Far Cry 3 Review

Excellent Voice Work Sells The Characters
I don’t think the story would be as good as it is if the voice work wasn’t as excellent as it is. You feels as if these are real people rather than just characters in a video game. Vaas’ insane babbling is funny until he snaps into an insane rage state that will send chills down your spine. Michael Mondo did such excellent voice work is so well done that I wouldn’t be surprised if he won an award for his portrayal of Vaas. While Jason isn’t the greatest character in the game, he makes for a great lead due to his flaws as a character and how easy it is to relate to him.

The other audio effects heard in the game do a great job of immersing you into the experience as well. Hearing a tiger growl in the bush send chills down your spine and the distant rattle of gunfire adds to the belief that this island is in a constant struggle. All of the guns have a nice sound to them and plowing into an enemy with a truck makes for a sickening crunch. Insanity has never sounded so good.

Graphics Are Decent
While the graphics won’t win any awards on the consoles (I played the Playstation 3 version of the game), they do their job and look decent enough. The environments look lush and I personally think it looks really cool when you are getting ready to assault a base and a storm hits. Nothing says epic stealth segment like pouring rain, a recurve bow and a machete.

NOT

Minor Issues Can Be Found
While Far Cry 3 is an excellent game, it is far from perfect. There are a few issues that I found while playing that are worth noting. The first issue I had was that the frame rate sometimes drops significantly in areas that are heavy in foliage. The second problem came in the form of spotty A.I. There where times when the enemy would flank strategically and cut me off, while other times they would simply stand in a line and let me put arrows in their heads. I also had a few instances where I fell through the map after cutting plants. None of these are major problems, but they do keep the game from getting a perfect score.

VERDICT

Far Cry 3 is one of the greatest games to be released this year. It has an amazing story and excellent character progression mixed in with fun gameplay and loads of content at your disposal. I am going to go ahead and say that this is probably the best shooter to release this year just because of how much it gives you as well as how amazing it is. If you play quite a few first person shooters and are a fan of the genre, be sure to pick this one or even add it to your Christmas list.

[Editor’s Note: Far Cry 3 was reviewed on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]