driving.

No insanity incredibly disappointing

I just finished the game, and I am really bummed out. I understood that the ending wasn't going to be great, but I was totally planning to finish up all the little stuff I had left behind or even playing it again. Now I really don't feel like being in that world again. I hope I will get over this feeling because the game is actually tons of fun to play.

Do you ever meet the guy writing the guidebook? It says that 'we'll meet soon, i'll send the coordinates.' I haven't finished all of the side stuff, but have no incentive to do so as I've got all of the signature weapons..

@McDom said:

Do you ever meet the guy writing the guidebook? It says that 'we'll meet soon, i'll send the coordinates.' I haven't finished all of the side stuff, but have no incentive to do so as I've got all of the signature weapons..

It's Willis, the CIA guy.

I kinda felt the same way as Jeff and Brad about how the story went, but then I completely turned around on it. Maybe it was lazy writing, but I think the turn the game takes after Vaas is killed works really well. Throughout the first half, the game hints at the island's/Vaas' craziness rubbing off on you, and your actions speak to that. Jason gets real wrapped up in the momentum, and is influenced by the native weirdos into a decision to stay on the island. Then Vaas is killed and you enjoy a bit of normalcy (comparatively) with Sam on the south island. (Outside of the story stuff, I actually had a lot more fun with the latter half missions with Sam). Being separated from the north island kind of allows the craziness to die with Vaas and for reality to set in for a bit. You are essentially trying to take down the biggest piece of crazy in Hoyt, and on your way you have plenty of time to analyse your actions thus far (and realise the craziness in your own actions). After killing Hoyt and saving your brother, Citra kidnaps your friends, blows magical fairy powder in your face and ties you up. By this point even an idiot would know there's only one choice to make at the end, so you save your friends and realise the error of your ways.

Granted it's not the most exciting finish, but what on earth were people expecting to get out of it? I can't think of any twist that wouldn't have just been bullshit. I'd absolutely agree that the dream sequences were the fucking worst and made no story sense - but I don't want them explained, I just wouldn't want it there to begin with. An explanation for your hallucination predictions would have to be on another level of bullshit to the hallucinations themselves.

@Incapability said:

<comprehensive story synopsis>

Thank you for this! The main thing I was curious about with this game was the story. :)

@jozzy said:

I just finished the game, and I am really bummed out. I understood that the ending wasn't going to be great, but I was totally planning to finish up all the little stuff I had left behind or even playing it again. Now I really don't feel like being in that world again. I hope I will get over this feeling because the game is actually tons of fun to play.

Give it a day or so. Have a few beers, then turn the game on. My recommendation for how to get back into the game is give NO fucks. Find a big hill, jump off, wingsuit towards something interesting, parachute on top of a pirate, and start tearing ass.

Just finished it... And man the ending really disappointed me. I chose to save my friends and out of curiosity watched the other ending on YouTube, wow the other ending is fucking retarded. Also if you choose the second ending im guessing they dont actually address the fact that your dead and still just plop you back on the island? I was kinda bummed that they killed sam off as he was fucking cool, shoulda brought him back him the next game if you ask me.

Far Cry 3 seems to be the first game I've ever played wherein the professional writers were given all the dialogue to write, and they simply allowed interns to come up with the overarching narrative. The dialogue, almost always, is very, very well written. But the story is so incredibly dumb and lazy and sort of points to many paths at once without explaining any of them. I really don't understand what happened here.

Despite the terrible ending. The story throughout was still one of the best this generation.

I felt the good ending deserved more closure between friends. They've all been through too much just to have a simple boat leaving/Jason speech ending. The bad ending made absolutely NO SENSE. I don't care what anyone says, nothing Jason did throughout the game lead up to that Citra ending. So what? he says he likes killing to Daisy, it was clear throughout the game no matter what he still had morals. If anything he was more like HIS OLDER BROTHER towards the end of the game than one of those other crazies on the island. Taking out vengeance on the people who made your life hell, is entirely different from cold blooded murder. Jason never once killed someone in cold blood in the entire game. Christ sakes, the game will even tell you "Do not kill innoncents" if you kill one LOL. He helped the innocents for crying out loud, he saved daughters from their suicidal boyfriends and what not. The people he killed were all slavers, rapist, and all around psychos.

It makes absolutely no sense, that he goes through all this to save his friends and most importantly his brother WHO HE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR (The exact words he told Citra, and also after first meeting up with Riley and having to torture him, he tells Sam "I want hoyt dead"). He shows nothing but love for his brothers throughout the game, and what? 4-5 missions pass and suddenly its "Oh sorry little brother, i would do anything for you EXCEPT reject a half naked tribal woman, you die now". Please, the bad ending was completely pulled out of nowhere. Not to mention how he often talked about how they took care of each other, and how he reacted when he thought Riley was dead. I'm sorry but some half naked chick he just met doesn't destroy a bond between brothers like that so fast, its crap.

It wasn't just his brother he cared about either, but all of them. Buck's constant teasing of harming Keith, and Jason without much thought obeying showed that. The bad ending contradicts everything the character has said and done throughtout the game.

Wow that story sure did take a massive shit at the end. Story wise it peaked around when you killed Vaas but holy shit that ending is I don't even know. I was never that heavily invested in the story and I lost even more interest after reading the review and seeing it mention that it wouldn't be a crazy twist so at least I'm not that bummed out.....but holy shit what the fuck was that?! Also who in their right mind would seriously pick the choice to kill their friends cuz I was close to alt-tabbing out of the game if it made that choice for me. There's absolutely no reason to pick that choice other than to just see what it is.

What a huge fucking waste of great potential.

Anyway, despite being disapointed with the endings, i still cut Ubisoft some slack.

We gamers tend to forget that these are game developers, not proffessional writers. They can only try the best they can, even some of the greatest stories told in gaming have something off about them. I just wish game developers would learn how to end games better. So many crap endings recently.

Assassins Creed 3, This game, Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3.

@Hellstrom According to wikipedia the writer is Jeffrey Yohalem - Yale educated, and head writer on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (won a Writer's Guild award for that). Guess he has a thing for randomly stabbing supporting characters at the end of his games with no explanations?

Agree with you completely on the disconnect about Riley, though. It makes no sense at all that he would go through what he did to save Riley only to immediately kill him. Maybe the choice should have been free your friends and leave the island, or free your friends and kill Citra, Dennis, and the tribe - sort of a Col. Kurtz-style "Exterminate the brutes!" where Jason finally descends into bloodlust/madness/etc.

I cut them some slack because the rest of the package is just so damn good. Man I love the mechanics in this game. If only the takedown system could be somehow grafted on to Far Cry 2, I'd go back and play that again too :)

the game doesn't tell you any story. the game has you in jason's shoes and undergo events as jason did. hearing to and meeting people on his objectives. jason doesnt have time to spend time with any of the characters so we see short screen time of different characters which are exceleently voiced IMO. jason would have to spend only that much time with any character as is required for the objective to be achieved. jason has to prepare to take on the pirates' leaders and it's not a piece of cake. whenever he confronts vaas, it's a serious matter of life and death. the game cant allow more screen time to vaas cuz if too many face offs with vaas happen w/o either jason or vaas being killed, it would become way too much. the writing is excellent. vaas has implied at times about his history and hatred to citra and rakyat tribe. he said that jason and him are the same. he knew all along what was citra gonna do to jason should he choose to stay with her in the end. "she's gonna make a warrior out of you. you're so FUCKED jason". the ending was not lame. it was the final piece of puzzle given to you to relate to vaas' dialogues and discover the history of rakyat. citra wanted a child with the perfect rakyat warrior. vaas was the perfect warrior in the tribe. she wanted an incest sis-bro sex with him to give birth to the perfect rakyat leader child. SHE was the one who was insane, NOT vaas. vaas left the tribe and anyone in his place would have done the same!!! now she uses jason and sses him as the perfect warrior. she kills him after getting what she desired from vaas long ago. "you are me, and i... am you". jason is drugged all the time cuz the island has natural aerial drugs as seen in the cave under the doctor's house. the herbs jason uses are drugs. the tatoos he wears might contained some substances which bring out the violent and more agile side of an already college athelete which jason is. if you explore the cave where his friends stay, u find drug pills. if you take them you experience jason's past which explains how he and friends ended up on the island. why the game returns you to island after being killed in the story? cuz it's a game. you are given an open world past-story gameplay feature. itz not related to story. why his friends were captured by tribe? cuz they didnt leave the island and waited was jason, they were never seen leaving, were they? tatoos show how skilled a warrior is, it isnt magic, game lets you get tatoos and get skills, but thatz gameplay theory, story theory is once you master a skill, you are awarded the tatoo like a trophy to display ur level to the tribe. jason begins to believe he is the reincarnation of the original rakyat warrior who slayed the demon of the pond. thatz what citra feeds into his mind. thatz how he loses sense of his original self. rakyats try to have him kill his friends and family, which is exactly what vaas was doing. he hated his family and "drive a bullet through my sister's skull". he and jason had become identical. both being drawn away from family for a different organisation.

IMO itz the best game of this year and the story is excellent, just excellent! i dont want everything to be told to me. the game gave me enough pieces to fit together. and itz done masterfully! loved this game!! =)

@ddaydj:

I just finished it... And I'm confuzzled. I can't tell if the writing is really good or really bad. I mean, how can it be real? HOW? Too much weird shit keeps happening! Like all the time! Is there something else going on here? I mean... there has to be.

Here are some thing I noticed right away:

Your brother has a very similar tattoo to the one you build up throughout the game.

Your brother was in the army. Dennis looks like he was in the army.

Dennis and Vaas both have a scar on their heads.

I figured it was adding up to the idea that Jason is trying to idealize his brother, and like... become the one who can protect everyone. I don't know. Duality is every where in this game. It has to mean something! Ahhhhhhhhh!

I'm really starting to despise the way most games handle branching stories (consider this: Black Ops 2 has a lot more branching storyline than most other games this year.) - and I think that Far Cry 3 is one of the worst offenders. Basically, what the game demands you do at the end is take responsibility for the decision the game makes for you about halfway through the game (when Jason decides to stay). I normally don't like it, but it's usually the main character ending up in a situation where you end up somewhere because of other's decisions. Here, the decision is just meaningless. Meh, MEH! I say.

That said, I did feel a bit guilty for letting myself be fooled about Vaas' sister being sane. Of course she's going to be nuts. Everyone is nuts on Rook Island!

In the end, I'm going with the Citra end, because... while I don't think Liza deserved what she got, I think that Jason deserved everything he got. :P

Anyway, I think that Vaas is probably the best character I've been introduced this year. Despite it being spoiled in trailers (WHY!?), the "Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?" section was excellent... And so was pretty much every other part he appeared in. So menacing! So awesome! Unfortunately, I think that Sam and Hoyt couldn't quite pick up the slack for Vaas, though Hoyt was pretty good.

On the other hand, getting the wingsuit just after Vaas died... also made the rest of the game so much more awesome. It's almost like the game turned into Just Cause 2 - giving you crazy levels of mobility... honestly pretty torn about the game. Overall pretty great, but the bad parts are pretty bad. It's kind of a shame they didn't go the Tyler Durden route... but, there we go.

@Mnemoidian: I actually think that Sam was the best character in the game.

@SonnyCheebah: BLITZKRIEG!

The biggest reason I was bummed at the end of this game is because there's no NG+ option. In a game like this, I think that would be fucking excellent. Maybe still start you off with basic inventory so you still have to hunt and shit, but unlock all the guns and the wingsuit from the get go so you can tear ass through the game the second time and not give a single fuck. So many of those early missions and outposts would have been so much more interesting if I could just air drop my ass in to the middle of the action, RPG in hand.

I know that has nothing to do with the story, I'm just putting it out there.

So I enjoyed the game so much that I immediately started another playthrough (the fact that there is a single remaining relic in an unreachable cave helped the decision), and I am noticing a lot of things that tease the ending that I missed my first time around.

In the first cabin you and Grant pass through there is a picture of Citra's face that someone has repeatedly slashed with a knife

I had forgotten how Dennis tells you when you first meet him that his "will is set on one woman". It was obvious by the end of the game who he was talking about, but I hadn't noticed how early they had been seeding the idea.

When you and Liza are tied up, before Vaas tries to light you on fire, there is a TON of out of context exposition:

• Vaas says it's too bad Citra gave you "that ink", because now he can't kill you: "now the only way to kill you is to erase you completely" (maybe acknowledging Jason's "player avatar" status? Maybe not - the line is definitely odd)
• Vaas rants about family, about his crazy sister and her forcing a horrible choice on him ("Them or me! Me or them!"), even commenting on the absurdity of the choice, "like they f***ing think I need to make a f***ing choice". Aludes to Vaas and Jason being given similar choices by Citra, and reinforces the Vaas/Jason symmetry.

It was interesting playing through the first Citra-induced drug trip again - like seeing how they had teased the whole Riley/Hoyt situation early in the game, right down to the playing card imagery. I'm looking forward to seeing what else I missed the first time.