Rook Island isn't the tropical paradise it seems: beneath its lapis skies boils a violent struggle for control of the land. After a last-minute skydiving excursion lands you and your pals in the clutches of whacked-out slave traders, you're in it up to your neck. Grab a gun and step lightly, because you've got a whole bunch of first-person killing to do if you're going to rescue your friends.
Young Jason Brody starts out soft as white bread, but proves a quick study when it comes to driving bullets, knives, and arrows through enemy flesh. It's a good thing, too, because Far Cry 3's long single-player campaign — a little under 20 hours if you haul ass — is filled with crazed firefights against alert sentries with assault rifles, fleet-footed lunatics with machetes, and plenty of other death-dealers.
You're not stuck playing Rambo all the time, mind you. While you'll occasionally find yourself on linear tracks through caves and complexes, the majority of encounters lend themselves to a multitude of approaches. Sure, you can charge in guns blazing, but you'll get considerably more out of Far Cry 3 if you use your imagination and at least a little subtlety. Zoom in on a compound with your camera to mark and track foes, then silently stalk each of them with your knife. Snipe silently from afar, or sneak around placing chunks of C4 to detonate remotely when the time is right. Buh-buh-boom. (Did we mention the explosions look fantastic?)
You can't save in the middle of a mission, and checkpoints can be annoyingly far apart, but the more you experiment, the more intoxicating the possibilities become. Name another game where you can corral a crowd with rapidly-spreading fire, then free a ravenous bear from a flimsy cage and watch nature take its hilarious, cathartic course. And no matter how you take care of your bloody business, you'll earn cash for weapon customization and experience points that unlock handy new skills. You'll earn the lion's share of both before you're halfway through the game, and the most useful skills all involve health upgrades and chaining stealth-kills, but you'll love mastering all the different ways you can stylishly dispatch two, three, or more goons in a row with nary a scratch.
Don't expect Jason's psyche to escape similarly unscathed, though. Far Cry 3 doesn't quite make the most of its cast of unhinged wing-nuts, but listening to the amoral Vaas blither about insanity or a burned-out chemist lovingly describe his favorite mushroom-powered cocktail certainly doesn't bore. Even if you can't count on the narrative to deliver on every promise or answer every tantalizing question, its unique off-kilter tone and unexpectedly moving music pull you in, and disturbing, memorable scenes of madness and moral consequence will cement the dark tale's place in your memory.
Plus, there's plenty of other stuff to do in Far Cry 3's huge living world of emerald vegetation and sporadic torrential rainfall. Capturing enemy outposts won't just make the dusty roads safer to travel in nearby areas — it unlocks fast-travel points, gun shops, and side missions like assassination contracts. Climb and service rickety radio towers to get a bird's-eye view of the local area and its wildlife — Rook Island hosts everything from tigers and tapirs, to bears, deer, pigs, goats, and sharks — then hunt and skin that game for gear like a bigger loot bag and more capacious ammo pouches. You can even gather plants to create syringes that restore health, or aid hunting and combat. A fella could easily go hours on end without even worrying about his captive friends.
Unfortunately, neither co-op nor the competitive multiplayer modes are anywhere near as exciting or compelling. Co-op is particularly disappointing: instead of ferreting out cool new ways to kill or avoid altercations altogether, you're inevitably funneled into cluttered areas where ridiculous quantities of durable goons continuously stream in your general direction. Don't even bother if you can't get a full group of four together, unless you feel like banging your head against a brick wall of difficulty that doesn't scale down to accommodate smaller squads.
The wholesale murder of Team Deathmatch and a few variations on command-point control make competitive play both less irritating and more invigorating, but it remains almost as unsatisfying. Persistence unlocks weapons, modifications, and even simple battle cries that invigorate nearby teammates, but actual gameplay gets dragged down by disjointed maze-like maps and arbitrarily low health levels.
Don't let an uninspired online experience keep you from Far Cry 3, though. You'll have to go it alone to see all its wild thrills, but those unique situations and over-the-top conflagrations are undoubtedly worth some lonely time spent tramping through the jungle.
+ Large world filled with intense combat, unusual characters, and fun diversions.
+ Long campaign; many ways to achieve your goals, albeit with an obvious stealth emphasis.
- No manual mid-mission saving; some skills of dubious value; lousy co-op and so-so competitive multiplayer; story doesn't quite pay off.
? Why are radio towers so rarely guarded?
chuckratm
November 30, 2012 at 1:42pm
This game is a 10. Remember that alot of us out there enjoy single player games. It is much better than playing with the little sh!theads that populate online gaming, you know, like anyone dumb enough to still subscribe to OXM!!!!!
