After the intense Farcry 2, Farcry 3 is shallow experience with not much to offer. Terrible load times kill replay value
Farcry 3 is very good at creating the illusion that there's lots of things to do in this game but when you really get into it there's not much to do on these islands.
First off other than the campaign there are no other side quests. Imaging playing Skyrim, or Borderlands and just having a main story with no interesting characters to give you side quests to do and you've got Farcry 3. Sure there are a few things to do like races, hunt some animals to increase your carrying capacity or ammo, wealth, heals etc. There are bounties that have you track down and kill pirate leaders. But everything ends up feeling pointless and repetitive.
So lets talk about the side stuff.
Bounties are terribly repetitive. It always involves you finding and killing some pirate captain who is surrounded by a few body guards and the stipulation is that you always have to kill the captain with a knife..so there's no variety. Gets lame after awhile.
You can do time trial races, but it's not necessary.
You can go hunting and like bounties this gets boring after awhile.
The only thing that I enjoyed about hunting is using the skins to increase carrying capacities. They were fun at first but once you made all your skins they felt pointless to me.
One complaint I had about the game is that you get money but it really feels like there's nothing to spend it on. The majority of my money went on refilling my ammo because my wallet was constantly full so it wouldn't let me get anymore money.
There really is only a few things to spend your money on and that's Ammo, Armor, maps, weapons. But it seems pointless spending your money on weapons because activating the radio towers across the island gives you the weapons for free.
I honestly wish I hadn't bought the maps that show were all the loot chests were because they were everywhere!!! There are hundreds of these loot chests scattered around. It's hard to walk 15 feet without tripping on one. They contain little money too. I honestly got tired of seeing all the loot chests on my map and they were often more of a trial then they were worth to get them. I wish they had done lesser loot chests but with more in them. And some of them I couldn't loot because my wallet was full, because I had nothing to spend money on.
For the explorers the game does have relics and lost letters for you to find...well that is if you didn't buy the maps. If you buy the maps it shows you on your main map were each one is. The only thing is you have to reach them. Which wasn't really a big deal. If your arrow looks like it showing the relic is in the ground then there is usually a cave near by to reach it. I got all 120 relics but when I got the 120th I was so disappointed because there's no achievement for it. There is only an achievement for getting 60 so after that your really just getting them for the sake of your own O.C.D. Also by the time I got the 120th I was max level so the 250 xp they give you didn't even matter.
I kind of lied there are actually 14 side quests but they are so pointless it's hard to even consider them side quests. For example I had a lady(who looked exactly like all the other natives on the island) ask me to stop a man from excavating a grave but not to kill him. So this man I have to stop is a mere 15-20 feet away on top of a hill. I go up to him shot the ground at his feet to scare him....quest completed. The side quests are really that worthless.
So this next thing was a mixed bag. Travelling the islands can be dangerous...you have pirates and wild animals to deal with. Running into pirates on the road and killing them feels like it starts a whole war as more and more pirates show up in vehicles to combat you. Some times it feels like they're never going to end. So here's the thing if you're tired of fighting pirates on the road and you just want to travel safely, just go to the local pirate compound and take it over.
Taking over compounds gives several things. It gives you a place to rebuy weapons and ammo. It acts as a quick travel place, and it gives you more bounties and hunting jobs. Most of all taking over a compound turns that section of your map green. Green parts of your map are rebel controlled and safe to travel through. So you can now drive pirate free.
Now that sounds pretty great until you realize how boring it is. After awhile you start to miss the pirates because you just drive around with nothing to fight, except maybe some dangerous animal. It really makes the game boring and less challenging.
Okay so the quick travels. Now they did fix something that some people complained about Farcry2. You can now quick travel from any point to one of your freed up compounds. Even if your at the bottom of a deep water filled cave. Don't feel like climbing back out? It's simple just quick travel your way out to your nearest compound.
They also fixed it so your weapons don't jam on you anymore.
For achievement hunters there is also no achievement for get 100% so if you don't feel like doing the races, or your tired of doing the hunting, bounty job....don't sweat it because you weren't going to get an achievement for it anyways.
Let me talk about the campaign a bit. I honestly didn't really care for it or my motivations. Nothing about the campaign blew me away. If anything I was tired of it. I didn't like the people who I was suppose to be saving. They're basically the shallow, stereotypes you grew up hating in high school.
Spoiler Alert!!! Don't read if you don't want spoiler. I was also annoyed by the fact that both boss battles were timed events with knives, and if you screwed up you had to sit through the whole opening speech again, and the terrible load times. I also hated the ending. Not once during the campaign were you give any moral choices that effect your character or the out come of the game. He seems determined to save his brothers and friends. So why at the end would you finally give him a moral decision that is so out of character that if felt tacked on just to have a multiple ending. It would have made more sense if throughout the game they had given you several moral decisions to make so you can shape your behavior to match the outcome of the game, but you get nothing until the ending. So I picked the ending that I felt was truest to Jason's character throughout the game.
You want to know what I like about this game. I loved the sharks and crocs. One of the things I wish they had put into Farcry 2 was dangerous wild life. Like crocs in the rivers etc. And in Farcry 3 they did. It was so exciting diving into the water and getting attacked by sharks. I loved it when a croc I didn't even know was there grabs me. The animals in the game at first are quite deadly but once you get some more powerful weapons they're not much to worry about.
Anyway to sum it up. I personally just found the game to be a waste of potential. I felt the developers created this island, came up with a lame campaign, decided to throw in some repetive side things to distract you and then said, "That's enough". I was happy when the game was over with. I got 97% complete and didn't care anymore. There was no achievement for 100% and I was tired of the hunts and bounties, so I just didn't bother. I played some of the co-op missions with friends, but these were nothing more than make it from point a to point b and survive stuff. Just a real let down of a game to me. I would have loved the game so much more if they had just put in some really interesting side quests given to you by interesting characters. To me that's where it was really lacking.
As a side note I did get the delux bundle DLC. This gives you the monkey business side quests...which honestly was more amusing than anything in this game. The quest giver was a real character that this game needed more of. So if you want this island fleshed out a little more than I would recommend the DLC. I personally like the Monkey business quests more than the real campaign.