1. Let's face it, the FarCry 3 is mechanically and technically excellent but it's kind of stupid in an unintentional way. Between the oblivious, bro-y racism and ludicrous plot, it is really hard to take it too seriously even though the game seems to strive for a certain psychedelic emotional realism.
2. FarCry 3: Blood Dragon is actually even more stupid but there is nothing unintentional about it. It strives to be that kind of stupid where you can tell the people who made it are actually smart. It doesn't quite get there but does manage to condense the fun parts of FarCry 3 into a bite size package for easy FarCry snacking.
3. Blood Dragon combines the climb-towers-to-reveal-map-icons and capture-enemy-bases elements of the common open world game formula. You only have to capture enemy bases and you get the most important map icons revealed w/o climbing a singular tower. Huzzah! The rest of the map icons can be purchased from vending machines because I guess you need plenty of icons on your map.
4. This game is rendered in glorious hi-resolution 3D polygonal graphics but the cut scenes kind of look like someone who never played Sega Genesis games trying to imitate Sega Genesis cut scenes. I found the transition between these two elements kind of jarring, to be honest. Also, if you are like me, you sit through all cut scenes on the edge of you seat, hoping upon hope that the game will you control again at any given moement. When the cut scenes look completely different from the game, it takes away my hope, which is sometimes the only thing keeping me going through troubled times where I am playing a video game and find that my input has no effect on what's happening on the screen.
5. The overarching idea is to be a send up of 80's action movies. You are a cyborg super soldier. Your cyborg super soldier colleague goes mad w/ power and decides to destroy their world and you have to stop him. You hook up w/ the only woman around. There's dragons. Every 80's action move was like this. Trust me.
6. The gameplay is kinf od a parody of the main series as well, though I'm not sure how intentional that is. Stripped of the pretense of meaningful plot and a quagmire of superfluous upgrade systems, FarCry 3 really does just boil down as follows: go to all the places, kill all the people. Here, that's presented as a joke of sorts but, honestly, that is just what the series has always been at its bones.
7. The humor in Blood Dragon falls flat in nearly 100% of cases. Sorry you had to hear it from me.
8. You didn't come for the humor or the cyber-soldier-gone-rogue plot though. You came for the action and Blood Dragon delivers. The controls are super tight whether you use mouse and keyboard or a controller. We are not talking Arma-level simulation here but if you point a gun and shoot at something enough, it dies and you know you killed it.
9. Over time, the weapons all upgrade to the point of being ridiculously
overpowered. It kind of Nerfs the experience but they get overpowered in unique and sometimes unexpected ways. For example, upgrading the sniper rifle w/ explosive rounds makes it super effective for close combat. By that point, you have the health to tank some splash damage so you basically just have to point in the general direction of your enemies and have at it. Sure, it's over-the-top but it's fun.
10. Challenge is not really the name of the game here anyway. At the default difficulty, you can pretty much bumble your way through the whole game if you wish.
11. The fun is that most situations allow you to approach them in a variety
of ways. You can always just rush in guns ablaze but stealth, ranged
weapons, mines and even baiting the titular Blood Dragons to attack your
enemies will work in most situations. If you are like me, you will plan out an intense and devious plot to sneak your way through each area, blow your cover halfway through and start chucking grenades willy-nilly until everything is dead.
12. Because of its relatively realistic setting, the FarCry series sometimes has trouble coming up w/ a good final boss battle. You can't exactly have towering ro-bots w/ flamethrower arms in a world where only present day technology exists. You'd think the dragons and cyber warriors would give Blood Dragon an out and let the developers throw an epic boss in at the end but you'd be wrong. This just seems like a missed opportunity from where I'm at.
13. There is a certain purity of form I admire in FarCry 3: Blood Dragon. Aside from the fact that it's not funny at all, it pretty much is exactly what it's supposed to be: an open world shooter stripped to its basest elements. It's fun, it's stupid and it works.
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