Far Cry 3

For the Review of the FC3 DLC  , Please Click HERE .

 When I first cam to know of the game I didn't have that much expectations to it . I mean Far Cry was the best game I had ever played . FC 2 was a excellent too , but it gave you the depressed feel everywhere around . Just one look at the game is enough to push you into depression . So when i saw the pre-release pics of the game I was impressed , because once again is FC is coming back to green regions and it looked pretty colourfull. So My hopes got up a little ..

But believe me when I finally started playing the game I was blown away by it . Let me take you through my experience  . First thing you will notice about the game is of course the Graphics  . Even with the first opening  Intro Video you will realize that running this game in a ordinary PC is impossible .You need to have a decent entry level GPU from Nvidia or ATI to get a playable Frame rate in Low settings  . Even the videos and cut-scenes that happen in the game are so demanding that non - enthusiastic Gamers will surely get pissed off when the Game starts stuttering at some places  . Make sure you have a good Processor and RAM because those have to be taken into consideration too , since the Loading time will be pretty long already . So its better you have the hardware to make it as fast as possible.

Video Graphics Quality is absolutely stunning which comes in 5 preset modes ( Low, Medium , High , Very High  and Ultra  )as well as a custom mode . Not to mention the other options like V sync , and MSAA or HDAO and Anti aliasing options that are available . If you want to see the game with its full glory you will need atleast 8 Gigs RAM , GTX 680 / ATI 7950 and I7 3rd gen processor .Without it its going to be pretty hard to run this beauty in Full hd with everything enabled  .The environment looks stunning with beautiful grasslands , flowers , Water and Falls with Butterflies and insects flitting here and there and not to mention the beauty of the sun that makes you feel like you are in the enchanting Island actually instead of virtually.

Hell you can t even throw a grenade / Molotov or use a flame thrower without you getting  affected by it . Becos since you are in open grasslands the grass around you is going to erupt in flames when you use one of the weapons . And then you have to make a run out of the immediate surroundings in order to escape unscathed from the fire ;-) such is the reality of FC 3 .  

A look at how the graphics settings differ 

So coming to the story , Jason Brody and his friends Grant, Riley, Liza, Daisy, Oliver Carswell and Keith partying on the islands. and they decide to do a skydiving stunt which results in everyone getting scattered through out the Island .In comes Vaas , the pirate lord of the Island and captures everyone deciding to to ask Ransom for their lives from respective child's parents and then selling them off slaves . Jason ( You ) who starts with Riley your elder bro escapes from Vaas's men and try to make a run for it , Riley Gets shot in the process and dies while you make it out barely alive .

Lisa 

You are rescued by Dennis who is a member of the Tribal people that call themselves as The Raykat. From then its your journey and mission to find all of your friends and escape out of the Island or you can get to be in the Island itself following the path of The Warrior  . The choice is given to you at the end . What impresses me in this is the lateral transformation of Jason Brody from a city bred , cowardly and cultured guy to lethal , cold and daring Killing Machine .It doesn't take place abruptly . If you dash into a fire fight initially you are going to die , but slowly as you gain experience and develop your skills you will slowly start stalking the enemies like a true Warrior .

 friends Grant, Riley, Liza, Daisy, Oliver Carswell and Keith

I absolutely loved the experience of it . It was truly reveling and beautiful to experience .You will get to see the similar features of AC III in this game too. Vaas was the perfect Villain you will ever come face to face in any game that is yet to be released . His dialogues and delivery mixed with  the primitive slang simply stuns you and makes you realize these kind of Physcotic Nutjobs are not to be messed with  . You will absolutely love the cut-scenes where he comes into screen . But seriously he must take lessons from people as to how to kill a guy properly :D You will get to know as to what i am talking about once you start playing the game ;-)

VAAS - The Perfect Villian

1. Radio Tower Unlocking / Viewpoint synchronization :: 

This is exactly the same as that of AC series . At first your map will be invisible to you , but as soon as you climb a radio tower and disable the enemies Link in it , you will be shown with a dramatic view of the areas surrounding the Watch tower which gets unlocked and thereby making it visible in map . But do remember that , one tower unlocks only a small portion of the Island surrounding immediately to it . Its absolutely cool to look when they show the regions you have unlocked with the tower , especially the music that rolls when they show you the surroundings . And after you have unlocked the tower you can use the Zip line to slide from the top of it exactly like Leap of Faith  ;-) which gets you to the ground more easily than climbing all the way down .

Zipline Shootout

2. Hunting:: 

Hunting was introduced recently in AC III  of which we all are quite aware of . It comes back here too. Since you are stranded in a Island which is filled with Exotic creatures and animals of all types , you are bound to come face to face with them sometimes when you cut across the path through the trees and bushes . Even skinning the animal after you kill it is there too, but there stops the comparison , because after this they have introduced a beautiful concept in this game called Crafting  . Although Crafting was available with AC series and other genre games too , there its just an option . And when game gives an option to do something that is boring and quite unuseful to the current single player one is playing , almost 90 % of the Gamers wont do it  ( including me ;-) ) . We feel its boring and a waste of time . But the beauty of the idea here is , in this game you are forced to craft from the skins of wild animals to survive . How ??? Well let me tell you

Komodo Dragon Attack

Instead of just skinning the animals and using it to sell them at general shops and stores for money , you can use them to craft a Pouch to carry more money , more ammo , more than one weapon of your choice , Arrow quiver , Syringe Pouch and what not . But wait , it doesn't stop there . Killing the same type of animal wont allow you to upgrade all . Each Pouch craft requires the skin of a particular wild animal . Ammo pouch may need a Cassowary skin , Russacks which are used for carrying all your loot can be enlarged with skin of Leopard or you may need Tiger skin , Dingo pelt , Dog pelt , Even Tiger Shark Pelt or Bear Pelt or what not . You will come across different varieties of animals as you explore the Island and each requirement aims in fulfilling it in order to satisfy your basic needs . I mean think about it , How cool is that , Instead of forcing you to do the necessary they give you an option to do it. And if you are wise enough to realize it , you will make use of it and succeed or fall short and die . 

Croc Attack 

The most scariest predator that you will come across are the crocodiles , Man these guys are literally invisible lying quiet without any movement . Just when you near them they try to gobble you up and you have to mash a button in order to kill them by stabbing a Knife through their head. Sheesh ! !the first time it happened it literally scared the bejusus out of me ! !!! . Damn ..

Shark kills can be funny and the most difficult . For eg : sharks can be found only in Deep Waters . So when you swim deep you don t have a weapon to fire underwater .( WHY UBISOFT WHY ??? ) The only option is to tease or bully the shark into making it come for you and then mash your buttons to finish it off . But believe me unlike the croc which ca be easily taunted these guys are pretty sharp and you have to take some bites from them  before you get a go at them .

Shark Attack 

Initially when you start with a single pistol and Machete you will feel less confident and will die mostly when you come face to face with a bear or a tiger . But as you upgrade your Weapon pouch you get to carry a total of 4 weapons . Believe me hunting is very  important in this game , and if you don't hunt you are going to end up dying .

3. Weapons :: 

i) Bow and Arrow :: 

When Crytek first announced the use of Bow and Arrow in the latest version of Crysis 3 , I was skeptical at first . Because from all the games i have seen in the past , I have never seen an older game where a FPS uses a Bow ( Entirely my opinion , there may have been games that I am ignorant of ) , maybe a Crossbow but never a bow . Even if t was there , I would have only seen it being used  in a 3rd person Shooter . So when I saw the trailer of Crysis 3 and its gameplay mechanics I was pretty much excited to say the truth .I got to saw how powerful a Bow and Arrow can be . In FC3 you get to experience it before Crysis 3 ;-)  Silent and deadly when you want it to be , at the same time can be used to cause chaos when necessary . Normal Arrows are available and so are Modified arrows which can be crafted and carried around . Like if you attach a grenade or Molotov at the arrow tip , it becomes a flying projectile / RPG which is very useful in taking down a Heavy in a firefight . Believe me , before I got the Heavy stealth Kill Skill ( Which requires a Tiger Shark Skin ) these babies pack a punch in taking down those guys . But still the arrows were really awesome and perfect to be used for a stealth kill from a distance . You have many skills that needs to be upgraded first in order to start using the Bow and Arrow effectively .

ii ) Machete :: 

The first weapon you get access to. This baby is a mean beast when it comes to saying ' Hi ' to an enemy up and close . Although the stealth Takedown is quite famous in games of this generation and not something new , FC team had made it a little more exciting in getting these take downs . Initially you are provided with the quiet approach and stealth take down from behind . But as you upgrade , you will get to kill two enemies from jumping from above , Take down an enemy with a Knife and throw his knife on the one who is before him , or take the slashed guy's Gun from his hip and use it to take down multiple enemies in front or Slash the guy's throat and pull the grenade pin of the guy's grenade and push him towards his buddies and there by earning more XP and a beautiful execution style kill. You also can take down enemies from below the ledge or from underwater . The smoothness with which you execute this makes it one one of the beautiful concepts of FC 3 . Its absolutely deadly to watch and feast ( Check out the video below for varieties of knife kills ). But sadly this does not work on animals , You get to use the only slash and hack technique that is famous in FPS genre .

iii) Sniper Rifles/ Assault / Handguns /Specials / Consumables ::

There are no FPS games without a sniper in them , and tats why most prefer the combination of a Sniper + Assault Rifle  +knife . Tats how I would customize myself . So you have this huge collection of guns in your stores and the outposts you liberate. But the catch here is , like a superhuman SAM  :P you will not be able to carry every weapon tats available . Like I said before you get to carry a Max of 4 weapons and so you get to choose wisely . For myself I usually had the combination of Assault Rifle + Bow + Sniper Rifle + A hand Gun which is extremely useful while sliding down a zip line and taking out enemies with one hand . On the other hand you do have the entire collection of guns in your arsenal. Like RPG's . different types of shotguns , grenade launchers , Flamethrowers etc ....You have a body Armor too which can be worn but believe me tats not effective at all .

iv ) Skills Upgrade :: 

Like every game out there FC3 is not new to Skills which are bought with XP ( Experience ) . Everytime you kill a guy ( blade kills earns more XP than gun kills ) or finish a main mission or side mission etc , you get XP awarded to you . Initially the amount of XP required to get a Skill point will be less . But as you start getting more Skill points the amount of XP required for a Skill point will increase . The way they have entwined the no of skills learnt with the tattoo in your arm is quite cool and realistic . Every time you upgrade a skill your Tattoo gets updated too , There are 3 types of skills that you can enrich upon and select from ,

 The Shark, The Spider, and The Heron.

The Shark: Focuses on first aid, and killing :

The Heron: Focuses on long range and mobility

The Spider: Focuses on stealth and survival

Depending upon the way you can increase the skill your gameplay may dramatically change . It may take a lot of time to get all the skills upgraded but believe me you can do it , Not like other games where they promise you something and then will keep on prolonging it until u feel frustrated with the effort that you end up throwing your controller down .Once you get all the skills you will feel like the Ultimate hunter with nothing to be afraid of at all .

a ) Knife Takedown Upgrades :: 

Like I said before you will start with initial Melee /Silent takedown of one guy but later you can upgrade your knife skill to take down more than one . All you have to do is press the arrow keys in the manner which is displayed on the screen for you to take down all guys with one machete. And Later this gets upgraded with a Knife throw takedown to kill a little distant enemy and which when upgraded can also be used to kill guys with a gun that is a take from  a guy whom you had knifed just then . Its so  cool to watch  .I really liked getting the Knife kills :D

Heavy Takedown : : 

This is the most beautiful of the skills you will ever get . Because before this when ever you try to take a outpost silently these guys never allow you to do that . Before getting this upgrade this guys can be killed only with grenades or C4 and thereby squashing our plan of taking over an outpost without triggering the alarm . It really pissed me off . If you really get lucky you can take this guy down with a precision shot from sniper to the back of his head . But once you get this , Oh sweet Lord !! . You wud feel that ' This would be the best thing that ever happens in the game ' .

You will get the usual life Upgrade too . When you initially start with 2 bars of life you will end dying easily of course .But these upgrades increases your  life to a maximum of 5 bars and the heal skill is very effective too , Initially the heal will cure only 1 bar but as you upgrade it will heal 3 bars max  . And the way they have shown the way you heal yourself is quite innovative too . If you lose health by falling from a higher ground your arm or fingers get twisted which will be healed by twisting your bones back into shape or if you start losing life Becos of a fire you will be asked to extinguish the fire by tapping it out or when hit by a bullet you use your knife to remove the slug from the wound and tie a bandage over it . Hell even while driving when you want to heal you do it with your mouth and one hand driving . Now if that ain't realistic , I  can never guess what is  :D

4 . Outpost Liberation ::

A lot of outpost will initially be under the control of militia groups . The only way to liberate them is to kill everyone in it . But you have to do so without raising the alarm or a group of reinforcements are going to arrive in a fleet . So initially when you try to take a outpost be careful and remember to first disable the alarm without getting spotted at all . Once that is done start taking down enemies silently with your bow or Knife or with your guns ( make sure your silencer Mod is attached ) .You can also go in with guns blazing , but you will require to expend more bullets and battle more enemies which may result in you dying without any bullets to fire from . So unless you have upgraded your ammo pouch or have a Extra Rounds per Magazine  Mod attached to your gun think twice before making yourself visible to the enemies . And also do keep in mind that the XP awarded after liberation depends upon the way you have taken the outpost . No Alarms triggered +Undetected will earn you the most XP possible .

Shoot a Caged Animal to cause Chaos

You can also get help from the animals which are kept in a cage in some outposts . All you have to do is shoot at the cage and watch the Predator do your job for you by taking down your foes ;-) quite cool to look . Whats the use of liberating this Outpost ?? Well it gives you fast travel locations and shops from which you can buy and upgrade your weapons from . And also the more  you liberate the more you can roam freely around or through the jungle without anyone spotting you and firing at you .

Jason Brody 

Pro's :: 

1. Enjoy the beauty of a tropical Paradise all open for you to explore .
2. Discover Side missions , supply drops , Loots all around hidden in inaccessible caves and buried deep underwater .
3. Come face to face with a Tiger or bear on land  / Croc or Shark  in water and battle for your life in the primitive way .
4. Be blown apart from astounding graphics and detail , thanks to Dunia 2 Game engine used here , which borrows heavily from Crytek's Cryengine 3 .
5. A solid 22 hrs of gameplay minimum which you would thoroughly enjoy and get addicted to .

Con's ::

1. The side missions can start to feel repetitive after sometime .
2. Graphics is so demanding that not all entry level Gamers can play this unless you have a basic decent GPU in your system or an Xbox / PS3
3. Even Enthusiastic Gamers have to tweak their drivers in order to run the game with all the eye candy enabled .

So tats it guys . So if you want to enjoy a beautiful game that makes you go crazy initially but slowly draws you into it and makes you addictive  , then I suggest FC 3  is the game for you .























Hats off to Ubisoft for presenting us with a new Genre of FPS game . This year is turning out to be really good for them what with releases like AC III and FC3 tagging the best game of the year awards while EA on the other hand falling flat on its face with poor titles like MOH : WF and NFS : MW 2012 .

Rating : 9.8 / 10

Regards
Ram