During the Eurogamer Expo I was able to check out the Far Cry 3 demo a couple of times, the demo was PC based and looked amazing. This is the first part of my hands on report.

When I played a little bit of Far Cry 3 during my first day at the Expo I came away with mixed feelings, it seemed to have a lot of potential with the open world and RPG style elements, but that it wasn’t harnessing what it could do properly. That however was a by-product of a limited play test. On the last day of the Expo I had an extended 40 minute session with the game and fell in love with the open world environment. There weren’t any story missions to direct me, just the freedom of the island.

I started the demo in a small fishing village and in order to open up the map and see some of the various things to do I had to climb a radio tower and turn it on. I headed out of the village ignoring the jeep waiting for me and started to climb towards the radio tower. On my way I checked out my weapons, a sub-machine gun, pistol and a bow and arrow. At the radio tower there were some crates to loot before I climbed up and turned it on revealing more of the world to me.

Opening the map I saw an icon for a hang-glider, I knew I had to reach it. I made a bee-line towards it, but while on my way, I accidentally threw a grenade when cresting a hill. (Only because on screen controls prompts were only for the 360 pad, not the keyboard and mouse combo I was using.) My mistakenly thrown explosive fell down onto a road where a few mercenaries were standing around. They weren’t best pleased to be attacked (although by accident) and I found myself in a small firefight. Using my sub-machine gun with nifty optical sight I was able to clear the area and proceed on my way.

Getting into the hang-glider I found myself overlooking the sea with a small outpost to the east. I flew over the outpost and past a few jeeps full of bad guys. A bit further along the coast road I saw a jet ski in the water with a jeep nearby. I intended to use the jet ski to launch a sneaky assault on the outpost but had to get rid of the guys by the jeep first. A few shots and a grenade later and the area was clear, though I was wounded. Here I had to use the 360 pad to heal myself as I didn’t know what the PC prompt was, a quick jab in the arm with a syringe and I was back ready to fight and get on my jet ski.

While bouncing along the water (and bumping into a shark which I will admit scared the life out of me) I saw a shipwreck. This was another chance to explore and one that I didn’t want to miss. I dove down, but unfortunately lead character Jason didn’t have the lung capacity to let me find any of the treasure that was highlighted by the map. Darkness started to surround my vision after too long underwater, and when returning to the surface Jason’s arms were no longer smoothly pulling through the water, they were madly grasping in order to get to the oxygen he needed. It was a small detail, but one that I appreciated.

Returning to my jet ski I proceeded to the beach near the mercenary outpost. I had managed to get there unnoticed and decided to proceed with the silent approach as long as I could. I used my camera to locate the enemies then pulled out my bow launching an arrow at a sniper standing atop a lookout perch. I took him down successfully, and then decided to change things up a bit by using a fire arrow to take down the next guard. Unfortunately I missed him with my first arrow and he noticed the small fire it caused. He investigated and came towards me necessitating the use of guns once more. I took him down and his two buddies and was informed that I had managed to clear out the area without letting anyone activate the alarm point. Success!

Feeling cocky I started to loot any crates I could find to replenish my ammo, but I had forgotten about the jeeps I had seen from the hang-glider patrolling the area. Turning around after picking up some diamonds I saw a mercenary investigating the area around one of his fallen comrades. Luckily neither he nor his buddies knew I was still around which gave me the element of surprise. I neatly picked them off with headshots as they tried to locate me, all the while leaving me impressed that the AI had investigated the area even without any alarms being sounded

With the area safely cleared I approached a notice board to pick up a mission.

The story of my mission will appear in the second part of my hands on report.