It's always easier to focus on the negative, it's what stays with me after I'm done playing. I do think you've all set a standard for open-world sandbox games. And it's the kind of game I have a hard time pulling away from. So don't take it as I don't love the game so far. But I'll add to it as I spend more time in the game.
The
negative
- The interface breaks the immersion. This is the biggest letdown for me so far. Far Cry 2 raised the bar for immersion possible in a FPS. Everything was done by your character. Rarely were you pulled out from his view. Far Cry 3 has proved to me how important that was for the experience.
- It yanks you out of the jungle immediately whenever you go check the map, crafting, lootsack, things that are done very often. Mostly because of how it pauses the game, mutes all the sounds of the jungle, and plays the same bass-heavy ambient track every time.
- The interface sounds. The sounds are also too... dominant I guess. Woosh and thump. They also play every time a context sensitive option pops up, such as skinning animals, or looting corpses, this is unnecessary and only adds to the feeling that it's a game, the visual is enough.
- It feels clunky on the PC. Sometimes you need to click on an option to make it highlight, other times hovering over is enough. Scrolling doesn't always work either.
- Too much handholding:
- Too many popups on screen. Too often. This is really annoying, the game encourages you to explore, but it's like it keeps telling you every 5 minutes that you should go do the story objective, craft this or that, no matter what you're doing.
- Radio towers revealing everything in the area. Every chest and every relic. It takes out the exploration when you get exact coordinates on every interactable object in the world. Encourage the player to explore, don't spoil the surprise of finding something. A suggestion would be make it so that if you've turned specific legends off on the map screen it also affects the minimap.
- Flashing objects. Especially the flora, makes it all look too gamey. It's fine for tutorials. But once the player has learned an object can be interacted with, it's not needed anymore. As always, an option to turn it off keeps both audiences happy
- No option to turn off all the control reminders. Seasoned players won't need all these "press L-ALT to hold breath", "press C to switch to gunner seat" and so on. The less text that's put on screen the better. Use visual ques instead.
- Day/Night/Weather cycle is way, way too fast. Sometimes I want to sneak around at night. But I can't skip to night, and when it is night, it lasts only what feels like 5 minutes. (Does the time of day and weather actually affect the AI detection and behavior?)
- Clearing areas of pirates is too easy/fast. Others in this forum have suggested giving the pirates the ability to take back a captured checkpoint once in a while. To keep the player from having all these skills, but no one to use them on later in game. I'd in general like to keep the world occupied by pirates in remote areas. I like that towns and such become friendly once you've cleared the nearby checkpoints.
- Combat with soldiers is too easy on the PC. Maybe it's some of the weapons that are too accurate. Even 6 pirates are easily dealt with by veteran PC players. It makes the combat feel over with too soon because I can land lethal hits in no time. Perhaps add more pirates everywhere they are.
- No option to have both keyboard & mouse work seamlessly with a gamepad at the same time. A lot of people like me hate driving vehicles with a keyboard. Many want to pickup their controller when boarding a vehicle. Far Cry 2 had no problem with this, it accepted all inputs available at any time. It enabled me to use the joystick on my Logitech G13 for driving as well as movement. So I got the best of both worlds. I had analog steering, and analog movement, but I retained the pixel precision of mouse aiming. That really adds a lot.
- Being able to see enemies through solid objects once tagged isn't a skill unlock. Some don't like it and are fine with them showing up on the minimap once tagged.
The
positive
- The freedom of play and choice. Dynamic world.
- Beautiful graphics that feels well-optimized. Some sliders for detail fade would be nice though. The way some objects disintegrate as you walk away and approach them is very noticeable when you sit at a desktop monitor
- The hostile fauna. A nice change from always shooting at other bipeds. Keeps the world hostile. Keeps it fun exploring when you never feel safe.
- PC port options are very nice. Especially the FOV option is much appreciated.
- The cover system. Perhaps the best I've tried in a first person shooter. Blindfiring always feels cool.
- Some cool villains. In particular Vaas and Buck. Cool performances in both body language, and the voice work.
- Things like zip-lines, death from above take downs.
- Being able to turn off the radio and headlights in vehicles. Made me very glad. The more choices I have the better. It adds to the immersion.
- The sliding when you walk on steep surfaces is cool. Every game should do this. In other games it feels artificial and more of an area of denial than realism.
- The vehicles are really fun to drive. They slide and drift. I haven't played a game with vehicle physics and handling outside of dedicated driving games. (but they could be even better if I could use a gamepad while driving them, and keyboard while on foot!) I do miss the way you could quickly look to the sides or behind you with the mouse buttons though. That was pretty genius in Far Cry 2, it's hard to recenter the view as fast as is needed when you're driving fullspeed.
I also think it's a shame how the buddy rescue system of Far Cry 2 was completely removed. It kept the story going even when you got yourself into a mess you couldn't get out of alone. Getting dragged out of the combat zone and given a second chance with some backup was a lot better than restoring the latest saved state. And once you've used the buddy rescue, you knew not to take any chances. Far Cry is sort of all about taking those big risks that when successful, makes you feel like an action hero. You're punished severely from failing depending on when your last save was in Far Cry 3.