I grew to love this game. The gameplay, to be precise. I couldn't really care less about the spoiled white boy protagonist aside from the fact that he's me in the game, so the story sort of... got in the way, at times. Held me back from gaining skills due to encounter-locks versus XP lock outs, that sort of thing. It's the exploration of Far Cry 3 that really appealed to me: the exploration of two beautiful islands with lots of violent potential. I went totally Indiana Jones in this game and loved it.

The variety of enemy takedowns possible with the use of stealth and position appealled to me. They feel fluid, gritty, intense. The game features some kill-challenges that require you to take out the target with a knife among a bunch of bodyguards, which only helped encourage getting more proficient with the takedown system. The reward for successful takedowns was many times more experience than a simple gunshot frag.

The vehicles are all fun to use, the more off-road, the more scenic the game becomes. I rode a jetski through a mangrove river, a buggy from the top of a mountain ridge down to the beach, and would off-road Jeeps just for the experience of it. There is also a wingsuit in the second-half of the story that allows gliding and parachuting. That was awesome!

The downside of the game really isn't anything major, but a variety of minor niggling things. They reoccur frequently but are easy to dismiss.
*I play using a keyboard and mouse, but the game constrained my assignable hotkey choices to just two number keys, 7 and 8. This meant breaking up gameplay, usually when under fire, to access the menu to get to items that could have easily been assignable using other keys. That disrupted many instances after long periods of seamless gameplay.
*I'm unsure why the game required me to be standing directly on top of and looking at the many useable items in order to interface with them, but that plus having to hold the use key down was annoying.
*Such beautiful island design. I really liked the mountain cliffs! I wanted to scale them free-hand, but sadly could not. Many times an ascent did look like it was possible, and perhaps half of it was, before hitting a wall... the only way up is the way that the developer gave you, most of the time. Just follow the continuous grassy patches, and you can ascend.
*At times I had completely no idea how to spend money, and my limited inventory was full and needed to be sold off. My ammo was maxed out, my armor was 100%. All of the guns available for sale were already owned. The solution presented itself in an odd way: purchasing extraneous weapon attachments and vanity color schemes for weapons.

Bottom line, this game is worthy of thunderous revelry because of its mechanics and is only held back from vaster glory because it felt like a constrained port with some oddish design decisions to me.

I grew to love this game. The gameplay, to be precise. I couldn't really care less about the spoiled white boy protagonist aside from the fact that he's me in the game, so the story sort of... got in the way, at times. Held me back from gaining skills due to encounter-locks versus XP lock outs, that sort of thing. It's the exploration of Far Cry 3 that really appealed to me: the exploration of two beautiful islands with lots of violent potential. I went totally Indiana Jones in this game and loved it. The variety of enemy takedowns possible with the use of stealth and position appealled to me. They feel fluid, gritty, intense. The game features some kill-challenges that require you to take out the target with a knife among a bunch of bodyguards, which only helped encourage getting more proficient with the takedown system. The reward for successful takedowns was many times more experience than a simple gunshot frag. The vehicles are all fun to use, the more off-road, the more scenic the game becomes. I rode a jetski through a mangrove river, a buggy from the top of a mountain ridge down to the beach, and would off-road Jeeps just for the experience of it. There is also a wingsuit in the second-half of the story that allows gliding and parachuting. That was awesome! The downside of the game really isn't anything major, but a variety of minor niggling things. They reoccur frequently but are easy to dismiss. *I play using a keyboard and mouse, but the game constrained my assignable hotkey choices to just two number keys, 7 and 8. This meant breaking up gameplay, usually when under fire, to access the menu to get to items that could have easily been assignable using other keys. That disrupted many instances after long periods of seamless gameplay. *I'm unsure why the game required me to be standing directly on top of and looking at the many useable items in order to interface with them, but that plus having to hold the use key down was annoying. *Such beautiful island design. I really liked the mountain cliffs! I wanted to scale them free-hand, but sadly could not. Many times an ascent did look like it was possible, and perhaps half of it was, before hitting a wall... the only way up is the way that the developer gave you, most of the time. Just follow the continuous grassy patches, and you can ascend. *At times I had completely no idea how to spend money, and my limited inventory was full and needed to be sold off. My ammo was maxed out, my armor was 100%. All of the guns available for sale were already owned. The solution presented itself in an odd way: purchasing extraneous weapon attachments and vanity color schemes for weapons. Bottom line, this game is worthy of thunderous revelry because of its mechanics and is only held back from vaster glory because it felt like a constrained port with some oddish design decisions to me.