Fun Wins Out Over Realism
The game designers deserve some kind of medal for this game. Its just fun from beginning to end. This is the rare game that I will play for 20+ hours. Then I will almost immediately miss the gameplay and play it again on a harder difficulty just to revisit the fun I had a few days earlier. This is a rare experience and a rare game that can compel to this level.
Although the gameplay designs do not hide being gamy (full of gameplay contrivances), its amazing how well these game elements serve as plot devices. For example, upgrading the amount of weapons and ammo you can carry involves hunting for different animals around the island. And although that may not make much sense in the real world, it fits the imaginary game world to a tee. You need to become a warrior and hunter and be accomplished in hunting numerous animals. This makes hunting all the more interesting because the hunting in the game leads to unique and interesting new abilities in the gameplay. So many games forget to make the side missions important to the game. I'm looking at your Assassins Creed flag quests!
Few games pull this off well but a few come to mind; Deus Ex Human Revolution and Dishonored. However, Far Cry 3 is not concerned with lengthy disposition or story telling per-say. The plot is decent, if a bit cliche, but moves along pretty quickly and gets out of the way most of the time to let you decide wether to move the story missions forward or spend equally compelling time upgrading your abilities and weapons by doing side missions like the aforementioned hunting. The game pulls this off so well that you hardly notice how derived the gameplay rewards tend to be. You just don't care. It certainly helps that the side missions are fun and can be completed in numerous ways.
The sound design is also quite remarkable. The soundtrack is different but somehow fitting to the feel of the story. One special note is the attention to details. The sounds of capturing a camp or getting spotted are very well done and after playing for a few hours, you completely understand the game sound vocabulary. Another bright point is the sudden sound of animals in the area which can be quite nerving at first.
One thing that makes this a stand out game is the shear variety of gameplay styles and missions and ways to accomplish those missions. It does this through an amazing use of open world AI that does not feel anywhere nearly as scripted as other systems (i.e. Dishonored). Though you can certainly see through some of the AI, it remains fun regardless.
Another great example of open word gameplay is the takedowns. These takedowns slowly unlock a stealth style of gameplay that you can either embrace, or skip all together. The amazing thing is, I have seen reviews and playthoughs where people simply did not unlock advanced takedowns but still had a great time with the game. To make stealth more accessible they have added a detection meter. At first, I just though of this as a bit of cheating but honestly, it just gives you the kind of information that makes stealth gameplay more fun. You can notice that you are about to become detected and actually do something about it. The cool thing is, you still can mess up and you still need to pay attention to avoid detection. The difference is, when you mess up, you know it was your fault. In other Far Cry games you were never sure if the game AI was just unfair or if you just did not understand the model of enemy detection. Sure, with the FC3 system, it may not be "realistic" but it is indeed more "fun". And given the choice between "fun" and "realism" FC3 landed on the side of fun. I applaud that decision wholeheartedly.
As far as negatives, there are few very minor issues as there are with all games. I have to admit that I found some of the over the top violence of the main villains is actually a bit disturbing. I suppose this could also be a positive because it shows that the story actually affected me in some way. I guess I am just growing a bit tired of game trying to one-up the horror movie industry with ultra violent acts portrayed by the "evil doers". But its very minor and should only be an issue if you were thinking of this game for young adults or kids. I really can't think of any other negatives.
No matter what gameplay contrivances that Far Cry 3 tend to use, you simply don't mind because its all fun to play through. This is what makes Far Cry 3 one of the best games of the year and easily the best FPS adventure in a long long time.
