“Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?”

This is a question posed by the obviously insane Voss, one of the key antagonists you, as Jason Brody, will be up against in the next installment in Ubisoft’s Far Cry series; this being a return to the series’ roots on a lush, tropical island.

AusGamers was invited as the only Aussie press to a special preview event for the game prior to E3, or even Ubisoft’s pre-E3 press event, where the game’s producer, Dan Hay, took us through a very small portion of the game.

“So here’s what you need to know,” he tells us. “You are Jason Brody. Your girlfriend’s missing, your boat’s been destroyed, and you’re on a mysterious island hiding a dark secret, and where everyone on it, is insane.”



The opening to this demo sees said protagonist, Brody, passing a downed plane entwined in the jungle’s all-encompassing grip. There’s a plethora of plant-life around, while sun-rays do a photosynthetic dance with with the jungle canopy, fighting to warm the dirt beneath Brody’s feet. From a visual stand-point, this is on-par with the wow-factor we had the first time you saw Crytek’s Far Cry, only aged like a fine wine. There’s more body to the game’s already rich flavour, and a virtual bouquet you can almost smell, just by looking at it.

Brody slides down an embankment and the camera quickly snaps to his desperate legs and feet seeking foot-hold in the first-person, a factor that will come into play shortly as the ultimate point of immersion, but before then, as he comes to a halt we’re presented with a stunning vista, as far as the eye can see. Unfortunately, using binoculars, Brody, seeing furtherthat the eye can see is privy to a handful of human atrocities before his very eyes, as the lawlessness of the island is made apparent at the beating of one captor, and the shooting in the head of another, by what can only be described as “The Baddies”. Brody reacts to all of this as a fully voiced character, though his view-point remains in the first person, making the rifle butt that strikes him in the face all the more engaging.

It’s when he awakens we’re finally introduced to Voss, the guy I quoted at the beginning of this demo, who asks that very question. And he is crazy; you can see it in his eyes - like he hasn’t slept for months or even days. Brody’s hands are bound and an on-screen prompt appears offering you a chance to tap “A” to break free of your bonds. (Don’t stress, the demo was still being presented from PC, they were just using a game-pad.



Voss rants, and rants. Breaking his cool through tone alone, keeping you, the player, utterly on edge throughout the introduction. A quick glance down near where his feet are though, and you can see your fate is sealed around a boulder, attached to the bindings on your wrists. If the situation was intense before, it’s about to get deep, and this is only confirmed in greater totality as another victim not far from you is equally pushed, boulder in-hand, to his demise in what Dan Hay refers to as “The Pitt”.

It’s done, Voss pushes the boulder over the edge and you slide in, feet first, so your last glimpse before entering the cold depths of the water below is Voss. He’s standing there, clearly without a care in the world as you splash to certain death and sink to the bottom. The scene is gripping; made all the more intense by Brody’s desperate sounds deep in the back of his throat as he struggles against his bindings and the desire to open his mouth for air. Around you are the other victims to this cruel fate, still tied to their makeshift bouldered tombstones; they float like ceremonial balloons to the insanity, and cruelty of Voss and this mysterious island.

Again, the player is prompted to struggle against Brody’s bindings, and for the purpose of this demo (and extended life), he breaks free and swims desperately to the surface.

No one else makes it though, and you’re forced to follow an underground opening that leads to a gushing waterfall. The water shallows here, but this allows Brody to crouch into a stealth mode, and use the waterfall as cover to successfully take-down the soldier without alerting anyone. This also affords the escaped player a chance to arm themselves with an AK-47 and collect some loot from the victim. I also noticed XP as the take-down took place, leading me to believe we’re going to see either a light RPG component to single-player, or points to spend in multiplayer, but the guys were tight-lipped about this.



Looking around, the sheer beauty of the place, in pure juxtaposition to the last few minutes of your life, is breathtaking (or maybe not so juxtaposed). There are ruins scattered about screaming for exploration, but a gunshot heard just ahead is more alarming, and Brody pushes on, claiming a machete protruding from the chest of a dead person before he peers into a small clearing to see a host of armed guards. But, instead of running in guns blazing, our player takes a secondary route to recon the area. From up on high there’re a lot more enemies to face than initially thought, and also a sniper rifle sitting perfectly in place. Using the scope to get a better look at events, Brody chooses the nicely placed floating explosive barrel under a bridge as his equally explosive entry to a good old fire-fight and things kick off with a bang.

With his location known, and a chopper he could desperately use just off in the distance, Brody uses a grappling hook attached to his wrist to ride a zip-line down to the shoddy enemy structures below, taking out the enemy with his pistol in one hand along the way. Reactively, the bad-guy AI looked much better here than in the previous game, and Brody clearly has a lot more of the environment to use to his advantage beyond long grass.

Eventually after a sprint and a few duck and cover fire-fights (replete with what appeared to be active sticky cover and the ability to blind-fire), Brody dives into the chopper, steals the pilots gun and points it to his head demanding he take off. Meanwhile, outside, the enemy is surrounding the bird, leaving Brody no choice but to pot-shot at them as he escapes. But, an RPG later and the chopper is struck and falls to a spectacular heap in a crash that puts current shooters to shame. Coming to, Brody crawls his way to the edge of wreckage where he’s greeted by Voss who asks “did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?”.

Demo over.



We have an interview with Dan Hay going up today as well, so stay tuned for the skinny on that. But in all honesty, we walked out of this short introduction to Far Cry 3 very excited. It looks to be taking the game back to its roots, but with more character and more flair. The island is apparently huge, and open, to boot. It’ll be interesting to see more on how the looting system helps (along the way Brody picked up random items, like Ivory or other trinkets and treasure), as well as XP. From first glance, it would seem more in line with what Crytek just dished out with Crysis 2, and really, that’s okay with us.

More is definitely revealed in our interview, which has snippets from the demo mentioned above, but anyone who was hoping this series would re-emerge triumphantly, so far, it’s looking very promising indeed.