Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 is probably one of the most enjoyable games I have played in a very long time. The gameplay is amazing, the plot is engrossing and the graphics are out of this world fantastic.

Far Cry 3's plot starts off with your character, also know as Jason, being subsequently captured by Vass that is mentally unstable and therefore, unpredictable in how he acts and says. While people who haven't played this game, may find this stupid it really allows for characters to be rinsed out and explored. After escaping from Vass and finally falling into a river, you are then rescued by a mysterious man named Denise. After a brief introduction to the world around you and some people, you are free to explore and do either the main missions or side missions. These side missions range from gather items, hunting animals, killing pirates, racing and other novelty missions. The main missions consist of saving your friends who had been captured along with. The player will need to get help from other people, hunt to upgrade items, for example you have to hunt certain animal so that you can make larger ammo pouches.

The gameplay is quite like most other First person shooters. You can look down your sights, shoot, run, take cover, throw grenades and melee. However unlike most other games, you do not have these skills right from the get go. You will receive experience for each kill and doing missions. When a person levels up they gain a skill point which they can use to unlock a certain ability. For example one of the first abilities you will unlock is the ability to cook a grenade and then throw it. You can spend skill points on other abilities, such as slide to cover, takedowns, long breath while under water or even to gain more health. The health and damage system are quite realistic, however, not to the extent were one bullet will kill you. At the beginning of the game, you will find that you can only take about 5-6 bullets before nearly dying. Later on in the game though, you will have the opportunity to add more health bars which allow you to absorb more bullets before you need to heal. To heal you will need to make health syringes from green leaf, which can be found throughout the world. They can be found almost anywhere and do not require any skills to be unlocked before being made.  While health syringes can be used to heal, they are not the only way. If you do not have syringes, you can heal yourself without, but the health restoration will not be a good and you will find only 2 health bars being refilled instead of all of them.

The graphics are phenomenal. When you look at the terrain, the water and the characters, you can tell that a lot of time has been put into the presentation. Nothing looks bland, everything looks bright and colourful and the island looks rich. The textures are rendered well and so far I have not seen any textures failing to load. Even on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the graphics are outstanding.  

Far Cry 3 is definitely a great game, far better than its predecessor Far Cry 2, which became stale quite quickly. There is always something to do here and you will lose many hours, whether that's from hunting animals, killing people for side missions or doing the main missions. This is right up there as a contender for Game Of The Year.