How Far Cry 3 taught me to love violent games again.

I don’t think it’s all that hyperbolic to say that we’re reaching a turning point in the industry. Granted, videogames are evolving so fast that’s it’s almost impossible to keep track of all the new ground that’s being covered, but right now, more so than ever, I feel that there’s a palpable sense that the medium is starting to do some really special things. In a lot of ways, this feels like a natural progression. Whatever your opinions on digital distribution, it undoubtedly levels the playing field for titles with smaller budgets to make a name for themselves. Gamers aren’t limited to whatever’s on the shelves in their local Game or Blockbuster anymore – all we have to do is load up Steam or Xbox Marketplace and we have easy access to dozens of great indie titles right alongside the big releases. The advantage of independents is obvious: Without the financial pressure of the latest blockbuster, creative constraints are lifted for smaller developers, allowing them to create games as close to their original vision as the technology will allow. The result? More games created as art, and less created purely as profitable entertainment.

Basically, as the Triple A industry eats itself, there’s some genuinely intelligent, thought provoking, and, I'm going to say it, Mature stuff being made, and I think it’s great. I've seen people play Journey and thought it was beautiful. Did I rush back to buy it? Fuck no. Why? Because as much as I lament what’s happening in Triple A industry at the moment, as much as I long for the narrative depth found in so many indie titles to make its way into the mainstream, I just love killing shit with big guns in glorious HD just too damn much to stop. The thing is, I read that back to myself, a twenty-five year old with a degree in literature and a fair few stamps on my passport, and I start to feel a little bit guilty about it, like it’s a dirty habit rather than a legitimate pastime. I'm also aware that although views are changing, a lot of society see it this way as well, and although we haven’t quite got to the point where we have to play Fire Emblem outside the pub with the smokers, the parallels can definitely be drawn.


As much as I can wax lyrical about the potentials of gaming as a vehicle for thought-provoking storytelling, there’s a big part of me that feels like a decadent man-boy taking pleasure in virtual violence. Imagine my surprise with Far Cry 3 then, in which you play as a decadent man-boy taking pleasure in actual violence. When I first switched on the console, I started to get a little nervous about spending another thirty-odd hours of my life piling up pixelated corpses. By the end of my first session, just like Jason Brody, something clicked, and it started to feel like winning.


Far Cry 3 is the first game I’ve played in a long time that blends narrative and mechanics so seamlessly that almost every in-game action serves to increase immersion. As you crouch outside the corrugated iron fencing of a pirate encampment, considering your various options of assault like a psychotic child in a military grade sweet shop, it’s no great suspension of disbelief to imagine Brody doing the exact same thing. To Brody, his guns aren't guns, and the people he’s killing aren’t people. Each new weapon is a new toy to play with, each victim a target. Because of this, he is the most fully realised and accurate representation of myself as a player I think I’ve ever seen in a game, and I was in no doubt whilst playing that he was having just as much fun as I was.


When you’re first handed control of Jason, he acts exactly as you’d expect him to, given the situation – fucking terrified. Far Cry 3’s exceptional introduction sequence manages to be both intuitive and disorientating at the same time, and the tension of being thrown into a dire situation the minute the game starts is increased because you have to learn the controls under pressure. This is how all tutorials should be – perfectly synchronising the player and the protagonist’s inexperience, to the aid of both gameplay and atmosphere. The first life Jason takes leaves him horrified, but as we get more comfortable with killing from a mechanical perspective, so does Jason in the narrative.

There’s a hell of a lot of killing in Far Cry 3, and whilst this is par for the course in this sort of game, I don’t feel that that by itself is a valid excuse anymore. We can do great games without violence. It’s been discussed to death by this point, and I don’t want to go into too much detail here, but I genuinely thought that Bioshock Infinite was needlessly gratuitous in some places. There’s just as much death in Far Cry 3, but it’s elevated above the usual fare by a sense of irony that most games don’t have. Jason spouts ridiculous one-liners like so many other protagonists, but instead of witty Nathan Drakeism’s, he’s telling himself to ‘Channel Indy’. Here’s the fundamental difference: Uncharted pays homage, Far Cry 3 is a pastiche. I didn’t have time to say ‘Awesome’ when the game gave me a new gun, because Brody had already said it for me.


All of this left me in no doubt I was playing a game in which every ounce of violence, every over-emphasised set piece was absolutely necessary. As we play the game, we’re living out Brody’s adolescent fantasies just as we’re indulging our own. To have the action serve as both entertainment and commentary on that same entertainment at the same time is testament to some of the best relationships between mechanics and narrative I’ve seen in quite a while. And it makes me feel a lot better about shooting shit.

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