Far Cry 3: 10 Reasons Why It's Awesome

9. Amazing Graphics

Ah, Rook Island. With its larger than life, almost comic book-esque visuals, anyone would want to go there for real, at least until you see the crazy psychopaths who live there, anyway. Exploring the sumptuously rendered island is a joy, hand-gliding along the horizon as gun-fights break out below you. It's a breathlessly exhilarating experience, and leaps and bounds ahead of what Ubisoft served up in the previous games. What's clearly most-improved environmentally is the lighting effects; burning down a crop field or going to town on trees with your trusty flamethrower produces some of the most realistic fire effects yet seen in a game, and given how difficult it is to render the element above all others, this is a mighty feat indeed. Characters are also created with a far greater realism than before, important given how much more the focus is on it this time; Vaas in particular has his violent menace cemented by the exuberant quality of his facial animations, with lip-sync and fully emotive eyes enhancing the gritty authenticity of it all.
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.