The background:
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is an "expandalone" DLC for Far Cry 3, meaning you don't actually need Far Cry 3 to play it. It was released late April 2013 by Ubisoft, and is based on the Far Cry 3 engine (hence the name). That being said, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a very, very different game from Far Cry 3 in almost every way.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is an "expandalone" DLC for Far Cry 3, meaning you don't actually need Far Cry 3 to play it. It was released late April 2013 by Ubisoft, and is based on the Far Cry 3 engine (hence the name). That being said, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a very, very different game from Far Cry 3 in almost every way.
The plot:
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE STORY BEFORE YOU PLAY THE GAME, DO NOT READ THIS SECTION. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Now that the warnings are out of the way, let's discuss Blood Dragon's complex and convoluted plot: kill stuff. Of course, it's a little more complicated than that, but really, Blood Dragon boils down to simply killing stuff. The story goes a little something like this: You are Rex Powercolt, a Mark IV Cyber Commando sent to stop your old commander, Sloan, from destroying the world. The entire game takes place in the futuristic year of.... 2007. Yes, 2007. But not 2007 as we know it; no, this is 2007 as people in the 80's would have seen it. So... lots of neon, robot soldiers, force fields... the works.
The story kicks off with you and a fellow Mark IV commando, Spider, being dropped into a heavily guarded base in order to stop a nuclear warhead from launching. Things quickly go south (go figure), and Rex barely escapes with his life. Spider, on the other hand... not so lucky. In the process of getting captured and nearly killed, Rex discovers that Sloan, his former commander, is the one behind the nuclear threats; Sloan has been driven mad by the blood of... the Blood Dragons that roam the island (whom I'll explain later). Rex vows to stop him for good ol' Lady Liberty. Yes, it's as cheesy as it sounds. Throughout the process of stopping Sloan, Rex has to blow up bunkers, assassinate key scientists, and recover the only weapon that can possibly stop Sloan - the KillStar.
It's as awesome as it sounds.
There's one more plot element I want to point out, that's not really terribly important to the story, but that I'm still laughing at - near the very end of the story, Rex gets to ride an armored Blood Dragon. Who talks. And shoots lasers from his eyes while yelling IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR. Also, cheesy 80's power metal/inspirational music plays during the entire sequence. That was literally the most amazing thing I've ever experienced in a game to this day. Anyway, moving on.
The story kicks off with you and a fellow Mark IV commando, Spider, being dropped into a heavily guarded base in order to stop a nuclear warhead from launching. Things quickly go south (go figure), and Rex barely escapes with his life. Spider, on the other hand... not so lucky. In the process of getting captured and nearly killed, Rex discovers that Sloan, his former commander, is the one behind the nuclear threats; Sloan has been driven mad by the blood of... the Blood Dragons that roam the island (whom I'll explain later). Rex vows to stop him for good ol' Lady Liberty. Yes, it's as cheesy as it sounds. Throughout the process of stopping Sloan, Rex has to blow up bunkers, assassinate key scientists, and recover the only weapon that can possibly stop Sloan - the KillStar.
It's as awesome as it sounds.
There's one more plot element I want to point out, that's not really terribly important to the story, but that I'm still laughing at - near the very end of the story, Rex gets to ride an armored Blood Dragon. Who talks. And shoots lasers from his eyes while yelling IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR. Also, cheesy 80's power metal/inspirational music plays during the entire sequence. That was literally the most amazing thing I've ever experienced in a game to this day. Anyway, moving on.
SPOILERS END HERE!
The gameplay:
As I mentioned, Blood Dragon is built in the Far Cry 3 engine. Meaning it plays exactly like Far Cry 3, with a few minor differences. There are no skill trees; Rex can level up, but there is a straight level progression that gives you skills at certain levels. Now I didn't mind this, it just meant I could focus more on playing the game, but I could see where it'd be a problem; some people like choices. There are considerably fewer weapons, and the island is only about the size of the second island in FC3 - that's alright too, though, as Blood Dragon is only a quarter of the price.
Stealth returns, and is pretty much the same as Far Cry 3. Crouch, sneak up behind people, and execute them. Chain/grenade/knife (actually cyber shiruken)/gun takedowns are all there. You don't have to use stealth if you don't want to, naturally, except for certain sidequests. Personally, I love the stealth in FC3/Blood Dragon, and I used the hell out of it. Anyway, moving on...
Let's talk weapons. You have your average arsenal to begin with; a pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, bow, grenades, molotovs, mines, and C4, and you acquire 3 other weapons throughout the story that I won't mention here, but I'll say you won't be terribly surprised at 2 of them. Weapon upgrades do make a comeback, but the way you acquire them is considerably different; instead of purchasing them outright, you have to unlock them through various tasks before they become available for purchase. The trade-off here is that you can have many more than 2 weapon upgrades on your guns at any time. Some of the upgrades are standard; semi-automatic action for your sniper rifle, bigger clips, more carrying capacity... but the harder to obtain upgrades are really something great. Laser bullets for your assault rifle, fire rounds and a quadruple barrel for your shotgun, explosive rounds for your rifle, the works. So now that we're talking about unlocking things, let's move on to...
The sidequests! Yes, sidequests are back from FC3, as are outposts (now called garrisons). Let's talk about the garrisons before actually getting into the sidequests. Remember the outposts in Far Cry 3? Those tiny shantytowns with two or three guards in them? Yeah, fuck that. Garrisons in Blood Dragon are these enormous pseudo-castles that are chock full of guards. They're easily one of my favorite parts of Blood Dragon; I had tons of fun clearing out each and every one of them, because they're all somewhat unique. For example, there's an oil rig, a boat, a two-tiered arena style building, and much more. I believe there's 13 in total, but my mind eludes me at this point, and I'm sans-PS3 for the next few days so I can't check. Now, on to the sidequests - every garrison you clear unlocks one or two sidequests, and they're all pretty similar; go here, rescue the hostage, or go here, kill the targets with this gun, or go hunt these animals that are plotting to overthrow the government (I'm not kidding). And while they're all pretty bland for the most part, they're short enough that they don't really feel like a chore. They're also your primary means of unlocking weapon upgrades, except for the special upgrades - those are acquired through collectibles... yes, everyone's dreaded collectibles. Don't worry, they aren't too bad - only four sets in total. 32 TVs for you to find and switch off, 12 VHS tapes (lel) for you to collect, 10 scientists' notes to find, and my personal favorite... you have to find and kill one of each type of animal. Honestly, it's not all that bad; it didn't take me nearly as long as I thought to find everything, and you can buy a couple of maps that will show you the locations of everything.
So, you might be thinking, "'Blood Dragon', what's that about?" And I'll tell you. Fucking Blood Dragons. They are literally dinosaurs with laser eyes. If that doesn't excite you, I don't know what will. LASER DINOSAURS. They're a major part of the game; you can rip out the cyberhearts of your enemies to lure the Blood Dragons to areas, so they can wreak havoc on your enemies. Many squeals of joy were had as I watched a dinosaur blow up my enemies with their laser eyes.
Visually, the game is very... odd, I suppose. There are scanlines present on your screen at all time, simulating an 80's TV screen. There's lots of neon. The cutscenes are done in an almost NES-esque style; they're very 8-bit and cheesy. Honestly, it fits Blood Dragon's style very well. There is no day/night cycle per se; the sky is pretty much red and or purple the whole game. It works though. Another interesting visual effect that I found is that if you look at the horizon for a period of time, you can see nuclear bombs exploding, leaving giant mushroom clouds...it really gives off the feeling that you're in an oppressive nuclear war, cause that's what the future is like.
Audio-wise, the game sounds pretty good. The music makes you feel like you're playing a Sega Genesis sometimes, which I'm down for. The guns all sounds like... guns, as is to be expected. My favorite sounds are the lasers, I think, especially your assault rifle's laser bullets - they make a very distinct PEW PEW sounds that I love. Also, your character is voiced by Michael Biehn, who was in movies such as The Terminator and Aliens. Which is 80's as hell. And amazing.
Audio-wise, the game sounds pretty good. The music makes you feel like you're playing a Sega Genesis sometimes, which I'm down for. The guns all sounds like... guns, as is to be expected. My favorite sounds are the lasers, I think, especially your assault rifle's laser bullets - they make a very distinct PEW PEW sounds that I love. Also, your character is voiced by Michael Biehn, who was in movies such as The Terminator and Aliens. Which is 80's as hell. And amazing.
So now that I've gotten all the important stuff out of the way, I just want to gush about things that I really liked.
- Michael Biehn's one-liners are cheesy, and that makes them amazing.
- Blood Dragons are literally laser dinosaurs. Fuck yeah.
- PEW PEW laser guns.
- When you hit the melee button and there's nothing around to melee, your character just flips the bird at things. So great.
- Another thing that I mentioned in the plot that I can't mention here because SPOILERS!
BUY BLOOD DRAGON. It's only 15 bucks. It's one of the most amazing games I've played this year, maybe only being topped by Bioshock: Infinite. And it's only a quarter of the price. BUY IT. 5/5 stars easily.
No comments:
Post a Comment