The excessive use of tropes is satire, and Jason’s descent into madness is meant to undermine those tropes. This is explained in a very mealey-mouthed way in an interview with RockPaperShotgun by the FC3 creative direction. It sort-of works. I prefer Far Cry 3 and Brody’s character arc to the slapped-together Pagan Min storyline of FC4.

@ Michael:

Helo, Gamergate.

Analyzing popular culture and mainstream entertainment can tell us a lot about said culture. Whether you want it or not, our blockbuster action movies and our FPS games are our modern myths. It is the stories we choose tell to each other and they are influenced by the values and prejudices we hold as a society. By analyzing games, we can learn a lot about players.

By analyzing how popular games choose structure our entertainment into coherent stories, what works and what does not we can learn a lot about how to tell better stories.

Your approach to art seems very reductive, but I guess that comes with the territory.

Goodbye.

PS. Gamers are Dead :P

Wow, talk about taking a game WAY to seriously. And could you possibly use the word tropes any more? I mean, my god. tropes this and tropes that. We get it, you like using the word tropes. this is a game, not a fine art film.

Played Far Cry 3 close to the release and had similar experience with the game. Up until the citra the story was interesting and the whole game as a whole one of my favorites.

The gameplay itself was good up to the end, but the damn story managed to ruin the whole experience for me.

Like the part where he could have left with the boat, but nooo, its a good idea to stay on the island with the crazy people….

This kinda reminds me of how Mass Effect managed almost ruin the whole experience with the ending.

I forgot that you have to find the mushrooms to cure her, its been a while since i played the game. I agree with you on Liza, maybe i used the wrong word with annoying. I though she was absolutely correct with what she was saying, its like i was going through the same thing as Jason.

It was only when he had a knife to her throat making the decision to kill her or not did he realize what he had become (if you pick the sensible option) and in that sense the ending did a good job, it just makes zero for Citra to do that, but it does force you too see that this kind of life can cost you not only your loved ones (through abandoning them to live on the island) but also your self through becoming (like you said) Hoyt, Vas or even Buck. People who wouldn’t think twice about killing someone like Liza to get what they want.

@ Joker:

Daisy is indeed pretty resourceful. I guess the point is arguable, but you still kinda have to rescue her via the mushroom fetch quest when you first find her. But yes, she freed herself and found the doc so she is not helpless. And she is fixing the boat which I thought was pretty awesome. :)

I didn’t find Liza annoying. To me she was the voice of reason and absolutely on point with her comments. She wasn’t trying to hold you back – she was trying to ground you, and hang on to your humanity. Which is another reason I was disappointed by the ending. If the choice was between going home with your plain, regular, ordinary girlfriend and leading a boring life, or staying on the island with a warrior princes and having super awesome Rakyat warrior adventures it would be much subtler and at the same time much deeper. Each choice would have far reaching consequences:

– On one hand, going home would mean dealing with PTSD, struggling to re-adjust to normal life, having flashbacks and possibly regrets. But you get to be with your family, get to be wealthy and live a comfortable life until you are old man. You’ll probably get married, have children, etc..

– On the other hand you have a short, violent and exciting life. But you are giving up your family, your status, your wealth. You have to think about how this is going to impact your family and etc.. Besides, how long can you ride the adrenaline high until you are burnt out? How many more adventures can you have before you are “too old for this shit”. And will you be able to go back home then, or will it be too late? Will you become the new Vas, Buck or Hoyt or whatever.

Is Daisy really a damsel in distress? She is the only character bar you (with the help of Vas) to escape capture and is pretty much the driving force behind your escape route. It would be pretty hard to rescue your friends and escape without her.

I found Liza pretty annoying, but then after finishing the game i had a little think at why i found her annoying… Its because she was always talking about leaving the island, returning to a normal life and seeing Jason as the psycho he is. I find her annoying because she wants me to stop having fun… stop having fun killing people. I think that was her intended effect, it was done well.

@ Joker:

Good point. Did not check dates. Should do more better research. In my mind Spec Ops was long time ago, because I played it months ago, whereas I just got Far Cry. I stand corrected.

Chris Wellons wrote:

It really doesn’t bother me much and I don’t find it offensive or a symptom of some larger ill. It’s just lazy writing.

Oh, definitely – there is a lot of lazy writing out there. But I’m trying to do this thing where I’m approaching video games as a form of art. Yes, they are entertainment, but so are movies. And a lot of great movie classics that people discuss in the academia are still very entertaining. I think game designers should strive to both be entertaining, and tell good stories.

I actually attempted to watch half an episode of Big Bang theory over the holidays and just couldn’t stomach it. I’m past even caring that they don’t get the nerd culture right because that’s a given. It just consistently failed to be funny. So I switched over to Parks and Rec which had much better nerd jokes (I’d totally play Cones of Dunshire).

As far as I’m concerned nerd culture is mainstream now – everyone loves superhero movies, everyone was stoked to see dwarfs and hobbits fight a dragon, everyone plays some sort of video games (phones, consoles, etc..). We’re getting to the point where people who don’t like nerdy things are being looked at as weirdos and social outliers. :P

I think I’m overly critical of Far Cry 3 precisely because I was engaged and enjoying it. I couldn’t stand more than 15 minutes of Big Bang Theory so it doesn’t really bother me it has lazy writing. I put 40+ hours into Far Cry because it was fun, but that made it that much harder for me to excuse the lazy writing. :P

Chris Wellons wrote:

My favorite missions were probably the assassination missions. I’d try to do them stealthily, carefully taking pirates down one at a time without being noticed. The poker mini-game was surprisingly well done, too.

Once I got the best sniper rifle in the game, I was in full sniper mode. I would set up on a nearby hill and take dudes one by one. Fun fact: if you are far enough, the AI won’t sound the alarm because you are beyond their usual spotting range. So you can shoot a guy and his friend is going to freak out for 5 seconds and then go back to paroling, stepping over his friend’s body as if nothing happened.

I didn’t like the poker thing. I just kept betting the lowest amount and checking without even looking at the cards. Confession: I never really bothered to learn how exactly Texas Holdem works. I’ve always played the five card draw variant. Fortunately you only ever have to play like 3 rounds throughout the game and it doesn’t matter if you win or lose so I was able to just check-check-check-skip through it.

Chris Wellons wrote:

I agree that driving wasn’t quite right. For me it felt like I was driving around one of the Merry-Go-Round horses from Mary Poppins. Unlike a normal car, Far Cry 3 cars felt like they were rotating around a pole down the middle of the car, behind the driver. Really awkward.

Yes, that’s precisely how they felt. My favorite part was when you would clip the railing of a narrow bridge at high speed and the car would spin all the way back around, or wedge itself sideways.

Chris Wellons wrote:

The ending didn’t bother me. Remember that just before you’re given the final choice, you’re shown (artificial) visions of Jason’s girlfriend berating him, putting him down. Jason’s in a twisted, drugged up mental state, on top of his own personality being transformed by all the violence.

I get that, but I didn’t really get the motivation to choose the bad ending. Jason’s main goal throughout the game was to save his friends and get revenge. Becoming a bad-ass was just means to that end. Now that you have achieved your goal, Citra asks you to basically erase your accomplishment and make an ultimate sacrifice for basically nothing. What does she have to offer? She will make you a warrior? You already are one. She can take away your magical tattoo powers but she can’t take away weeks of hard combat training.

Also, Citra’s reasons for doing this didn’t make sense. Why would she require such a sacrifice? I mean I get “jungle voodoo magic requires this” but that doesn’t really work. Why does it require it? Why do Rakyat people believe that the path to become the ultimate warrior involves slaughtering your loved ones? How does it fit into their honor code and warrior mythos?

You would think that any warrior code would have stuff to say about protecting the innocent, or about loyalty and blood bonds. I mean, what is the ultimate betrayal if not killing your own kin because a stranger tells you to do so? The game doesn’t bother explaining any of that.

Is it about power? Does Citra require this as a show of ultimate loyalty and abandon? If so then she is not worth it. No leader who requires this kind of sacrifice is worth following. This is what evil cult leaders do – that’s actually kinda their calling card. But then the “bad ending” choice is even worse – because you willingly choose for Jason to be manipulated.

I don’t know how they could of stolen it from Spec Ops considering it came out only months after.