I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it’s easy to see why it was so beloved back in the day. Its upgrade system - the awful act of skinning dogs aside - is organic, letting the player improve their equipment whenever and however they choose to do so. It’s a good laugh.ĭespite being imitated countless times by both other developers, and even Ubisoft themselves, the Far Cry formula has never really been as good as it is here. Start a fire and coo as it burns realistically across a grassy hillside. After an introductory sequence, you’re sort of just left to your own devices. Clambering to the top of a crumbling radio tower (little platforming puzzles! Fun!) reveals maybe two? Three things to do? It provides something most open-world games lack these days. It’s packed full of odds and ends to busy yourself with, but it’s noticeably quieter than anything else Ubisoft made in the years after its release. Maybe they’ll be back next time.īut, I’ve got to hand it to Far Cry 3, Rook Island is still a very fun place to sort of just mooch around in, finding your own fun as you go. This only happens once per play session, but there’s a layer of the game that has simply vanished, and watching the game desperately try to find it, like Fry’s loyal dog Seymour in that one episode of Futurama, is weirdly sad. Failing to locate them, it throws up a message you have to manually acknowledge. ![]() Opening up the crafting menu, you’re met with a loading spinner as the game attempts to find Far Cry 3’s long-defunct online servers. Like most games from the era, it’s starting to creak in places it was never meant to as well. Thankfully, Far Cry as a series quietly moved away from this in subsequent titles, but it still sucks here. The whole “this island was struggling before the arrival of this white guy but he’s finally helped us turn the tide!” shtick leaves a bitter taste, too. His skill tree is represented by a tattoo on his forearm. Even for a videogame character, the speed at which Jason goes from a timid party boy who can’t believe he’s just killed a guard while trying to escape from a pirate camp, to a psychopathic murderer who burns down an entire village without even making a quip is beyond parody. Right, how do I put this? Jason Brody was hateable enough a decade ago, but these days he just sort of feels… archaic. ![]() Let’s get those out of the way first - and where better to start than dude-bro protag Jason Brody himself? Look, he’s got the word bro right in his name. Leopards are particularly dangerous, gnawing at your arm before you even have a chance to spot them. The actual act of playing Far Cry 3 in 2023 is still good fun, it’s the bits around it that are a bit ropey.Īnimals are a frequent occurance on Rook Island, attacking both the player and AI enemies. ![]() ![]() That almost seems ludicrous, doesn’t it? Far Cry 3? Game of the year? Surely not.Īfter spending a few hours revisiting the sunny shores of Rook Island, I was shocked to discover a game that feels surprisingly pure. Although it’d be easy to simply say that decision was made a bit before my time here, I should probably admit that when reviewing the game for the blog I used to run when I was at university, I awarded it an equally prestigious (stop laughing at the back) 10/10. Basically, in the eleven years since its release, I’ve grown a bit suspicious of Far Cry 3’s lasting legacy.Īnd yet, in those halcyon days of 2012, we named it our game of the year. If I was trying to connect a piece of red string from the middle of my evidence board (which would probably be a picture of the map screen from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla), I’m not sure I’d push a pin directly into Jason Brody’s face, but I’d definitely circle it in black Sharpie a few times. Look, I’m not saying Far Cry 3 is responsible for *gestures vaguely towards modern AAA games* but it’s definitely a prime suspect. Today, we're looking at our 2012 Advent Calendar winner, Far Cry 3. Did the RPS Hivemind get it right back then? Or has time told a different story? RPS GOTY Revisited is all about revisiting our previous games of the year to see how they hold up today.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |