I have FC2 which I sort of liked but wound up not playing much -- gorgeous scenery, but gun & vehicle physics felt off, tedious storyline to follow and not really open world. Been jonesing for FC3 for a while, and now I got the spec to run it and the price is right. Fingers crossed.

Well, wow, this is a completely badass game.

I went off FarCry 2 the moment I found that all the enemies respawned about 5 minutes after you'd killed them, which kind of made most the game pointless. FC3 was pretty good though, I enjoyed that one.

Aye, I enjoyed Far Cry 3, the graphics are ace, and although the story's a tad shallow it's a fun no-brainer shooter. Plus the effects from the flame thrower are very cool.

Once it's completed though, the island(s) become a fairly barren sandbox without anything to do, unless you like trying to exploit the environment and drive jeeps up waterfalls or find new ways to jump off the tallest thing you can find.

Only thing I've shot so far is two pigs. Animals, not cops. Oh, and I got et by a alligator. Must admit the wildlife angle is pretty cool.

Combat is ace (though gun sounds are a tad anemic), and it really is open world. A first for me. Still haven't worked out how to open new weapon slots.

4 is even better, in my opinion.  The gameplay is sensibly, if modestly expanded: the grappling hook is a good example, as is the recognition that the psychedelic missions are huge fun at little asset cost - the assassination in the brickworks whilst tripping, all to Panjabi MC's reworking of Jogi, is brilliant.

More importantly, Pagan Min is one of recent popular culture's great baddies, up there with & maybe eclipsing Alan Rickman's Sheriff in Prince of Thieves.

The main thing that bugged me about 4 was the awful saving system. As least quicksaves were partly possible in 3. Unfortunately, they went with "checkpoint" style saves in 4, and it suffered as a result.

I didn't notice it as an issue. I never seemed to respawn that far from my last death. I died a lot, admiring the scenery.

Never played a far cry game until I got 5 bundled with my Xbox one X the other week. I am very much enjoy.

Just did the magic mushrooms mission. A passable imitation of the real thing, I thought.

I already got my sights on the ice age one with cave men and mastadons. Next year, I reckon.

Think I'll work my way backwards through them. And skip number 2.

Having played 6-7 hrs of FC3 I'm ready to make some criticisms, in order of significance:

1. The opening scene/mission where you have to escape a camp chock full of heavily-armed pirates by being super-sneaky without getting shot in the back, kind of set the bar much, much higher in terms of challenge and intensity than any ensuing gameplay (thus far) has met.

2. The open world aspect is both a strength and a weakness, in that it encourages meandering from one too-easily won firefight to the next. About the only challenge in all this are the animals, which are a pretty interesting threat. However they are (mostly) easily killed with any automatic weapon.

3. The business of needing to "craft" your own "holsters" to open additional weapon slots. You can't shove a pistol down your pants? (NJ)

4. It doesn't seem possible to select the big-ass knife you are handed by the black dude that is available for e.g. stealth takedowns, when you are confronting attacking animals.

5. I've turned on 3 radio towers thus far. None were guarded.

6. "Your wallet is too full to hold any more money. You need to craft a bigger wallet."

7. I've done a fair bit of swimming. Though I've seen a few sharks in the water, none have attacked me.

8. Enemy gunmen mostly let you get the drop on them. Even when they open fire first and manage to land a few shots, you can just duck behind a rock, put a bandage on your wrist or pop your knuckles, then blow them away while they stand around shouting threats. Also usually very easy to flank them, as they frequently cluster in groups instead of spreading out.

Still think it's a very cool game though, and plan to play lots more. Gotta get a damn holster.

They mostly would apply to 5, tbh. Maybe not wallet (keep spending my money on helicopters so no idea if I need to craft a bigger one), but definitely first stealth mission is mad hard compared to the rest of the game so far.

It's very beautiful, but I've not replayed it. FC's quite good at radically different game endings & Primal doesn't offer that. similarly with 5.

Finally got two more weapon slots by slaughtering some goats and deer. After I got one more I equipped it with a bow, thinking I could hunt without drawing the pirates by gunfire. Fucked if I could hit the broadside of a barn with it, wound up using an AR, then killing all the pirates too. OK, after they killed me first.

Interesting thing: if you get an animal skin then die right after (even if you craft something with it), you lose the skin/crafted item and have to start the hunt over. BUT, you get an automatic ammo refill, so you don't have to go back to the coke machine (are we sure this isn't in America?).

I'm finally getting the hang of this bow and managed to kill a few pirates with it on the storm the beached freighter and get some radio code bullshit mission. So that felt good.

I ran into it pretty early on. Had to go somewhere to speak to a guy, came across a camp in the middle of the road and spent 20 minutes carefully sneaking around, taking them out until the camp was empty. Drove round the corner and spoke to the guy I had to see. Drove back again and literally less than 10 minutes since I'd been back at the camp, it was fully repopulated again.

I don't like doing things that turn out to be completely pointless 10 minutes later, so I removed the game and didn't play it any more after that.

Hasn't happened to me so far in FC3, except whenever/wherever there's a firefight, more pirates drive up in jeeps in several waves, with brief pauses between. Well, I just did the destroy the weapons cache mission, and instead of hanging around and cleaning up the lumber yard (at which point it's officially 'captured'?), I took off and when I looked behind me it seems to have been repopulated.

Actually it was pretty weird because (I thought) you're supposed to go in quiet and disable the alarms before the pirates have a chance to set them off. I tried to do that, but was spotted right away (thanks to my shit bow skills), they set off the alarm and I had a huge gunfight on my hands, expecting all the while for the mission to fail. But no, I blew up the cache and that was that.