More from @TheRealRidge on the Eurogamer Expo last weekend, where he checked out new FPS Far Cry 3:
As I looked with great sadness and pity at the two hour queue for Assassins Creed 3, I found myself shuffling alongside them as the light drained from their very faces, on my way to play Far Cry 3. The rigged up play area seemed to be a PC system but with the choice of using a plugged in Xbox pad, which is good as an earlier experience with Sniper Elite V2 on the PC earlier showed me that my PC gaming skills with a mouse require some retraining.
But I digress, back to the game in question here. My first impression of the game was that it looked clear and vibrant with a varied colour palette given the sheer amount of reds, yellows and greens assaulting my eyes. That it is based on a tropical island it was to be expected.
Immediately you’re gifted a map showing the village you start in and what appears to be a radio tower. I started making my way towards it as it seemed pretty clear you were meant to do. One of the Captain Obvious staff members decided to tell me what I was doing anyway (How rude! ed). As you climb this tower you’re then treated to a camera pan reminiscent of some Matrix bullet-time action. But it does it’s job and sets the scene well for the mayhem that is about to begin along with the game world,pointing out various locations you can travel to on missions.
Instead I decided to zip line down to the ground, jump on a quad bike and go for a drive, which resulted in me angering some enemy characters clearly signified by their mutual love of the colour red. In the remaining amount of timed play I ran through the jungle blowing cars up with grenades, shooting enemies and alligators. Randomly blasting goats for giggles and pretty much doing a great deal of mad things just because I could.
For those familiar with the previous games in the franchise you’ll be glad to hear the random jamming of weapons in the middle of a fire-fight has gone. Gone too are the random bouts of malaria. The healing however remain the same. Whether or not this will be tied to how many supplies/med packs you have wasn’t clear, so once again it’s hold the heal button down and get treated to a pre-set animation of your character either injecting a hypodermic needle, putting himself out if on fire or snapping bone back into place (This is similar to Alien vs Predator and I’ve always found it annoying as it leaves you open to attack, ed).
Control wise if you’ve played previous Far Cry titles or indeed any FPS in the last ten years you’ll drop straight in to a zone of familiarity, which I believe only benefits the player as who has got time to read a complicated instruction manual these days (back in the day I used to love reading those big manuals! Ed)? That’s if they even put one in the box any more and don’t just instead link to a page on the Internet that hosts it, which seems to the way they do things these days.
But I’m getting sidetracked. To summarise it was a very enjoyable 10-15 minutes of gameplay. Where I took a zip line over a jungle, shot some red-hooded rebels, killed some alligators and kicked back with a knife throwing contest for money in a nearby village.
Personally I’d say it’s one to watch and an improvement over the second which got mixed reviews. I can’t wait to play the full game and explore more of the open world at my leisure.
