Far Cry 3

So, an hour in and... it's a bit good, frankly.

Two was (and remains) one of my very favourite games, but it seems they've listened to other moaning minnies and done something about their complaints. The result: it feels a bit more "gamey" than the last one, which I'm not utterly thrilled with. Your mileage may vary.

Great villain, fabulous world. Feels less slow burn than previous entries, but I'm resisting the game rushing me onto the next objective.

A lot of shit on screen to do with the XP system, which affects the immersion slightly, for me, but I can see others really liking it.

If you moaned about two and don't like this, fuck you, frankly. They've listened to you and you've no one to blame but yourself.

Really looking forward to it after playing the EG Expo demo a couple of times, I hope my ageing PC is up to the task.

/looks at upgrades

Are there still very dense forest sections in the game? Loved creeping through the undergrowth in Far Cry 2. Sneaking around enemies and picking them off one by one.

Right, loo break. :)

There's still plenty of sneaking. The hardest thing to kill at the moment seem to be the animals - and you'll want to so you can craft some additional holsters. Shut down a couple of radio towers, was surprised to find some challenge quests, kicked the shit out of a komodo dragon. The game looks glorious, even if I prefered two's colour palette.

I'm at a point now when I'm getting that vibe from the second one. Although I;m missing the guard posts, because at least, then, I had an idea where the buggers would spring from.

Saving for a sniper rifle, have a very sweet auto rifle and silenced pistol.

Seen very little recreation of the fire mechanics yet, but I'm trying to quietly make my way across the map to meet the nutty professor.

Guard AI (and incidental dialogue when they uncover evidence of you) is top notch so far.

I bought this. But only because I...

No I don't even have a decent excuse, I'm just weak :)

HAHAHAHAHAHA

(I want it toooo) :)

Sad isn't it. By rights I should not have bought anything else this year. But...ahh I dunno, it tasks me, it flippin' TASKS me!

He tasks me!!

Thread needs more Flex.

/taps watch

Sorry - work hell these last few weeks has left me grabbing occasional half hours of gaming. Not even far into Hitman. Grrr.

That said, I'm looking to see if I can go and pick this up in a bit. Like you, I loved the second and have been really looking forward to this. Glad you are enjoying it!

The GOTY has arrived.

It does just get better and better. I'm not yet sure it'll eclipse my love of the last one, but this really is head and shoulders over everything else I've played this year.

It looks amazing; feels very intuitive now. Love the bow... and exploring caves, hunting bear. Need to keep reminding myself to progess the story a bit.

Oh, first thing you should do is deactivate a couple of radio towers. Free guns are the reward.

This must be OK, just spent the last couple of hours playing it.

Very nice looking game considering what it's running on. Loving the fact that they took all the best bits of 2 and binned the rest, then dived headlong into the sort of setting that made 1 great.

Yes, this is definitely winning me over.

It didn't need to do much to win me over; loving it to bits so far and have just come up for air after a 150 minutes play or so. Really, really enjoying it so far. All about the stealth / hunting / crafting for me at the moment.

Holy shit at the throwing knife double takedown! :D

It's worth doing the story missions for a while, otherwise you'll end up like I did: plenty of skill points but no option to spend them until the story unlocks certain skills.

Massively addictive. Been having some real fun with this.

How do you get special arrows? Am I missing something or are they unlocked later?

Great game, my 4yr old came downstairs after bedtime last night to a snack and saw me playing this, i was in the process of climbing a tower. He asked what i was doing, i said i was fixing the tower:
'is that a gun in your hand?',
'no, its a drill i'm going to fix the box at the top of the tower'
'it really looks like a gun...'
'no,no'
finished that and jumped to a safe house to show him the tools on the wall and think i got away with it :)

"Daddy why are you shooting at that tiger?!"

Hehe!

I wouldn't let my daughter see me playing this. Considering some of the really bad things I've done and my careless road manners :)

Awesome game but it's stopping me completing Hitman! Eeesh!

With this and AC3 I've been slaughtering animals like there's no tomorrow in recent weeks.

I let my son climb some radio towers, fly a glider and go Komodo Dragon hunting. Exciting adventures from the safety of the living room. I'm either a very bad father or a very good one. I can't decide.

It's almost a shame there's no smell technology in games, I bet the pigs I set alight with my flamethrower smelt lovely.

/gets the apple sauce

Hunting buffalo with hand grenades when I ran out of ammo was quite fun too.

Using the map editor you could make a fairly kid friendly map to play around in of course.

Only niggle so far about this - ammo. It really pays to craft the absolute FUCK out of everything to get more ammo carrying capacity because you will get stuck in pinch points with long distances between checkpoints on certain missions where ammo is absolutely key to your success. So if you think you can get through the game easily without getting through a fair amount of big game hunting, forget it. You really do need to get those animals skinned and get making!

If you can get into a gun battle with more than one primary weapon you're far better off than just trying to muddle through on limited clips and ranged stuff because the default knife attacks are shite in a fight.

Really do need to get crafting tonight!

One of the first things I did was hunt and craft. I have almost everything maxed out now.

Plunged into a cave system through a bad floor last night. Was reaching for the reload button, yet survived by landing in deep water.

Sadly that wasn't the end of the surprise on that little adventure... :)

I keep finding things that I keep wondering whether I'm supposed to find!

For such a huge free-roaming game, there's a lot of really interesting stuff tucked away in that jungle and amongst those cave systems!

So utterly absorbed in this, despite a few really frustrating pinch points at times (and a couple of QTs that would've shaved points off the score if I'd reviewed it)

Just got to a certain bit

(SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS)

Citra really does have rather nice boobs!

Done now. Infuriatingly the end doesn't allow you to do what you did in Dishonoured, snapshot to a point just before the end of the game gives you two choices as to how you'll progress. Cheap.

The QTs pissed me off too. But by and large this was a ton more enjoyable than I thought it would be, and now the main mission's done and dusted, I'm tempted to just tool up with as many weapons as I can carry and go exploring the island.

Not game of the year, not 10 out of 10 (no game with QTs like that in it and checkpointing like that in it should ever get a perfect 10) but very much worth picking up.

Finished the story. Enjoyed it a lot. Solid 8/10. Not sure I can be bothered to mop up the rest of the game world like I did in Fallout3 or Red Dead Redemption though.

Will definitely finish the Coop stuff before flopping it on the trade-in pile, they're very good fun.

Anyone tried the dlc bundle? The Lost Expedition bonus I got was pish, so I'm not sure I need the full collection of stuff.

Just been updated so that guard bases respawn. Great news if, like me, you found the world a touch empty after going on a murder spree. (It's not a round of golf in the countryside, give me goons to shoot!)

I expect an influx of "they've ruined it like the guard posts in two" comments now.

And you're still all wrong about two. It's the best of the bunch. :)