Maybe it's the fault of the gaming environment, then, but nothing about it inherently feels absurd so much as it just feels like a game. Imagine trying to paint Call of Duty as an absurd game because you, a single character, kill hundreds and hundreds of people. "That never happens in real life!" you might argue. True, but it comes down to the presentation of it, and CoD never goes outright and treats it as absurd. It feels the same with FC3. I'm the empowered white male lead because this is videogames and that's how videogames are. I saw nothing in the game that differentiated it from other games with empowered white male leads or led me to believe it was attempting to criticise, grapple with or in any way explore this idea other than it was the idea.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Far Cry 3 |OT| Sex, Drugs, and the Call of Battle in the Uncharted
- Thread starter legacyzero
- Start date
If COD doesn't feel absurd, then life must be a very strange place! The difference is that FC3 turns up the knob a few more notches (ab absurdum) to better highlight some of the more ridiculous conventions of many action games. FC3 should feel like any other game, only more so.
Rook Island is like the dream-life of all action games. It's filled with the residuals of a waking life spent shooting dark people on dark continents. It's Robinson Crusoe meets Call of Duty meets Charles Darwin. You play the part of the industrious, self-made collector/soldier. The island is a collection of a global melange of people of color with an odd mix of accents. Exotic animals, vehicles, weapons, plants that have no business being in the same place are. And so on. It's very clearly deliberate in a way that games like COD aren't.
In terms of actual gameplay loops, all you do is kill, conquer, catalog, construct, and self-improve. I think the gameplay and the story complement each other perfectly as a sustained critique.
Like I said, my only problem is that the game itself just isn't challenging enough. I could say that that's part of the "fantasy" that's being critiqued, but that would be a cop-out. Even if it works as a critique on the level of setting, design, and writing, the actual play loops aren't nearly as compelling. The whole premise of conquest is predicated on challenge, hostility, perceived threat, and transformation. If it seems too easy, there's no point. And honestly, that's a strange thing to find myself craving, since what I'm asking for is that it be a more convincing simulacrum of conquest!
Rook Island is like the dream-life of all action games. It's filled with the residuals of a waking life spent shooting dark people on dark continents. It's Robinson Crusoe meets Call of Duty meets Charles Darwin. You play the part of the industrious, self-made collector/soldier. The island is a collection of a global melange of people of color with an odd mix of accents. Exotic animals, vehicles, weapons, plants that have no business being in the same place are. And so on. It's very clearly deliberate in a way that games like COD aren't.
In terms of actual gameplay loops, all you do is kill, conquer, catalog, construct, and self-improve. I think the gameplay and the story complement each other perfectly as a sustained critique.
Like I said, my only problem is that the game itself just isn't challenging enough. I could say that that's part of the "fantasy" that's being critiqued, but that would be a cop-out. Even if it works as a critique on the level of setting, design, and writing, the actual play loops aren't nearly as compelling. The whole premise of conquest is predicated on challenge, hostility, perceived threat, and transformation. If it seems too easy, there's no point. And honestly, that's a strange thing to find myself craving, since what I'm asking for is that it be a more convincing simulacrum of conquest!
Started playing both the PC version of this and Assassins Creed 3 today. Not sure I will be going back to AC3. This game is just so much more fun it's not even funny. Makes AC3 feel like a required reading novel from high school by comparison. It looks and runs amazingly maxed out (minus AA since I am on a 1440p monitor)
Messofanego
Banned
conman, you are probably the only person here who got what the writer was going for, so more power to you. I just wish I could see it, like seeing the code in the matrix.
Maybe if there were more hallucinations and Jason actually starting to go mentally insane, I'd get that this is all in his head but other than the characters in the campaign no one in the open world seems as absurd. If once you finished the game, there were no friendly inhabitants left or that they were scared of your reign, it'd make it clear. If the CIA person was a hallucination, which totally feels like it should have been, and that you were making all this quest shit up I'd get the idea of Jason on some self-centered colonialism trip.
This is all so more obvious in Spec Ops The Line, because of its linear nature but with Far Cry's open world there's just no indication of this while you're playing. Unlike Captain Walker, Jason isn't speaking weird stuff during gameplay, he doesn't go "fuck yeah" after each kill. In the open world, Jason is a mute. So the majority of the 30 hours where I spent 8 hours in the campaign, 20-or-so hours of the open world I'm not getting any absurdity because there's no storytelling during the open world. All he ever does is say "yuck" at skinning animals which again makes no sense if he becomes some mute killing machine that should be desensitised by now.
Maybe if there were more hallucinations and Jason actually starting to go mentally insane, I'd get that this is all in his head but other than the characters in the campaign no one in the open world seems as absurd. If once you finished the game, there were no friendly inhabitants left or that they were scared of your reign, it'd make it clear. If the CIA person was a hallucination, which totally feels like it should have been, and that you were making all this quest shit up I'd get the idea of Jason on some self-centered colonialism trip.
This is all so more obvious in Spec Ops The Line, because of its linear nature but with Far Cry's open world there's just no indication of this while you're playing. Unlike Captain Walker, Jason isn't speaking weird stuff during gameplay, he doesn't go "fuck yeah" after each kill. In the open world, Jason is a mute. So the majority of the 30 hours where I spent 8 hours in the campaign, 20-or-so hours of the open world I'm not getting any absurdity because there's no storytelling during the open world. All he ever does is say "yuck" at skinning animals which again makes no sense if he becomes some mute killing machine that should be desensitised by now.
I got that feel from AC1. Felt like a boring as hell history lesson. Worst story I have ever experienced.
I love this game, I've barely touched the main story. Just going around taking over camps and exploring is so much fun. I was looking for a relic, but I had no C4 to blast away the rock. So I resorted to stacking 3 cars on top of each other in order to get to the Relic.
Haha, that's awesome.
I just chucked a grenade into that door. I think that worked too.
I'm about 18 hours in and I havent even reached the second island yet. I've spent my time gaining XP, doing occasional story missions, running around gathering collectibles, unlocking radio towers, and doing all side missions etc. I've already got all pouches, packs, wallets and syringes maxed out. I have about 3 more skills in each set to unlock.
And Ive gotta admit, Im pretty burned out by it. It's a beautiful game, the music has its moments, and the guns are fun to use, however.
But I think EatChildren really hit the nail on the head earlier. Something about this game feels awfully hollow after awhile, despite everything it throws at you. It's like an all star pitcher bitch throwing a baseball and it only flies a foot or so before plopping onto the ground and rolling forward an inch or two.
The story seemed interesting at the start, but at this point I could care less about what is going on. Maybe it picks up, maybe not, but this is definitley a side effect to doing so much random and basically useless shit before diving into the main quest or at least only touching upon a handful of main quests.
I will finish the game though, but it's gonna be like trudging through a swamp.
And Ive gotta admit, Im pretty burned out by it. It's a beautiful game, the music has its moments, and the guns are fun to use, however.
But I think EatChildren really hit the nail on the head earlier. Something about this game feels awfully hollow after awhile, despite everything it throws at you. It's like an all star pitcher bitch throwing a baseball and it only flies a foot or so before plopping onto the ground and rolling forward an inch or two.
The story seemed interesting at the start, but at this point I could care less about what is going on. Maybe it picks up, maybe not, but this is definitley a side effect to doing so much random and basically useless shit before diving into the main quest or at least only touching upon a handful of main quests.
I will finish the game though, but it's gonna be like trudging through a swamp.
weekend_warrior
Banned
You didn't need C4 to blow that door, a gun would have worked. Cool though.
So are you going to admit I was right Andrew? You're basically saying the same thing I did despite complaining that I was going to eventually come in here and "ruin your fun" when I was still banned
I admit...you were right =P All FC3 is making me do is want to play Far Cry 2 again. Hopefully the third time is a charm and it won't glitch out and break on me.
I should clarify before someone else comes in here and says I'm pissing in their cereal that I did kind of like the game but yeah I admit I uninstalled it when I finished it and downloaded FC2 again. The perfect far cry is exactly in the middle of these 2 games with all the fluff in 3 taken out and the unrealized mechanics from 2 fleshed out and tweaked more.
For this particular game, yes. I'm very much into story driven experiences and more often than not I stay with it without becoming bored. This is just one of very few times that this has happened.
I'm looking for a new game to grind through while I take some time off during the holidays.
Looking at the last three pages of this thread, I'm very confused. Some love it, some hate it. I have two questions:
1) How is the framerate on 360? Steady at 30fps?
2) I liked FC2. Will I like FC3?
Thanks!
Looking at the last three pages of this thread, I'm very confused. Some love it, some hate it. I have two questions:
1) How is the framerate on 360? Steady at 30fps?
2) I liked FC2. Will I like FC3?
Thanks!
Screaming_Gremlin
My QB is a Dick and my coach is a Nutt
I think in the end this is my general feelings for the game. Where I had a lot of issues with Far Cry 2, FC3 went too far in the other directions trying to fix them.
The guard respawning in FC2 pretty much stopped me from finishing the game. I think I put something like 8 hours in the game by that point. While Far Cry 3 fixed that, it went too far by pretty much getting rid of all enemies once you have taken over the guard posts. I know it would probably not be an easy thing to program, but I sort of wish there was a mechanic in for the guards to take back outposts or to allow some sort of constantly shifting battle line.
The animals were an interesting mechanic, but I think they tried to push it too far. They were fun when you would be in firefight in the middle of the jungle and accidentally enraged a tiger, but it got a bit stupid after the eighth enemy encampment had a cage with a bear/tiger/dingo in it. I also did not find the hunting mechanic fun at all, so I wasn't fond of being forced to do it for upgrades.
Actually the side missions in general were fairly boring. I get that they are trying to fill the world up with things to do, but I would have preferred having less, but more interesting missions. I found the Phaedrus stuff from Far Cry 2 to be much more memorable. Climbing the towers is also something I wish they would have just left in Assassin's Creed.
This might just be my imagination, but the fire mechanic in this game was no where near as satisfying as in Far Cry 2. While it did spread, it wasn't far and that stupid orange goop effect they put on top of the grass to signal that it had been "burned" was incredibly ugly looking.
I also could have done without the skill system. You gain so much XP that you are probably going to get all of the skill anyway, so there really aren't any difficult choices to make in what to take. It also felt like they padded out the tree by putting a bunch of actions that never should have been locked away in the first place. Not sure why I need so much XP to know how to drag a body after I stab it in the back with my knife or how to cook a grenade.
Finally, the story. I am in the long list of people who did not like it. I think it started off fairly well, but it all fell apart by the end of the game with no real payout. This really has nothing to do with the story, but I did love (minor spoiler for a scene near the end of the game)
when you are walking into the room for the poker match and Sam mentions that he has hidden a knife in his boot. Meanwhile during the entire scene he has this bigass combat knife strapped to his shoulder.
Now despite saying all of that, I didn't actually hate the game. The shooting mechanics were really solid. While I disliked how capturing bases removed guard spawning, you could get some really fun scenarios going while trying to take it over. Especially if you set off the alarms on the second island like Dennis suggested. When the reinforcements got there it could get really intense. The game also had some pretty good characters, even if the overall story wasn't great. If Ubi could just find a balance between this game and FC2, I think they would really be onto something with the next sequel.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
So I started this today. First of all, I have to say that with everything pretty much at max and MSAA at 2, I get a nice solid 30fps and the visuals look a lot better than the screenshots beforehand suggested. I am impressed (6950, 2500k @ 4.5ghz)
So far all I’ve done is the first mandatory mission where you skin the hogs and attack the first outpost and that’s it as far as the story is concerned. I didn’t really find the intro sequence to be that interesting and nothing about the story grabbed me.
All I’ve been doing so far is setting my waypoint for outposts and making my way there, skinning animals and ambushing enemies as I go along. So much fun. Within 2 minutes of leaving the first outpost I attacked a jeep full of enemies, got attacked by a tiger and nearly got killed by a crocodile. So awesome.
In the three or so hours I’ve played I’ve unlocked maybe 1/4 of the map in total. I’m having a lot of fun buying new gear and just experimenting with ways of attacking groups of enemies, or hunting animals. I must admit I’m worried I’m going to be WAY overpowered when I go back to the story missions though because a lot of my gear is either fully upgraded or nearly fully upgraded. I don’t exactly play this game for a challenge though so if it just means I have more fun without having to worry about dying too frequently then fair enough.
I think the fun of this game, ultimately, will just be picking a direction and exploring, anyway. I hope the missions are fun but so far I have no desire to see one way or another, haha.
I think that once the novelty of the animals fades so, too, might my enjoyment. Pretty much EVERY memorable moment so far has involved in animal. There's nothing all that memorable about the gunplay... it all feels a bit clunky to me. Perhaps because of the setting and I keep WISHING it had the immense gunplay/combat of Crysis.
So far all I’ve done is the first mandatory mission where you skin the hogs and attack the first outpost and that’s it as far as the story is concerned. I didn’t really find the intro sequence to be that interesting and nothing about the story grabbed me.
All I’ve been doing so far is setting my waypoint for outposts and making my way there, skinning animals and ambushing enemies as I go along. So much fun. Within 2 minutes of leaving the first outpost I attacked a jeep full of enemies, got attacked by a tiger and nearly got killed by a crocodile. So awesome.
In the three or so hours I’ve played I’ve unlocked maybe 1/4 of the map in total. I’m having a lot of fun buying new gear and just experimenting with ways of attacking groups of enemies, or hunting animals. I must admit I’m worried I’m going to be WAY overpowered when I go back to the story missions though because a lot of my gear is either fully upgraded or nearly fully upgraded. I don’t exactly play this game for a challenge though so if it just means I have more fun without having to worry about dying too frequently then fair enough.
I think the fun of this game, ultimately, will just be picking a direction and exploring, anyway. I hope the missions are fun but so far I have no desire to see one way or another, haha.
I think that once the novelty of the animals fades so, too, might my enjoyment. Pretty much EVERY memorable moment so far has involved in animal. There's nothing all that memorable about the gunplay... it all feels a bit clunky to me. Perhaps because of the setting and I keep WISHING it had the immense gunplay/combat of Crysis.
No kidding.
I wonder if my experience would have been very different had I not focused on the story. I went back and did all the open world stuff after the story completed, and I enjoyed the story.
Picking up a game and purposefully not doing the main line has always led to burnout for me.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
Two pretty cool moments from tonight:
This dude could have warned me what was in the water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42JtNun0HbM
This tiger was going on a rampage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufeCwyVONBA
It's definitely these moments that are making the game for me.
This dude could have warned me what was in the water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42JtNun0HbM
This tiger was going on a rampage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufeCwyVONBA
It's definitely these moments that are making the game for me.
The Jason
Member
This is the same problem most people have had, myself included. It's partly the players fault, as it is our choice, but its also a design problem. There are tons of opportunities to support the story while the player grinds. In RPG's this is done by talking to NPC's and finding out information that is relevant to our quest (personal stories, ect). FC3 does this with main characters, but everyone else is completely detached. Perhaps this is done to make it seem more like a fantasy, but that's no excuse.
Beat the campaign earlier today and I'm really conflicted on how I feel. I like a lot of what they did(or tried to do, to better describe it), but I'm not a fan at all of how the story turned out near the end, or the ending itself being fairly abrupt. The characters themselves were interesting and mostly underutilized. The gameplay is solid and gives a lot of freedom, but many subsytems don't have much longevity. I loved hunting, but there was no reason to do so after I crafted all of the important things, which really didn't take long considering the scope of the game. The pickups you resell have no purpose at all and just clog down the inventory. They should have fleshed out the intro-mid section part more to convey Jason becoming a warrior the way they clearly intended.
I enjoyed that.
You never had to read a book in school that you just grew to hate based on how it was taught in class?
The Scarlet Letter was this way for me. Any enjoyment I may have had reading the book was sucked away by the in class discussions and assignments.
RPS posted their interview with the writer, too
He points out some stuff like Rook island meaning both rook, as in chess, and rook, as in grift or con; some other things, like the Rakyat meaning 'the people' and being a very trite kind of name for a tribal culture. And he reiterates the idea that the tribe was just using him the entire time. It seems like his intentions were... well, noble, to put it one way. He has this whole spiel about Keith and Buck which is interesting. But my main contention is just that none of this is really... in the game. Like, you can draw it out of the game, if you want, if you're looking for clues that validate the opinion you already have; you can project these intentions onto the game, the framework does allow for it. But nothing in the game inherently attempts to argue for the message this guy was attempting to convey. In fact, in many ways, the mechanics and the delivery of the game actively work against it.
He points out some stuff like Rook island meaning both rook, as in chess, and rook, as in grift or con; some other things, like the Rakyat meaning 'the people' and being a very trite kind of name for a tribal culture. And he reiterates the idea that the tribe was just using him the entire time. It seems like his intentions were... well, noble, to put it one way. He has this whole spiel about Keith and Buck which is interesting. But my main contention is just that none of this is really... in the game. Like, you can draw it out of the game, if you want, if you're looking for clues that validate the opinion you already have; you can project these intentions onto the game, the framework does allow for it. But nothing in the game inherently attempts to argue for the message this guy was attempting to convey. In fact, in many ways, the mechanics and the delivery of the game actively work against it.
Messofanego
Banned
Actually, that dude has a suicide wish and gets grabbed by the croc if you waited. That's what I did, hilarious moment.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
Ha awesome.
Damn, that interviewer went after him.
I have to say, I do like the idea of what the game was trying to be - a satire of a 25 year old milenial's power fantasy, but the writer could've done way more to emphasis these tropes and the jarring nature of it, and do a deconstruction of it all. If it's a satire, then the stereotypes shouldn't be a problem because there's a deliberate purpose to it. But it was difficult to see what that was in this game.
In any case, I still think it's a story worth telling. Hopefully another game can give it a shot.
I thought infamous was pretty decent at this. It's kinda between FC 2 and 3. In the beginning everything is hostile. As you free parts of the world the amount of enemies is drastically reduced but not to zero.
Goodacre0081
Member
I had something similar tonight. I was sneaking up behind some pirates on the beach ready to snipe them and this fucking leopard jumps out from the side of the screen at me.
No. It's not 30fps on the 360. Not at all. More like 25fps. Maybe low 20's in heavy fights.
As for liking it. It's all over the map on here. It really depends on what you liked about FC2.
Just listened to Idle Thumbs Far Cry 3 discussion. As usual, it's extremely insightful and touches on a number of issues I hadn't really thought about. I basically agree with everything they say. Starts at about the 25 min mark.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/idlethumbs/idlethumbs_121219.mp3
http://traffic.libsyn.com/idlethumbs/idlethumbs_121219.mp3
Canis lupus
Member
I didn't get the trophy for silently taking out everyone in a camp, I think it was a camp but it was also a story mission. The one early on in the game where you have to plant the bombs.
So he had some pretty good ideas but apparently failed to convey them. Deliberately making a story as bad and stereotypical as possible as a form of meta-commentary does strike me as a particularly bad idea in this type of game though. Him admitting it is pretty funny considering some people have been saying the story is good, even taken at face value. He's basically insulting them, saying, "how could you not notice how bad this is? It's so exaggerated!"
It shows an ignorance of the current gaming environment and a failure to understand how to properly convey exaggeration as critique.
Spec Ops worked because it went over the line of what gamers consider 'normal' to a game. But Far Cry 3 never really goes whole-hog over it, and when it toes across the line, it does so in ways that can be really easily misinterpreted not as critique, absurdism or whatever, but as simply trying to be as balls-out stupid as possible.
Spec Ops worked because it went over the line of what gamers consider 'normal' to a game. But Far Cry 3 never really goes whole-hog over it, and when it toes across the line, it does so in ways that can be really easily misinterpreted not as critique, absurdism or whatever, but as simply trying to be as balls-out stupid as possible.
Angelus Errare
Banned
This, the mighty whitey trope was just too in my face. The entire time I played I was waiting for the "just kidding/gotcha part!" but it never did. Once I got to the part where Jason gets told the story about the legend of ye mighty white saviors saving the tribal savages. I just couldn't anymore.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
So what happens once you clear out all of the outposts?
About half of the map is totally safe for me now, bar animals, and I've only done the first mission.
The respawning checkpoints in FC2 was infuriating, but this is maybe too far in the other direction...
About half of the map is totally safe for me now, bar animals, and I've only done the first mission.
The respawning checkpoints in FC2 was infuriating, but this is maybe too far in the other direction...
Yeah stop doing every outpost straight away.
They did go too far, I hope you're happy!
If you did nothing but clear outposts you'd have no enemies left in the game outside of main missions. I think they permanently stay in a couple of places but 90% of the map will be empty.
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
Well, that's retarded. I've done over 50% of the outposts and I'm only 5 hours in.
Why can a Far Cry game never get everything right? There's always some really fucking dumb design choices...
Why can a Far Cry game never get everything right? There's always some really fucking dumb design choices...
You really got that from what he said? The "face value" is believing the game is racist, interested in being another trope, etc.
By the time it wraps up, it's pretty clear that's not how everything worked out. The story is good.
No, the "face value" is the game actually being racist and stereotyping on the surface. The writer is saying that it was intentionally so, to the point of exaggeration, and how could you not notice that? He made a superficially shit story on purpose and tried to make it so obvious that it would be impossible to miss, thus making it a succesful meta-commentary because players would realize they had to look deeper. The problem is that many people missed it (I guess you're saying you didn't and that's why you liked it?)
See:
Square Triangle
Member
Just finished the crazy ass mission set of
. That was a lot of fun, would love DLC later on based on more of that type of gameplay
Buck who likes to fuck