What could have been an excellent game let down by some really annoying issues and poor design decisions.
That said there are some glaring issues. Some of these are intended but some are balances and bugs that could have been fixed before launch and should have been, so the game in it's launch state only gets a 7 and a marking in big red letters that says 'MUST DO BETTER'.
I will not dwell on the game's good parts as there are so many that this one review doesn't have the space to list them. Insread I will give you the dirty on the bad bits and let you discover the meaty goodness for yourselves.
In my little league table of bad bits we have coming in at number 5:
The Inventory and crafting system;
OMG this system is so badly thought out and transparent in it's role as filler to make the game last longer that I could puke if I wasn't laughing so loud at it's ineptness ( if that's even a word ). We have a system where absolutely everything from your backpack to the ammo belt around your waist and the syringe holder around your muscled bicep have to be hand crafted, and not using just any old leather, NOOooooo that would be too easy, each upgrade has to be made from a certain type of animal skin. Now it may just be me but I see no reason why I can't make a new backpack out of this handy piece of ex-canine that the dog didn't need anymore, or even this huge buffalo skin I'm carrying around, it's bloody big enough. Nope, I have to jump into the sea and go man to man with a few f$%&^g sharks, or snipe them from a distance and then dive to the ocean floor for a spot of skinning. This type of scenario is repeated for every single container that you carry, including your wallet. Yep, you heard that correctly, your wallet, and you can only carry so much money until it's upgraded. Honestly, I could write a book on why this system sucks but lets just move on. Did I mention that a leaf takes up a complete inventory slot? well it does as nothing stacks, just another completely stupid idea. But hey, we all know that a buffalo skin and a leaf take up the same amount of space right?
At number 4 we have:
Immersion breaking story cutscenes.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
I am only going to give one example here so as not to give too many spoilers. You are hunting one of the games bad guys, Vaas. As you step into an area a cutscene activates where he surprises you from behind the door and stabs you in the chest with a f*^&%ing big knife. The scene changes to a dreamworld and here to cut a long story short, you fight and kill him before waking up elsewhere perfectly fine without a scratch. WTF???
This type of system is common in story driven games and to be honest I wish it wasn't. We know that writers like to tell the story their way and they have a right I suppose, but in a game where the player is the protagonist and his choices are supposed to matter, taking those choices away is in my opinion a bad move. I would rather have killed Vass using my skills as a player, sniping him from a distance or manouvering to a position where I could come up on him from behind and slit his throat. How he died would not have impacted on the story so there is no need for the developers to take it out of the players hands, especially with some voodoo magic s&^t that leaves you scratching your head.
Number 3:
Animal Magic.
This for me is a simple balancing issue that would have taken about ten minutes to fix and is simply that the animals in the game are too tough. From bullet-proof buffalo to flame retardent felines every critter out there must be wearing invisible body armour. Here is a hint for the devs. If you want realism then a bullet to the head is pretty fatal to just about any animal that you can fit into the back of a pickup truck. Elephants and such ok, you need a bigger gun but it shouldn't take almost a full clip from an AK47 to down a F*&%^ing tiger. As an example, I put two shots into a buffalo's head from a sniper rifle and it ran off.......... Again, this may just be me but I aint going anywhere near a f&^%^&ing buffalo that can shrug off two bullets to the head.
At number 2:
Kill X with Y.
Hunt 2 sharks using the bow provided??? Hunt sharks with a bow? really? give me a f&^%ing break. Yet another dumb system that probably sounded good on paper. If you want me to hunt down a certain type of critter fine but leave the choice of weapon to me. It's the same with the kill pirate quests, every single one of the commanders has to be killed with a knife. Look, dead is dead ok, knife in throat = dead, bullet in brain = dead. Why the f^^k would I want to try and sneak up on some guy carrying an assault rifle and surrounded by his buddies when a friendly grenade in their midst would do the job just fine.
And at number 1 my greatest gripe is:
Oops I got stuck on a pebble.
Title says it all really, from the bottom step to a stone in the road if it's higher than about an inch you will get stuck on it and need to jump to get over it. In a game that has many platform sections like the radio towers this bug is unforgivable and the main reason that my score was knocked down to a 7 instead of an 8 ( the previous 4 bad bits got it down to that ). It may not seem to be a biggy but picture this: You are in the midst of a gunfight, you run for the small building and some much needed cover only to be stopped by .... the small step.... that lies fiendishly across the entrance to the open door. Crap you think and jump to get over it.... your head hits the doorframe and you land where you started, still stuck on the step. At this point the enemy have stopped laughing and start to shoot you in the back. You see why it is in fact a biggy?
Okay that's my major gripes, there are others but I really don't want it to appear that this is a bad game when in fact it is a brilliant game with a few problems that can be fixed, for the most part. My advice is to go out and buy this game, it's the best Far Cry yet and deserves your time. As an aside I will say that there is a group of people that should avoid this game like the plague, consevationists and eco warriors I'm looking at you.
I have now finished the game and have decided to downgrade my score to a 5. The use of quick-time events is completely overdone, including using them to take out the games major bosses. Not only that but the fights take place in some completely dumb dreamscape that leave the player confused, underwhelmed and frustrated. The liberal use of radio tower platform sections to uncover the map is also one of the worst design decisions I have ever come across which again are there to add frustration and do absolutely nothing for the gameplay or the story. Someone needs to take these devs aside and send them to the school of 2012 game design as they are obviously stuck in the 1990s when platformers were popular. As far as gaming platform is concerned then the game screams it's preference for the consoles at every turn with the mentioned QTE's and poor collision physics making it an average port to the PC at best. The games industry advanced by leaps and bounds when the old Atari, Intellivision, Ti consoles died an agonising death and the sooner the XBoxes and Playstations of this world go the way of the dinosaurs the better.