5 out of 5 stars

Far Cry 3 is a harsh open world that’s packed with exotic wildlife, terrorizing rebels, and underground drug runners that interfere’s with human society. Far Cry 3 is the game that sparks the desire to complete all the collectibles and challenges in the game.

Players take on the role of Jason Brody, the protagonist of the story. Jason and the rest of his friends were captured by rebels during their vacation on the Rook islands. The mentally unstable leader of the gang, Vaas. He captured Jason and his friends to sell them as slaves to get a lot of money.

At the beginning of the story, Jason and his brother were able to distract the guards while they were trying to escape from the cage they were stuck in. After sneaking around the camp to escape, Jason was horrified when he witnessed his brother murder a man so they wouldn’t get caught.

After reaching an exit point, Vaas caught them and shot Jason’s brother in the neck. Strangely, Vaas gave Jason the opportunity to run away because he thought that Jason didn’t have what it takes to survive. Well, Vaas was definitely wrong. By a miracle, Jason escaped that slave camp and his life forever changed.

The objective of the game is to hunt down Vaas and find your friends. Before players begin their journey, Far Cry 3 focuses on teaching players survival skills. Players learn how to scavenge supplies that they can sell to stores for some money, harvest plants to craft into syringes that enhance players abilities, and craft important items from animal skin.

This is where the progression system starts to come into play. As Jason skins animals and kills rebels, he gains experience that allows players to spend points to make him a brutal murderer. Little after a couple hours of gameplay, the man who couldn’t handle the sight of any violent activity learns different executions, kill chains, and learns to fire guns from zip lines. Obviously, Jason has no more fear left in him as he is a natural born at slaughtering.

These skills are effective when liberating outpost enemy outposts. Players should liberate outposts because it gets turned into safe zones where players can resupply. These little villages also assist as quick travel points that shorten the time to travel instead of driving long distances.

It’s important to be stealthy when taking out rebels at outposts because if the player gets caught, then the rebels trigger the outpost alarm and then reinforcements show up and make it difficult to raid the outpost. One consideration to do before quietly taking out the rebels is to shoot all the alarms to disable them so reinforcements cannot show up.

Far Cry 3 has its similarities to Grand Theft Auto when it comes to gameplay. The player gets a mini-map that has icons of missions to do. If players don’t want to do missions, then go raise havoc on rebels with cars and the various weaponry.

If the player wants to explore the world then try finding all the hidden relics, World War II letters, and stray memory cards that detail the corruption of the drug operations. All of these hidden collectibles allows players to explore ancient underground ruins, secret areas, and areas that have nothing to do with the story.

All stories for video games must have a well-flourished story from start to finish. Far Cry 3 delivers that promise with suspense, action, and gameplay that challenges your feelings for violence from beginning to end.