Far Cry 3

It's clear why Far Cry 3 became the blueprint for what the open world genre would become, even to the modern day. It may be missing some of the quality of life features we see in modern open world games, but even to this day, over 12 years after its release, Far Cry 3 remains a fantastic time and something I recommend all open world fans play. Far Cry 3 above all else feels authentic and its clear the developers had a great time making this game. The story is wild and crazy, the characters are full of life, the open world is vast and fun to traverse, and the game isn't afraid to get weird. REALLY weird.

Overall a fantastic time, even 12 years later.

10/10 game. Highly recommend. Great story, characters and fun gameplay. Best Farcry game.

The best Far Cry so far, the game really feels nostalgic considering the great performance in plot and the game design had back in 2012.
When ubisoft really cared to make good games.

"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity? Insanity is doing the exact same fucking thing over and over again, expecting shit to change. That is crazy. But the first time somebody told me that, I don't know, I thought they were bullshitting me so, boom, I shot him. The thing is, okay... he was right. And then I started to see it everywhere I looked. Everywhere i looked, all these fucking pricks, everywhere I looked, doing the exact same fucking thing, over and over and over and over and over again. Thinking "this time its gonna be different. No, no ,no please! This time, its gonna be different." I am sorry, I don't like the way you are looking at me! Okay? You have a fucking problem in your head? Do you think I'm bullshitting you? Do you think I am lying? Fuck you! Okay, fuck you! It's okay, man. I'm gonna chill, hermano. I'm gonna chill. The thing is... All right. The thing is, I killed you once already. And it's not like I am fucking crazy. It's okay. It's like water under the bridge. Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?" - A very respectable Island Owner

"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity? Insanity is doing the exact... same fucking thing... over and over again, expecting... shit to change. That... is crazy." Well, this would define me as insane as I have played this game too many times, to the point of memorisation of all mission completion techniques and landscapes.
Best of all Far Cry games I have played so far (which includes all the FC games). This was so good that even though I have the disk of the game, I bought it on steam just so that I can play it on my laptop anywhere and anytime I want.
The game's open-world environment is nothing short of breathtaking, offering a sprawling island teeming with wildlife, hidden caves, and enemy outposts waiting to be conquered. Exploration is rewarded at every turn, with secrets to uncover and challenges to overcome in every corner of the map. The sense of freedom afforded to players is unparalleled, allowing for a truly immersive experience as you chart your own course through the island's jungles and beaches.
Gameplay in "Far Cry 3" is equally impressive, offering a seamless blend of first-person shooting, stealth, and survival mechanics. From silently dispatching enemies with a well-placed arrow to engaging in intense firefights against heavily armed mercenaries, the game provides a variety of ways to approach each encounter. The addition of hunting and crafting mechanics adds depth to the experience, encouraging players to scavenge for resources and upgrade their equipment to gain an edge in combat.
One of the game's most iconic features is its villain, Vaas Montenegro, whose chilling performance by actor Michael Mando has become legendary in gaming circles. Vaas's unpredictable nature and menacing charisma make him a formidable adversary, and his memorable monologues and quotes have left a lasting impression on players long after they've finished the game.
Visually, "Far Cry 3" is stunning, with vibrant tropical landscapes and realistic character models that bring the world to life. The game's dynamic weather system and day-night cycle further enhance the sense of immersion, creating a living, breathing world that feels alive with possibility.

Far Cry 3 Told Story That Only a Game Could Tell
I feel like games nowadays are really afraid of saying something. Stories can do many things, but i think their greatest power is the ability to ask interesting questions or teach moral lessons. The problem with that is that making an artistic statement is not profitable. Selling f*cking stupid dances to children is what makes shareholders rock hard. Far cry 3 is relic from by gone era a beautiful period were games as a art form were maturing a time were games were trying, all be it with mixed results, asking interesting questions and make real statements. Far cry 3 thought a real lesson to me that not many games repeated in same magnitude ever since. "Whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" You and Jason Brody slowly going insane while going on revenge quest to kill Vaas and Hoyt aged incredibly well, even the gameplay has something in it witch next installments copied word to word but forgot to innovate or improve on since. The Burning weed mission with definition of insanity following with Citras Chi Chi's was nostalgic cherry on top for me. Far Cry 3 stood the test of time from narrative and gameplay prospective and i would definitely recommend it to everybody.

“Sandbox” in a large open world and fun, real immersion in the game - for a long time these concepts were compatible in much the same way as a dolphin and a mermaid from a famous song. In fact, until now only role-playing games from the Gothic and The Elder Scrolls series have managed to marry them, and even then only because the developers there focused not on a “sandbox”, but on a large, interesting and hand-crafted world: Bethesda can afford to spend years and unlimited budgets on this.
But the action games, which honestly tried to implement a game “sandbox”, somehow didn’t work out right away. No matter how much they borrowed from role-playing games (side quests, skill branches, improving weapons, conversations about life in a bar), they still ended up with a cloned, boring and artificial world in which only the first two hours were interesting. And this year Ubisoft finally broke through. Years of training on two parts of Assassin's Creed and Far Cry 2 have borne fruit: the new games in these series have turned out to be such that you can now say the same thing about them as about Skyrim - you want to live here.
Adrenaline in the tropics
The main secret of the success of Far Cry 3 is that here, perhaps for the first time, sandbox action films managed to combine the “sandbox” with a fascinating, spectacular plot. Previously, either one of these was implemented crookedly, or, more often, both of them were lame on both legs. And in Far Cry 3 we see a script that is not equated to a background image and is not limited to three lines, but draws you to the screen no worse than, for example, the movie “Adrenaline”.
The comparison is not accidental. The story of how a group of young people went on vacation to a tropical island, and ended up being captured by local pirates and almost sold into slavery, is just as full of madness, shockingness, charisma, humor, self-irony, irrepressible imagination and drugs of varying severity. And if the plot still raises questions (how a cowardly, impressionable guy who has never held a weapon in his hands without any preparation begins to cut and shoot accurately right and left is not entirely clear!), then all that remains is to follow the development of events in admiration.
A doctor who loves to eat mushrooms, a bandit gone crazy and his even more bloodthirsty boss, an imaginary CIA agent, some Indians led by a sexy, tattooed girl, a hippie black man in glasses who answers all questions in the spirit of “follow the path.” warrior, and the chakras will open” - bright, half-crazed characters are complemented by approximately the same missions. Trying to save our friends and family, we run through a minefield, escape from a burning house, get out of a sinking ship, storm prisons, go down into caves for hallucinogenic mushrooms, travel through our own visions like Max Payne and burn marijuana fields with napalm.
Hunting, fishing and money-grubbing
But the most important thing is that all this staged, crazy action movie, balancing on the brink between drug propaganda, postmodernism and self-irony, gets along quite well with the open world, where, as before, you can go in all four directions. At first glance, in comparison with Far Cry 2 and other “sandbox games”, little has changed: the same lush scenery where you really want to escape from the St. Petersburg winter, the same cloned side quests in the spirit of Grand Theft Auto 3, dating back to the days of Grand Theft Auto 3. “send that evil one to the forefathers, deliver the cargo or kill as many enemies as possible in the allotted time,” the same confrontation between two factions and the need to capture outposts. Finally, the same “safehouses”, which serve as both a storage point and a supply warehouse.
However, the developers made a number of significant amendments, thanks to which all this made sense. Firstly, it now makes sense to capture outposts (plus radio towers that open up new pieces of territory): enemies no longer respawn there, and each such point becomes your transit base.
Secondly, the authors very successfully added a hunter and herbalist simulator to the game. It has its own ecosystem, within which different animals live in different places on the map and different plants grow. We, of course, use the latter to make all sorts of medications and potions. But all these wild boars, deer, leopards, lizards, dogs, sheep and buffaloes rush through tropical meadows, fields and rivers for a reason, but again with meaning. Each animal here is not only a detail that creates the right atmosphere, but also 3-4 kilograms of useful resources. We, as in Gothic, are literally forced to hunt and skin skins, because then they can be used to make a lot of vital things that allow us to increase the capacity of a backpack, wallet, belt for grenades or potions. At first we can't even carry more than one type of weapon. If you want more, be so kind as to skin a couple of sheep!
Thirdly, you want to explore the world, complete cloned tasks, capture and open new areas of the map also because all this brings money. And in Far Cry 3 they are needed like air: the prices for weapons and upgrades to “barrels” are frankly prohibitive. The difficulty gradually increases, and therefore there is always something to spend money on. Of course, if you really want to, you can go through the story without being particularly distracted by hunting, herbalism, gathering and secondary errands, but this will be more difficult to do than in other sandbox games.
And the world itself beckons and draws in. This, of course, is not Skyrim yet, but it’s already somewhere nearby: here you can accidentally stumble upon some abandoned temples and caves, see a tiger killing a buffalo and dogs joyfully chasing sheep, overhear interesting conversations between NPCs or notice how A pimp scolds a prostitute outside a brothel. And besides the same type of quests, there are more interesting and even ironic tasks: one of them, for example, parodies “Romeo and Juliet”.
Kill me fun
However, even if Far Cry 3 did not have a captivating plot and a living world, we would still highly appreciate it - in fact, for its action. Here it’s simply interesting to shoot, kill, quietly sneak up from behind and use a variety of weapons (from a knife and pistol to a crossbow and flamethrower!). The shooter from the game turned out to be as bright, crazy, inventive and charismatic as the plot. You can, for example, open a cage and unleash a tiger on an enemy, or set fire to one bush or house and see how everything is on fire, including you and your opponents, who are roasting as they run.
In addition, three branches of skills allow you not only to use medications more efficiently, run faster, swim longer under water or collect herbs more economically, but also open up very effective methods of killing. You can jump from rooftops and stairs onto enemies, kill them one after another in a deadly knife combo, and then pull the pin of a grenade in the corpse's pocket and throw the body to the others.
At the same time, the enemies are extremely smart and inventive, they willingly use the same grenades and chase you in jeeps, so it’s a pleasure to fight with them. Except that during hide and seek, opponents are openly stupid and give in: they almost always stand with their backs to you and even a couple of meters away they don’t notice anything with their peripheral vision.
Finally, the optimistic picture is complemented by multiplayer and co-op, which also turned out to be very rich and effective: co-op is a separate mode with new, but no less colorful characters, and in multiplayer you, among other things, can drop hallucinogenic gases on your opponents, forcing them to attack each other
In short, Far Cry 3 may well take the title of game of the year this year. Not for the bright action, living world, style and fascinating plot - we have seen all this separately from other, no less strong contenders. And for the fact