Far Cry 3

Malor wrote:

So, upshot: if you analyze the game the way the writer wants you to, it's even dumber. The stupidity is nearly unbounded.

Many of you care too much to be playing video games

Indeed. Did you know you could roast turtles, shoot birds out of the sky in sniper challenges, stab pirates and ingest trippy mushrooms? You guys are playing the same game right? Seriously, try the turtles. It's wonderfully therapeutic.

BlackSabre wrote:

Just finished up with Buck.

Spoiler:

You have to admit. They really made him an unlikable character. Like you really just wanted to kill him the whole way through. Their villains are really well made so far.

To be honest, I didn't find the missions that bad. I was expecting worse considering some of the comments here. But they were actually ok.

After finishing it, I didn't mind the quest line at all.

[spoiler]Wasn't a huge fan of the final encounter. I'm also not a huge fan of the amount of times the game makes Jason put his gun away for cinematic reasons. There was no reason he didn't shoot Buck once he found his friend.

THIS!

I had actually thought they were going this route while I was playing until a certain point...

http://kotaku.com/5967703/a-simple-way-to-fix-far-cry-3s-dumb-story?tag=far-cry-3

TheHipGamer wrote:
An audience understands that when an actor is on stage, every movement, every word, every gesture means something. Gamers, however, haven’t come to that point yet for video games.

Yes, this. Doubly true with a competent director and film: every second, every shot, every angle means something, and is a product of the creative process. That video games are approaching this level of sheer directoral control is an amazing moment, and one that I hope catapults games into the analytical realm, fusing the enjoyment of the experience with the intellectual exploration that cinema and literature embody.

However, I don't buy that Far Cry 3 is that game.

That's my take away as well. I want writers of games to attempt what this writer is attempting here. It's a complete narrative failure, but I'm more pleased that he tried and failed than if the story had been just another hackneyed nothing.

Gentle notes to future game writers:

1. Exaggerating a trope for twenty hours in order to flip it for the last 20 seconds for half your players is not a good idea.

2. People not talking about your references to Alice in Wonderland does not mean we didn't notice. I thought it was trite. How could I not? In the year 2012 you'd have to work damn hard to get some originality out of the Alice well.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

MisterStatic wrote:

Many of you care too much to be playing video games ;-)

Got the winky smiley face but just going to point out that I think we're giving FC3 this treatment mostly because FC2 was such a critical darling and had a long tail of analytical writing that followed it. If FC3 were the first in the series I would only be half as interested in dissecting the story and themes.

For the PA interview, my first impression was "man, this is a painfully written article." The FC3 writer Yohalem comes off sounding like an airhead. It's still possible he really was a genius and we just don't get it and the PA article didn't help. But I have the feeling that Yohalem either (1) didn't do a good job or (2) didn't fight hard enough or have enough power during the development process and the game got away from him and erred on the side of making money and explosions rather than focusing on whatever subtle vision the story was going to explore.

Either way, if the majority of your audience pans your story (and you regret that) then it's on you to make up the gap. Or find a development team willing to make less money but create games for a more focused audience. Part of the problem is you're selling to 15-55 year-olds with the gaming press right in the middle of that range.

I'll be looking forward to FC4.

In my opinion, if you're trying to make a statement in a game you build it around the intended theme. You don't build it around the opposite theme and then at the end turn around and tell the player they're stupid for having fun. I think what happened is that they had to make a specific type of game that the writer didn't really agree with, and all the leeway he had was to try and turn it around in a few cutscenes. What he really should have done was tried to find a story or setting that didn't have the negative connotations at all rather than trying to pull off a subversion he didn't have the talent or the leeway to accomplish.

Anytime the author has to try that hard to explain the meaning of his story... means he/she failed miserably.

Oh, Rook Islands! I get it now.

[H] did a more comprehensive performance review..

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/...

Shame that Crossfire is horribly broken right now.. since looking at the Single card performance the 7970's should provide a better experience in Crossfire. But looks like this is the new performance champ when it comes to breaking high end cards.. no single or SLI/Crossfire setup will run this at 1600P right now with full effects.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

1. Exaggerating a trope for twenty hours in order to flip it for the last 20 seconds for half your players is not a good idea.

2. People not talking about your references to Alice in Wonderland does not mean we didn't notice. I thought it was trite. How could I not? In the year 2012 you'd have to work damn hard to get some originality out of the Alice well.

I think the problem with 1 is that in the realm of video games, if you are going to exaggerate a trope, you need to really exaggerate it, because the level of "exaggeration" seen in FC3 is stuff that is already done in a ton of other games where it is, for better of worse, "normal".

Also, fully agreed on 2. It's not that we don't get it, it's that we think it's insipid. The Matrix came out in '99. American McGee's Alice came out in 2000. Earnhardt = near anagram of mad hatter, ending =

Spoiler:

off with Liza/Aliz's head.

We get it. It's dumb.

Having said that, I have no real problem ignoring the story.

If you are swimming in money, work on unlocking signature weapons. They show up as white stars on the overall checklist. The are pricy, but very very nice.

Aristophan wrote:

If you are swimming in money, work on unlocking signature weapons. They show up as white stars on the overall checklist. The are pricy, but very very nice.

Yup, I use the Signature SMG as my main weapon. It's just beautiful.

BlackSabre wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

If you are swimming in money, work on unlocking signature weapons. They show up as white stars on the overall checklist. The are pricy, but very very nice.

Yup, I use the Signature SMG as my main weapon. It's just beautiful.

Ditto. I also used the signature shotgun since it does a tonne of damage to charging animals.

Just pushed through some more story...

Spoiler:

Made it to island 2. That was an interesting few hours of gameplay.

This RPS interview has completely killed any urge I had to purchase this game. I don't think Yohalem actually understands what satire and parody is.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

I really wouldn't let that keep you from playing the game. If you're capable of spacing out during talky cutscenes then as a game it is inherently very fun. In other words, it is like almost all videogames.

cube wrote:

This RPS interview has completely killed any urge I had to purchase this game. I don't think Yohalem actually understands what satire and parody is.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

"Modern art’s been in this strange period where it’s trying very hard to be relevant, and to shock people, and this videogame seems to have shocked a lot of people."

Seriously, LOL. This quote! I was waiting for him to compare the impact of Farcry 3 to the opening night riots to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring...

The way he rambles in this interview reminds me of certain creative projects I've worked on that didn't quite come together. He has a personal justification for every aspect of the game but it doesn't add up to a cohesive picture, just a bunch of criss-crossing lines of thought.

Also considering how worked up he gets, you get the sense that he finds his own story incredibly fulfilling; he's lost in a maze, and dropped clues inside the maze to help you make your way through, but he totally forgot to build an entrance.

I think he created a story for his game, got an unexpected amount of flak for it, and is now desperately trying to convince everyone that it was a different story. It's afterthought, not planning.

tanstaafl wrote:

I think he created a story for his game, got an unexpected amount of flak for it, and is now desperately trying to convince everyone that it was a different story. It's afterthought, not planning.

I'll disagree there. I think it's pretty clear that he had a very solid idea of what he wanted to do, it's just that he didn't do it very well, IMO.

I've written about this, but one line in particular in this interview stood out:

"the people are called the Rakyat, which means “the people”. It’s the laziest name for a tribe ever, they’re not real, they’re a metaphor."

But they're pretty clearly based on the Maori tribe: kiwi accents, facial tattoos, etc. So what does Maori mean in the Maori language? Well, maybe I shouldn't trust wikipedia, but according to them, it means, "normal", "natural" or "ordinary", as in "not spirits or gods". There's an additional phrase, "tangata whenua", that means "people of the land", which describes the Maori that live in a specific area.

So Yohalem's "laziest name ever" is pretty damn close to the actual name of the actual people that his company designed his game around. Which makes his game that's supposed to be about the latent racism and colonialism of these settings a little bit racist and colonialist in itself.

Incidentally, I'm almost positive that "the people" is a direct translation for the names of several Native American tribes. It makes sense, doesn't it? When we say "human", it doesn't mean "biped apes from the third planet from the sun in an arm of the Milky Way Galaxy." It basically just means "people."

And this is the problem with Far Cry 3's story in miniature. The thematic elements just aren't far enough away from the reality of the genre for the theme to show up in any real coherent fashion.

I think he really did intend at least some of what he says, but he's just too far up his own ass to hear what people are saying. But personally, I don't want to play a satire. I don't want to play a game that was deliberately designed to be stereotypical or make assumptions about my reason for playing the game. I want to play a game that's genuinely fun and innovative and that says something positive.

I feel like it's the solace of bad artists to produce bad art and then say they did it on purpose, even if they did do it on purpose. It makes the entire experience seem antagonistic. Like the artist is saying "ha ha, you went out of your way to check out this thing that sucks, and it sucks on purpose because reasons!" Or if you really want to critique the genre, at least don't waste my time. Make it a 20 minute art piece so the commentary is central to the theme.

So for Far Cry 3, at this point I'm torn between wanting to play a game that seems to have really tight mechanics and not wanting to experience a story that verges between trite and offensive. At the very least, I think this has moved from a full price purchase to a Steam sale purchase. I almost wish now that I hadn't read any commentary about the game so I could enjoy it with merely on occasional WTF moment. This may be the first time that spoiling a game has truly hurt my potential enjoyment of the game, which is weird since the spoilers in this case more concern the artist's intent than the story itself.

complexmath wrote:

So for Far Cry 3, at this point I'm torn between wanting to play a game that seems to have really tight mechanics and not wanting to experience a story that verges between trite and offensive.

For what it's worth, I'm currently playing the game, and that's exactly how I feel, which explains why I'm actually spending more time playing Don't Starve than FC3. For me, FC3 is essentially two games: there's the fanstastic open-world game that I want to spend lots of time in (minus some annoying UI/HUD aspects, which are reportedly going to be addressed), and there's the utterly unappealing narrative game that I'm resentfully playing so that I can spend the skill points I've earned.

Therefore I would agree with your comment about waiting to buy FC3 on sale.

there's the fanstastic open-world game that I want to spend lots of time in (minus some annoying UI/HUD aspects, which are reportedly going to be addressed), and there's the utterly unappealing narrative game that I'm resentfully playing so that I can spend the skill points I've earned.

I agree. The only reason I went forward with the story is to access the rest of the skills. I've spent most of my time clearing outposts and doing the hunting and bounty missions.

At this point I'm playing with this thought in my head the whole time

"Theres a story??.... ooh look FIRE! FIRE!"

Amazon suddenly had the game on sale for halfish price. I purchased it there and then. Shark punching here I come!!

I think I've come to the conclusion that I would not like this game. Hearing Idle Thumbs point out the various design issues made me think of my initial concern back when the E3 demo came out. It was something to the point of,

Why would you run and initiate a heated battle and try to escape by helicopter when there's a field of tall grass that you could wander off into and avoid the conflict altogether?

I got my answer: because then the game would warn you that you're leaving the combat zone.

SuperDave wrote:

I think I've come to the conclusion that I would not like this game.

I'm guessing you post something like this because you still secretly want enablement?

It is a damn fun game, and you will be missing out. Is the story ridiculous? Absolutely. Can it be ignored? Easily. Are there game design issues? Yes. Is it still worth the time for the fun factor? Hell f*cking yeah.

To each their own, but this is one of the most fun experiences I have had this year with a game, despite its blemishes. And that last part I could say about any game I have ever played.

TheGameguru wrote:

At this point I'm playing with this thought in my head the whole time

"Theres a story??.... ooh look FIRE! FIRE!"

Yeah, that's the best way to play this.

1.04 patch out now with all interface crap except mini map toggleable...still wish we could shut off the minimap.

I'll be over here tapping my foot until the console patch launches...if it ever launches.

(Haven't touched the game since the no-hud patch was announced.)