Earlier this year, Canadian Online Gamers was invited to Ubisoft Montreal Studios to check out a single player hands off demo of Ubisoft’s Far Cry 3. At the time, the demo introduced us to the game’s main protagonist, Jason Brody, and the game’s twisted, insane, reckless and all around troubled villain, “Voss”. It featured a lush island jungle setting, a shootout by a shipwreck, an underwater sequence, some stealth combat and some trippy “Alice in Wonderland” like sequences. Visually the game was showing a ton of promise, so when I heard Far Cry 3 would be on display at E3 I was curious to see how far along the game had come. Unfortunately, no further details were revealed regarding the single player campaign; however, the team at Ubisoft instead introduced the masses to the games 4-player co-operative aspects and we had a chance to play one of the co-op missions.
Following the steps of some of the other action shooters on the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles, Far Cry 3’s co-op mode has its own set of missions, characters and enemies. It is a departure from the single player as it also has its own plot as well. I have to say this mode does come as a bit of a surprise. The Far Cry franchise has always focused on having a strong single player mode, competitive online multiplayer arena and of course many would argue the map editor put the franchise on the map. So I went into this demo a little skeptical but keeping an open mind as everything Far Cry related to this point looked top notch. Well after some playtime with Far Cry 3’s co-op mode, I hate to say it but I just do not see people rushing out to buy Far Cry 3 for its 4-player co-op mode. This being said, it does have some redeeming qualities and there was some things I enjoyed about it.
After several technical difficulties at my play area which included frozen screens and some re-boots, the 4-player live co-op soon began. Before you jump into a game, you are asked to select your class which is essentially choosing what kind of weaponry you are going to lug around. Whether it a sniper or a fully automatic machine gun you will have the option of choosing a gun to your liking. It appears you will be able to customize your weaponry and it also appears there may be a weapon upgrade system; however, none of those details were released at the time I played the demo.
The map took place on the outskirts of the island and a large bridge was the center piece of the map. You and your team are tasked with blowing up the bridge. To do so, you had to make your way past several of whom I assume to be Voss’ thugs, grab the explosives and plant them on the bridge. As the game began, enemies quickly arrived and a relentless battle of gun fire began. I found myself constantly saving my teammates and in turn my teammates were saving me as I scrambled from one area to the next. It was chaos and did not involve a lot of planning or co-ordination on the part of our team. As I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I noticed my gunfire did feel as smooth as I would have liked. Sure they sounded great but they just did not seem as refined as they could be. Also the enemies seem to scatter about aimlessly. It was absolute chaos and it took me several minutes before I straightened out my bearings.
After about 5-minutes, I finally realized I just needed to hunker down in one area and wait for the enemies to re-spawn and start rushing down the jungle side. Eventually I became much more proficient and started to feel some sense of satisfaction as my teammates planted bombs and I was mowing down enemies. Sure it was fairly simple stuff and nothing was incredibly innovating; however, sometimes less is more. Eventually we managed to blow up the bridge and that was just about it for the demo.
Overall, my time with Far Cry 3’s co-op mode left me with some mixed impressions. While at this point, the 4-player co-op mode feels somewhat tacked-on, there is still likely very much we have yet to see. While the games single player campaign shows so much promise the co-op did little to leave any superb lasting impressions. Perhaps with some more time in the shop, some different maps and different objectives, Far Cry 3’s 4-player co-op could turn out to be brilliant but at this point there is much work to be done.
