WTA2k5 reviewed Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon for the Xbox 360...

...and gave it a 7.0.

Between Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Vice City Stories, Hotline Miami, Scarface: The World Is Yours, and innumerable retro-styled indie games, the 1980s are an era that find themselves heavily mythicized within the realm of video gaming. Perhaps it's because that particular decade was a hugely important time for the games industry, one that solidified the medium's place in culture after a few troubling periods threatened to crash the industry altogether. Or perhaps it's just because 80s pop culture seems so incredibly hokey and fun by today's standards. The overblown action flicks, cheesy, reverb-drench music, and bright, ugly neon colors that have come to define the popular consciousness of 80s entertainment (especially for those of us who weren't around then) is, quite simply, easy to poke fun at. Ubisoft's latest title, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon uses this easy source of laughs to its fullest advantage, elevating a decent shooter to absurd and hysterical heights by embracing and satirizing the now-ridiculous style of a bygone era of media.

But Blood Dragon isn't a good game just because it pokes fun at a cultural period that has already been the butt of many jokes, but because of its own incredibly bombastic nature. It should go without saying that the story of Rex Power Colt, a Mark IV cyber-commando assigned to trek across an irradiated, post-apocalyptic island to find and kill his former commander has absolutely nothing to do with Jason Brody's tropical misadventures from Far Cry 3 proper. Instead of a gritty psychological thriller, we're given a constant succession of hilarious spoofs of action movie tropes, including one of the best-worst montage sequences ever, horribly outdated visions of the future (Blood Dragon is set in the year 2000), and an exceedingly awkward romantic subplot. The sheer audacity of this huge shift in aesthetic, narrative, and tone is as admirable as it is insane, and Ubisoft deserves major props for its willingness to take such a huge risk with a franchise that typically aims for serious, dark drama.

It's a good thing, too, that Blood Dragon's narrative stylings (and mere existence as a commercial product) take the experience to such entertaining heights, because Far Cry 3's core mechanics continue to underwhelm. Though the weapons all feel appropriately weighty and some truly extravagant stealth kills never fail to entertain, numerous flaws keep the game from being consistently fun. Movement continues to feel clunky and rather slow, especially considering how much ground a player needs to cover in order to navigate Blood Dragon's sizable open-world. Aiming also feels off, the default sensitivity seems built for the pinpoint accuracy of mouse aiming rather than the broader movements of an analogue stick, but dipping to much below the standard aim speed results in a sluggish feel. The game's strange compromise between regenerative health and the need for med packs is also frustrating, as it calls for a needlessly persistent mindfulness of whether or not to duck down for a few seconds to regain a bit of life, or gain some real distance from your foes to slog through a lengthy med pack application animation.

Side activities have also lost their luster. Even though they provide some interesting rewards in the form of weapon upgrades, the slew of barebones missions calling for the deaths of a well-guarded human target or a bunch of irradiated animals simply isn't all that engaging, not just because Blood Dragon's mechanics are so unremarkable, but because the game reserves most of its delightfully dumb humor for its more involved campaign missions.

Luckily, the riotous narrative and presentation that embellishes the game's nine campaign missions provides more than enough entertainment to justify Blood Dragon's relatively low asking price. The game sets the tone nicely with its self-aware tutorial that transforms many games' inevitable initial period of treating players like idiots into a sort of art form rather than a frustration; within five minutes you're hit with one gameplay-halting pop-up instruction after another, blatantly restricted from using basic control functions, and even called a "nerd." As strange as it sounds, Blood Dragon's tutorial is one of the best there's ever been.

That glorious meta-cognizance pervades every last bit of this excellent set of missions. Taking a page from Metal Gear's playbook, cutscenes unfold across tiny portion of the screen and are barely animated, and the story they tell - a ridiculous and parodic amalgamation of action movies cliches - is bolstered by the utterly ham-handed acting, most of which coming courtesy of Michael Biehn (of Aliens and Terminator fame). The pounding, reverb-soaked drums and cheesy analog synths that comprise the game's soundtrack yield a similarly effective so-bad-it's-good experience. And though most are too good to spoil, the handful of setpiece moments featured in the game - most of which are centered around the titular laser-shooting dinosaur beasts - are as idiotic as they are awesome.

Though its core mechanics never fully click, the satirical admiration of an older era in entertainment that shines through in Blood Dragon's narrative and presentation is joyous in all its self-aware bombast. At a time when most AAA first-person shooters are devoid of any soul and personality, a game like Blood Dragon - one the provides a distinct and memorable atmosphere - is a welcome breath of fresh air, even if it has to ignore its peers and reach back to the past to inform its vivacious identity.

Get the full article at GameSpot

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