After Far Cry 2's nihilism, comes Far Cry 3, a story of madness, delusions and clash of ideals. What can we consider normal, what makes us who we are and what it takes to free yourself from the chains that hold you back from salvation? Far Cry 3 asks a lot of questions, packed in an Alice in Wonderland coat. Jason Brody and his friends are stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere when they are kidnapped by pirates. Jason escapes and ventures into the jungle in order to rescue his friends. His journey is full of twists and turns but mostly violence, blood and murder as he destroys everything in his path for a goal that is seemingly important for him.

Far Cry 3's madness and jungle mayhem only lasts for the first section of the game and the adventure quickly halts from it for a rushed finale, that brings closure but only for the player. Jason's half-baked development does not make sense in a way, and his madness and bloodlust is not resolved at all. You can kill in a very violent manner and Jason is very confident when it comes to killing everyone with a machete. Takedowns are violent and ruthless as Jason does not care at all about his enemies. This over the top violence is coded inside Far Cry 3's DNA as the shooting itself is also brutal, responsive and fast.

The reactions to different shots stayed but the injury system is gone, making the kills instantaneous. This is further supported by the variations of takedowns, which can range from simple stabbing to jumping onto an enemy and stabbing him to death. You behave similarly with the animals you can find in the game, which you will need to hunt down in order to get more space for loot, money and basically everything. Hunting down animals is essential and the earlier you do it, the easier the game will be. However, the sacred nature of hunting, conquering the jungle is something that is only sacred in words. In practice, you shoot everything on sight with brutal fashion, creating this world where culture is something that no one practices. In a society where everything is tied to a culture that is on the brink of collapse, what do you truly desire?

This is the main foundation of this game, creating utter chaos where nature is ruthless and rusted killing machines collide with each other in a relentless battle, where pirates are part of the islands ecosystem and mercs are the outsiders. Where order is something that is considered alien, what can someone do who has no aim, no goals in life? You do what others says, without any question. Motivation does not matter. You liberate outposts, climb towers, win races and free yourself from the burden you carried all this way. Everything comes to an end eventually, right?

This is where Far Cry 3 collapses and the brutality becomes tedious, the nothingness of violence becomes a static noise that means nothing. It seemingly works as it communicates with the player how much the protagonist is changed during the adventure but from a gameplay standpoint, the loop is just not exciting anymore. The thrill of the hunt is getting boring and nothing excites you anymore.

The world of Far Cry 3 does not give you the freedom that it promises, it only makes you question what this adventure could have been, instead of enjoying the whole ride. You can see that I am very passionate about the Far Cry franchise as I really like what Ubisoft did with these games. I think every entry is at least good but when it comes to Far Cry 3, it always feels empty to me. The story of Jason is something that only works when you are so focused on the main story that you dismiss the fantasy and madness this game promises to you. I still replay this game, expecting it to change. Something just pulls you in. This was my fourth or fifth playthrough of this game, and still, I always come back to it. The definition of insanity is way too real with this one.

Far Cry 2 is probably the biggest experiment Ubisoft ever did to achieve a game that feels something like a survival-merc sim game. In Far Cry 2, you can select your character but it is essentially a meaningless choice. You can choose from two factions but it is a meaningless choice. You can choose how you approach things but it will always be a bloodbath in the end. You cannot save anyone and anything.

Far Cry 2's nihilism is something that is rarely in videogames nowadays. The hopeless, meaningless nature of the monotonous tasks that you are given truly tire you out in a way a real mercenary would probably get the tired of the same thing over and over again. Not much changes in a middle of a war, just the targets.

In order to view Far Cry 2 as a game, I need to ignore the artistic intention and choices that the devs clearly build the game around, because Far Cry 2 as a game can be very boring when it comes to variety. The game does not provide varied side activities, it does not have meaningful choices and overall, it does not provide stealth options for combat. It has some silenced weapons but most of the objectives require you to blow up things, which instantly ruin the stealth so you need a backup plan.

Weapon merchants provide you with different guns that you need to work for in order to able to buy them. These missions are pretty uninteresting as they are always the same and all of them are really close to the fast travel bus stations, so they are just tedious to do.

What I really liked however is the driving and the different vehicles. Going to one point to an another, switching different vehicles, stopping at a weapon merchant, seeking out an entry point to my objective really made me feel like a mercenary and the atmosphere is without a doubt spot on. The hopeless nature of the combat, how enemies react to shots and how some of them do not die when you shoot them. Some might stand up, and try to move to cover to lay down, some just kneel down and start to use their sidearm in order to protect themselves. You can see that their comrades are even picking them up if they are injured, leaving both of them vulnerable for the player. Speaking of enemies, when you are see two of them hop into a vehicle to chase you, just stop, get out of your car and try to deal with them as soon as possible. If you let them chase you, they will 100% destroy your vehicle and if you exit the car you are in, they just ram into you causing an instant death. If the game decides to really screw you over, 3-4 of these drivers can spawn in and one of them eventually just ram you over if you are not fast enough. The drivers are reckless and pretty much insane.

Even if you cannot use stealth that much, the game provides you with way too many options to cause mayhem. You can burn everything to the ground with a flamethrower and a molotov, you can cause several explosions or you can shoot your targets from afar while using an SMG for close encounters.

Beware, if you use your guns too much, they slowly become dirty and they can malfunction, so be sure to take care of them because they will always jam at the worst possible time. Similarly to your guns, you need to take care of yourself as you are suffering from malaria and you need to take mediciation from time to time. Both of these systems are great and can cause memorable situations, combined with the way the enemies react to you.

Overall, Far Cry 2 is a very memorable game that has a lot of artistic value in it, it is just not that great of a game. It is good, do not get me wrong, but the gameplay was pushed aside in favor for the mechanics and the setting. When it works, it feels like nothing else on the market.

Full of artistic integrity, hazy and dreamlike landscapes, raw and demoralizing combat, and an ultimately nihilistic setting and story, Far Cry 2 in my opinion is the peak of what Ubisoft has given towards the "video games are art" discussion.

FC2 is a violent and brooding game coasting off of the coattails of the ever campy and colorful FarCry. It is a reboot in everything but mechanics and even those are overhauled, tweaked, and re-envisioned into something that only mid-2000's Ubisoft could pull off. Led by Splinter Cell alumni Clint Hocking, the artistic vision of FC2 sees a brutally ravaged unnamed African country through a lens of repenting nihilism. It's one of the few times where I've felt nihilism straight-forward displayed is actively treated maturely and not veering into satire a la GTA or eye-rolling edgy fluff.

The entire game is oppressive and bleak. You are still playing a predator lurking from a distance, yet you are on the same playing field as everyone else. Actually, no you aren't because upon arrival you get hit with Malaria. Playing this game is a struggle while trying to maintain your survival, managing your disease, and keeping your in real life sanity as this game puts you through the wringer. It is no secret that this game uses bull shit to keep you on your knees, but after a while the tricks start to blend into the background. In fact, by the second half of this game, I was more than having fun with the combat and exploration loops, soon nihilism turned absurd and I wasn't paying attention to the story anymore. Just blazing through camps and deepening the messages set by the game.

This isn't without mentioning the environment design itself. Despite taking place in a drab and empty Savannah, Far Cry 2 couldn't be anymore diverse in its individual locations. In the first half of the game you have narrow roads, even narrower rivers, and shanty shacks that fall apart easily. The second half is some of the coolest environment design I've ever seen, with ancient villages and valleys, ransacked facilities, and the murkiest swamp I have ever seen in a shooter. This game's dream like atmosphere helps instill that feeling of loneliness and apathy toward the world as it caves in. As empty as it is (because I know that is a turn off for some people), I wouldn't have it any other way.

This game is a trailblazing hell of a time should you learn to adapt to it, I couldn't recommend it higher enough.

Starts so strong. Truly loved the first few areas, the multitude of approaches to take you to the capital, and the many secrets and nooks to explore.

But it's way, way too long. Everything after the capital could realistically be cut to no detriment. Wish I could go back to before 80 hours in and finding out there's a whole three extra-annoying areas left to go. That's why this is shelved instead of completed. I could play Dark Souls 1 or 2 all day, but this game simply saps all my willpower to play. World TOO open. Bring back the metroid map.

Now I've never like Electronic Arts much. Very few of their games have had much appeal to my taste so when I heard about Dead Space I was pleasantly surprised that they were dipping a toe into a genre I like so much and the end result is one of my all time favorite games.

The story to Dead Space is a fairly simple one, in the future, giant planet cracker ships have been designed to pop the core of planets and take valuable minerals from them and take them back to earth, a modern deep space mining industry. Having lost contact with the USG Ishimura, the biggest ship in her class, a small shuttle with a comms repair crew is sent to find it and repair what ever is wrong, you play the role of a technician called Issac and what you discover.....isn't so easily fixed.

One of the best features of Dead Space's design is that it doesn't use a heads up display. Issac is controlled in 3rd person as he explores around the USG Ishimura and everything is shown though something in the game world. Your health bar is set in sections down the spine of Issac's rig (spacesuit) his ammo for the current gun is shown on a holographic display when aiming. Even his inventory and video / audio files found on the ship come up on a holographic display in front of him as if he is looking at it, giving a much deeper game experience as it takes away a lot of the signs you would subconsciously associate with making it a game.

When in combat Issac aims in an over the shoulder view and R1 fires whichever weapon he has equipped, with some weapon quick change on the fly set to the D-pad. There are about 8 weapons in total found though out the game, most of which are pretty original in themselves as the Ishimura is a mining ship so sci-fi buzz saws, flamethrowers and plasma cutters are standard as opposed to Assault Rifles or traditional guns. Each weapon also has a duel function when pressing R2 while aiming, my favorite being the plasma cutter which was 3 shots in a line that can fire either vertically or horizontally depending on which mode it's in. I found this handy for one of the selling points of the title, dismemberment. The easiest way to kill, or even just slow down the mutated crew of the Ishimura is by shooting off legs, arms and tails. Head and body shots do nothing, and the various weapon functions allow you do do this with pretty gruesome and brutal results.

Aside from that Issac also has some other benefits of it being a sci-fi and has a couple of modules he can equip into the glove of his suit that allow him to make an enemy move in slow motion with stasis or pick up an item like say...an explosive canister and launch it at a group of enemies for utter carnage as well as saving ammo. These abilities are also used in some basic puzzles outside of combat to allow movement around some of the more damaged parts of the ship and have their own little arc power bar on the shoulder of Issacs rig, this has filling up points on walls as well as items that can refill it.

As mentioned above, some of the ship is damaged and to survive Issac has to fix it (He is a technician after all). This often means going out on the side of the ship, or into areas with zero gravity. I have to mention that these parts are really a perfect example of the atmosphere that Dead Space is about. In a vacuum there are only two things that can be heard, Issac's feet walking and even they come through muffled, muted from him feeling it through impact rather then the actual sound and his heart beat, that's it. It's like really being there, amazingly well done and completely absorbing.

Visually Dead Space hits the nail on the head with some amazing atmospheric design and lighting effects leading to a near traumatic playing experience. This game blew me away in 2008. The enemy designs are pretty good as well with the obvious signs of them once being human with torn uniforms and human arms sticking out of an otherwise horrible looking creature. As good as Dead Space looks however, what makes this game really stand out as a horror title is the sound, or in a lot of places lack of it. Maybe some machinery working here and there, or the sound of his footsteps walking on the steel grating all add up to a very suspenseful atmosphere. The balance is really just right, the sound design is really excellent.

My one, and only complaint about Dead Space is that Issac is a silent protagonist. Every other character you meet, and some even that you don't is voice acted brilliantly but Issac's lack of interaction with them really took away some of the realism of the title and took away some of the atmosphere.

The game lasts for about 12 hours with plenty of trophies and a harder setting unlocked to encourage extra play throughs, and with how fun the game is, it's well worth it. If you like horror games or sci-fi then this is a game you should play. I really hope the announced remake captures the essence of what made this game so great.

+ Amazing atmosphere.
+ Unique Weapons.
+ Great use of sound design in places.
+ Genuinely tense at times.
+ Great HUD free design.

- Issac as a silent protagonist breaks immersion.