Far Cry 3 Preview – Eurogamer Expo 2012
When I ventured into the Eurogamer Expo nice and early last Friday morning Far Cry 3 wasn’t one of the games at the top of my list to play. As stunning as the visuals have seemed in previously released trailers, the game seemed tipped to be quite edgy and borderline insane, which if I’m honest put me off. That was until I got to play it.
Maybe I had been ignorant, but from what I knew Far Cry 3 was a first-person shooter set an a secluded island. There are some messed up people with guns living there with drugs as the local cuisine and everybody owned a gun instead of a mobile phone. The trailers that showed off an incredible island setting with the best graphics current consoles can provide were backed up by the gameplay on show at the expo. Alongside Tomb Raider it was the best looking game that I saw. Grass parted as you moved through it; the terrain is wonderfully life-like and the time I got to spend with the game made me forget the trailers that had gone before and instead focus on the quality of what I was playing here and now.
You start off in a small encampment where you can’t take out your weapon, no doubt as you’re surrounded by friends and they would get pretty mad, so I quickly ventured out out onto the island. Instantly when I left the outskirts of the camp my pistol was drawn. Here I flicked through the few weapon choices available; a pistol or sub-machine gun and a pretty lethal looking scoped bow and arrow.
Naturally I took this bad boy out and started roaming; you have your usual HUD and radar at the bottom of the screen, though I had no mission or quest to embark on and so exploring became the name of the game. I quickly ran into a flashing motorbike that when selected started a quest to deliver a package in a certain time limit. This seems to be one way to pick up small quests in Far Cry 3. Handling the motorbike was an absolute nightmare, maybe because I’m an awful driver, or because it was near damn impossible. Either way I just about made it to the drop off in time. The guy I delivered to was most pleased and happened to have a nice looking hang-glider precariously placed at the edge of a cliff. I didn’t ask him if I could borrow it but sprinted ahead and launched myself off the cliff on it.
I glided my way down into a camp full of bad-ass mofos and landed right next to a chap with a sniper rifle. I quickly disposed of him with a brutal melee attack that was morbidly satisfying. Safe to say the other bad guys hadn’t noticed my flight into their camp, so I swapped in the sniper rifle and picked them off one by one. Re-enforcements arrived and I tried out my trusty bow and arrow which was a lot of fun to use. Once the camp was cleared of the bad guys it told me that the camp was cleared and could be used as a rest area.
It seems that should you die in the game you might be returned back to one of your liberated camps. I also found another quest here where I was told to kill another bad guy using just a knife. No problem I thought and sprinted down a nearby hill only to fall ass over tit to the bottom. I was told I needed to heal myself and as my character lifted his hands to inject me with ‘get well soon’ potion I noticed a few broken fingers from my fall. That is very cool.
It remains to be seen how the storyline to Far Cry 3 pans out but it’s already apparent there will be a large amount of free roaming to do. The game looks slick and plays smooth. Combat was fun and intense with melee a particular highlight. No doubt there will be plenty of side quests, but I also hope the main quests are gripping and exciting enough to complete the game. Driving was a little awkward but may just take some practice to master. I’ll definitely be picking it up when it’s released on November 30th and will try and make sure I don’t sprint too fast down a hill… or if I do make sure I bring some plasters. Another triumph by Ubisoft.
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