GameFocus E3 Preview: Far Cry 3

With so many first-person shooters going the scripted-action route, it’s nice when there are those that go in a different direction; or at the least offer a varying experience. UbiSoft Montreal revealed Far Cry 3 at E3 this year and after checking it out behind closed doors, it’s nice to see that the developers are offering up an open-world mentality with its upcoming shooter.

Far Cry 3 has you taking control of Jason Brody, who is stranded in a unnamed South American country. He’s has been captured and his girlfriend has gone missing (or possibly worse). The demonstration at E3 began with your character hearing a story from a deranged man named Vaz, who then proceeds to throw you down a cliff and into the water below. You manage to free yourself from the restraints and the boulder holding you down and then begin to make your escape.

Although everyone who watched the Ubisoft Press Conference got to see, for the most part, what I also saw behind closed doors, what the public video didn’t show was just how open-ended your execution can be. For starters, the game offers a lot of branching points and paths to discover. Not only is there an overall story, there will be numerous side-paths to discover and experience, which will drastically change the way in which a person plays the game.

The level objective in the E3 demo was for Jason to get to a helicopter in order to escape. In the public demo, the lead decides to take a more direct approach and attacks the compound head-on where the helicopter was located. While this was a more violent and risky approach, in our private demo, they decided to take a more in-direct route and try their hardest to avoid detection.

This time around, the player moved to an area from the side, managed to find a sniper rifle and commenced with taking out targets that way. Of course, he was eventually spotted, but not before dishing out a healthy dose of stealthy death upon a large group enemies. Things then got really interesting; after alerting the guerrillas, Jason uses a zip-line to traverse over the enemy campground and get closer to the helicopter. Although being fired at, he manages to land in the water and to stay alive. Thanks to the fact the water that surrounded the compound was deep, it made it harder for the enemies to spot him, meaning he was then able to get around without being shot at. Of course, you can only avoid detection for so long, but luckily in both demos, Jason gets to the helicopter and tries to force his way out of the vacinity.

The demonstration at E3 was extremely short, but thanks to the introduction of Vaz, who appears to be one really messed up character, my early interest in Far Cry 3 is already at a high level. With the game expected sometime in 2012, I look forward to seeing and hearing more about Jason, Vaz and the many other characters were are bound to meet up in this mysterious country in the months to come.

http://www.gamefocus.ca/previews/10357.html