Far Cry 3

Driven by an incredible desire for benchmarks and cross-tests, Francesco Destri fiddled with the game's graphic options for hours and while he was there he dusted off Crysis and Crysis 2, modifying them beyond belief and comparing them with the natural wonders of Rook Island.

Far Cry 3 villain Vaas wants to know if he has already told us what madness is. He sits comfortably on a wooden box in front of the yawning abyss of a cenote, a limestone hole filled with fresh water, as used by the Majas to drown prisoners of war. We're lying in front of him, not quite as comfortable, our hands tied, our ankles tied to a cement block. "It's madness," Vaas explains in a low, hypnotic voice, "when you do the same shit over and over and over - and expect something to change."

As he speaks, a hooded pirate leads another prisoner to the edge of the cenote. The man begs for his life. He carries a stone in his arms. “The thing is,” Vaas continues as his henchman pushes the screaming man into the depths, “I've killed you before. And I'm certainly not crazy. " Then something else occurs to him. "Have I ever told you what madness is?" He asks. And step our cement block into the abyss.

Vaas is different. Vaas is better

It is moments like these that define Far Cry 3 - and, despite the undoubted weaknesses, make it a gripping, indeed great experience. No question about it: mad opponents are old hat in terms of content; You can find them in (almost) every Bond flick - and in what feels like three million PC games anyway. But Vaas is different. Vaas is better. The authors use no clichés, no trauma from childhood, no absurd megalomania, they simply let their antagonist sink into the role of the pathological psychopath.

Vaas works because his madness seems completely sincere - and because Simon Jäger (the German voice of Matt Damon) dubs it so breathtakingly that we prefer the German setting to the excellent English original.

First tourist, then folk hero

But who is this Vaas Montenegro actually? And how did that guy get to drown us in a cenote? So let's start at the beginning: Jason Brody and his buddies are on vacation in Southeast Asia and come up with the great idea of jumping out of a completely intact airplane. A parachute jump later they are on the Rook Islands - and in the hands of Vaas. He actually earns his living by kidnapping unsuspecting tourists, and when a couple of American kids with wealthy parents really want to hop into his lap ...

The end of the story: Jason escapes from captivity and mutates into a folk hero in the island paradise because the locals believe that he is the rebirth of a legendary warrior. Jason, on the other hand, doesn't want to be a legendary warrior; he just wants to save his friends and his little brother.

Jason is changing

"Oh no, that old lyre," yawns at this point the player, who is almost bored to death by thousands of kitschy background stories. Because he involuntarily assumes that this story, too, would be satisfied with the typical "In the end it'll come out anyway that I'm the chosen one" resolution. Far Cry 3 avoids exactly this lame variant. Or better said: Instead, it prefers to address the question of whether being chosen is at all a worthwhile destiny.

Because Jason's change from sheltered middle-class American to ice-cold avenging angel is not morally clear - on the contrary. Jason is changing; and this creeping change raises questions: Does the end really justify the means? Will the line to madness blur at some point? And if so, do we even notice it? Far Cry 3, you have to give him credit for that, doesn't avoid such conflicts; it grabs her by the throat.

If we torture an innocent man towards the end of the game, that makes perfect context - Jason simply has no choice. Nevertheless, we feel dirty, and if we dig into a gunshot wound with our virtual finger in the course of this scene while the other person is literally whining in pain, then it takes a lot of effort to keep the corresponding button pressed - because we have to , otherwise the game will not continue. In a way, Far Cry 3 succeeds at this moment in something that the medium of »game« otherwise achieves far too seldom: It turns us into perpetrators, holds up a mirror and leaves us with the grimace that we (possibly) recognize in it can.

Playground without swings

Speaking of grimaces: the series predecessor had one of those too. And a pretty ugly one. We're talking about the open game world, which ... well ... was open. It was wide open; there just wasn't much you could do with it. Far Cry 2 was a kind of playground without a swing. And without a slide. And without a climbing frame.

So it happens that there is a lot more to do in the successor: We are allowed to hunt and collect herbs, use the craft system to process the prey into syringes, rucksacks or larger wallets, climb radio towers and thus uncover part of the map, which is not limited to like Assassin's Creed sounds, it works exactly like that. Or storm enemy outposts and unlock new fast travel points. Suddenly burst into a firefight between Vaas pirates and the rebels. Watching a pack of dingoes chasing a buffalo horde ... or a tiger eating Vaa's pirates for breakfast.

The whole thing is finally a real open-world pleasure, but in practice it has two catches: Despite the new possibilities, the huge game world still seems too empty in parts and the developers have simply forgotten the balancing.

The catch: the balancing

We could come to terms with the first catch; after all, nobody forces us to know every palm by name, and if we wander uneventfully through the pampas for five minutes, it was no different in Skyrim. The second catch, however, is more annoying. Because it at least partially takes away the fun of going on a great voyage of discovery.

An example: to enlarge our backpack, we need skins. Wild boar skins to be precise. So we go to the map, see where a wild boar symbol is, run to it and shoot two. Voilà. Then we would like to expand our ammunition bag. We need tapir skins for this. So we go to the map, see where there is a tapir symbol ... and ask ourselves why the game even bothered with the crafting system when collecting the necessary materials is just an undemanding routine.

Another example: money. This is what we need to buy new weapons, refill ammunition or to improve the freshly bought ratchets with attachments such as a visor or an extended magazine. It's just stupid that after a few hours we literally drown in the gravel and have no problem using any available weapon, because the Rook Islands are literally paved with treasure chests. Provided, of course, that we have expanded our wallet. For this we need dog fur, so we go to the menu ... and the marmot greets every day.

A huge playground

In short: Far Cry 3 fails to fill its huge game world with things that we would actually be happy to discover. Sometimes a new weapon, sometimes a useful attachment, sometimes a particularly cool vehicle ... we'd love to discover something like that, but instead stumble across one treasure chest after another, all filled with money that we can't spend. It fits into the picture that the optional side missions, races, shooting competitions or hunting assignments not only reward us with experience points (see box), but also with, of course, even more money!

As a real open world game, as an island GTA, so to speak, in which we can lose ourselves for hours in the open world, Far Cry 3 only works to a limited extent. But it works as a huge playground. If we want to storm one of the 34 pirate outposts, then of course we could pull out the assault rifle, kill the whole crowd of pirates, whistle at the inevitably triggered alarm and then briefly blow away the reinforcements that have meanwhile moved in - works perfectly and plays great, even if the AI can be tricked relatively easily and tends to occasional total failures of the brand "I'll turn my back on you, that will confuse you!"

C4 makes it boom

But we don't have to do that. We could just grab a sniper rifle and shoot the tiger cage ... and then watch from a distance as the runaway beast makes short work of the pirates. Or we could mark the opponents with the camera (then the direction in which they are looking is shown on the mini-map), sneak silently to the alarm, switch off the thing and, one after the other, dismiss the whole gang like Hitman . Or we can smoke out the outpost with a flamethrower. Or load a good portion of the C4 onto a jeep, head full throttle towards the camp, jump out of the driver's door at the last second and trigger an impressive inferno at the push of a button.

All of this works great, the game mechanics, the controls, the whole game world are like a piece. The "I can do anything as I want" feeling floods us and is more reward than any treasure chest and bonus items in the world.

Just a save

Keyword Jeep: The Far Cry 3 fleet is not only really extensive, it is also top notch. Where we are tormented with a spongy driving experience in other shooters, jet skis, buggies and co. Steer themselves very precisely - and above all, fun. If one of the 40 story missions sends us back to the bottom of the game world, then we actually catch ourselves hoping in a quad bike and zooming across the island than beaming ourselves to our destination comfortably by fast travel.

On the other hand, the cumbersome and sometimes fiddly inventory and skills menus are annoying. And of course the lonely save. Outside of story missions (in which there are fair checkpoints) we can save freely at any time, but the game only remembers the current progress. If we reload, Far Cry 3 does not drop us off at the same place, but at the next best fast travel point. After all, there is no game over: for example, if we bite into the grass when storming an enemy outpost, we are revived shortly before the outpost.

Fantastic sunsets

Far Cry 3 does not show any nakedness in the staging. Well ... almost none. Because as picturesque and in places simply beautiful the island paradise is set in scene and as breathtaking as the foresight is, at some point we were fed up with the same palm trees. But (almost) nothing, because the dynamic day and night change conjures up dreamy sunrises and in the last third of the game we finally reach the second island, where the South Seas flair gives way to a harmonious savannah look.

But to be honest: at this point we didn't have time for sightseeing anyway. We really wanted to know how the story ends - and whether Far Cry 3 brings the matter of being chosen to its believable, actually necessary climax. Spoiler-free and in two words: Oh yes.

Far Cry 3 is advertised under the slogan "Know the definition of madness." Fortunately, the latest Ubisoft shooting does not lead to white fever, as the "two" could do. On the contrary - the latest work from the Montreal studio is a really successful production, correcting most of the errors of its predecessor , with a great campaign supplemented with great additions, which together make up one of the best shooter packages this year.

The backbone of Far Cry 3 is its single-player campaign of great momentum and equally great ambition. How else can you call taking on the breakneck challenge of combining dynamic, contemporary shooting with an open world, RPG elements and a mature storyline? Ubisoft comes out of this clash with a shield, thanks to the clever construction of the whole. The story of Jason Brody's and company unfortunate tourist expedition is intriguing, despite some clichéd patents and slightly exaggerated independent characters. The very fact of playing a rather effeminate, fearful and insecure American is a bold and original game. We usually step into the skin of a battle-hardened soldier who is able to twist a mammoth's neck with his bare hands. This time our hero is an empty, uncontrollable powerord with a trivial past and even less interesting prospects. It is only the struggle to survive that awakens his deeply hidden potential as a warrior, and the transformation Jason undergoes is one of the most engaging elements of the story.

Following the character's development keeps you in suspense, and his subsequent decisions and growing enthusiasm for violence make you wonder if the jungle does not actually turn him into another of its crazy inhabitants. And those in the Rook archipelago are in abundance: a mushroom-addicted doctor, a paranoid CIA agent, or a charismatic but crazy Australian Buck, these are just a few on the list of well-twisted and often disturbing individuals.

However, I would be lying if I said that the plot avoided clichés or stumbles. Many times, the game is able to properly strike the emotional strings, be it through dialogues with NPCs (solid facial expressions!) Or bizarre narcotic visions, flashbacks and hallunas. Unfortunately, Far Cry 3 too often uses well-worn cliches, which do not fit the rather gloomy tone of the script. The lighter stops the bullet, saving the protagonist from imminent death, another time the protagonist falls into a sophisticated trap when, after a great shootout, he is hit with his butt from a hidden opponent, perhaps behind a screen. After such slapstick patents, it's hard to go back to taking history seriously. Also, some "distractions" can spoil the climate - island quad racing on an island engulfed in genocide? Drama.

The creators took the task of creating a beautiful world completely seriously. The tropical archipelago opens up to us after a few initial missions. After learning the basics of the jungle, the world begins to tempt with dozens of additional activities. By the way, he does it very well - for the first few hours of fun I couldn't help but explore the perfectly designed islands. There are a lot of attractions here - from typical quests, through various challenges done on a smaller scale and reflecting the next corners of the island, ending with collectibles - so it is impossible to get bored. First of all, the developer ensured the quality of side quests and effectively motivated to scrupulously search the location. Lost Letters reveal the sad history of the Japanese garrison during World War II. Figures of idols (120 in number) are often placed in places where just getting there is a little satisfying adventure. What's more, each smallest activity in the game world is rewarded with a certain number of experience points.

Far Cry 3 introduces a character development system that allows you to acquire new skills of a Rakyat warrior. We have 3 extensive trees at our disposal, consisting of over 50 improvements. However, it is impossible to talk about big decisions, because the bitter player will unlock all paths in full with time. Simple crafting has also been taken from RPG games - we prepare stimulating and healing substances (from collected plants) and improve holsters, bags and wallets (with the skins of hunted animals). Although it is impossible to talk about the level of complexity of a full-fledged RPG, the role-playing elements introduce a welcome variety and a greater sense of control over the protagonist.

Although the campaign provides about 20 hours of fun , only the multiplayer turns out to be a real time waster. Before the premiere, I did not expect too much from the online modes, but several elements distinguish Far Cry 3 in a plus, and chasing after ten maps is a lot of fun.

First of all, Far Cry 3 is strongly focused on cooperation between soldiers in the team . Merit including Battle Shout mechanics that improve the skills of all allies in the immediate vicinity. Inevitably, sticking together measurably increases your chances of survival. In addition, each hit companion is susceptible to resuscitation for several seconds. Resurrecting a companion provides more experience than shooting an opponent, which is a fitting incentive even for traditional "lone wolves" to change their playstyle. The number of modes is a bit disappointing - Ubisoft's offer with only four forms of fun (and none too innovative) is pale compared to the competition's offer, especially Black Ops II .