Creative Corner

[center] [img]https://images.launchbox-app.com/f3c7733d-9773-47f3-9a31-6cecd19aafb5.png[/img] [size=4]I'm starting a new playthrough of Far Cry 3 on PS4![/size] I absolutely love the far cry series and never realized 3 was able to play on ps4. That's great, it's my favorite game. Well they've added a [b]Master Difficulty[/b] level and since I'm still pretty bad at games I'm going to keep a record for myself of all my struggles. I enjoy playing games a little differently and trying to get as much as I can out of my silly adventures. I'm going to start to making myself a little counter of all the times I die and how I managed to mess it up that badly. [img]https://imgur.com/O7gJ7O6.png[/img] [font=courier][color=grey][size=6][size=2]PLOT BREAKDOWN[/size][/size][/color][/font] I'd like everyone reading this to enjoy the story I'm messing up just as much as I do so I'll give a little synopsis of the story so far. We are [b]Jason Brody[/b], a party boy from California with little to no experience in international politics, gun handling, or survival skills of any kind. We, along with a handful of our other friends, decide to party it up and get as wasted as we can before going skydiving into unfamiliar territory called the Rook Islands in Indonesia. The moment we land we are captured by pirates and get separated. Our main character Jason awakes in a cage along with his big brother Grant who happens to be the only military trained member of the group. We meet our biggest, baddest ombre Vaas who shows us right away that we're not in Kansas anymore and it's likely we wont be surviving very long at all. With Grant's help we escape in no time at all and he begins to lead our way out of the dangerous outpost full of pirates. [img]https://imgur.com/0GdiKf8.png[/img] As I play along and rack up the death count I'll recount more of the story as it goes on. Lets get to the deaths! [font=courier][color=grey][size=6][size=2]DEATHS[/size][/size][/color][/font] 1. Made a break for it, [i]didn't work.[/i] I decided to test out what I'm dealing with for master difficulty. During the very first mission you're tasked with 'MAKE A BREAK FOR IT' allowing your big brother Grant to lead you to the safety of the woods by crouching through a camp full of baddies. Rediscovering how slow crouching is without any upgrades I opt to test the enemies line of vision by sprinting past them in an attempt to move things along a bit quicker. As it turns out, they're not akin to the T-Rex from Jurassic Park and spot me immediately. Grant could not be more disappointed as he watched his younger brother defy common sense and run directly into enemy fire within the first minute of actual gameplay. [color=darkgrey][size=4][b]Actual Replay Footage[/b][/size][/color] [img]https://imgur.com/qAtz6QR.png[/img] 2. Bare handed and broken As I make my way away from the outpost, Grant having successfully lead his inept younger brother through the peril, I'm immediately on my own as Vaas has shot Grant in the jugular. Despite having the option to hold his wound for him I decide it's better off to let him die faster as the plot didn't need me to be kind to him and I'm slightly jealous of his skills anyway! While Vaas finds it hilarious to let me go so he can send his men to chase me, what ends up chasing me down instead is an angry [b]black bear[/b] whom I completely didn't expect to see during a scripted chase scene. While getting shot, tripping over small ledges, trying to figure out how the map works, and having to break my thumb three separate times to continue running, it was all for not as I end up getting mauled by the bear before reaching the river. 3. The white hand of fate As one could expect after the bear, our next dance with death is handed to us on a silver platter thanks to a white tiger. When we last left off we had just lost our brother and are on the run from Vaas and his men. Somehow we managed to make it into the river and get picked up by our favorite tattooed warrior Dennis Rogers. He's originally a Liberian but spent a good 10 years in America as a marine and a mechanic. Eventually finding America to be less than he hoped for he moved to the Rook Islands where he finds his true calling as a lover and a warrior. He decides that since you escaped from Vaas you're worthy of being given a warrior title and tattoos that grant you magical main character powers. He then hands you a couple hundo $$$ and tells you to start buying yourself some weapons to save your friends. While hunting animals in the wild to craft pouches for more weapons and ammo slots, a white tiger descends from the heavens to remind us that we're not worthy of the main character status just yet. 4. How not to use a molotov I've taken it upon myself to fix all of the radio towers in an effort to get better music on the air. Unfortunately the travel is the most difficult part. Despite unlocking a few new tattoos and a few radio towers being liberated I find myself at odds with almost every living thing on this island. I ventured out to get my revenge on the tiger and won a cool pelt which I will use for boots. I had a run in with a few more buffalo with whom I signed a peace treaty and no longer seek out for battle. During my exploration I managed to run completely out of bullets and resorted to throwing my molotovs at the last remaining enemy. His dead partners shiny new sniper rifle waiting for me on the ground if I won. In haste I decided to throw a bottle at my feet in an attempt to keep the machete wielding pirate at bay. I failed to realize this would burn me to death first. I will take notes: fire bad. 5. A victory stolen I decided to focus on getting more wallet and ammo pouch space so I spent most of my time hunting. I managed to get most of the radio towers unlocked as well for better weapons. Despite my new confidence I still find myself dying too easily. Without making mission progress I'm unable to unlock more defense and health boosts which are necessary on this difficulty. While on my travels I bumped into a good doctor who seems to have discovered one of our friends, [s][b]Liza Snow[/b][/s]. (It's actually [b]Daisy Lee[/b], oops!) She's gotten sick after cutting herself on a toxic plant and the doctor sends me on an errand to grab some mushrooms. These mushrooms have an interesting effect as every far cry game loves to add a tripped out scene in it. Once returning with the medicine our friend Liza appears to be doing better. That's one friend saved! She gets stashed under the doctors house inside a cave where a broken boat is discovered. We decide that while I go rescue my buddies, she'll stay behind and start working on the boat. Despite there being plenty of new boats nearby. Unfortunately right as I decide to take on a nearby outpost I am attacked by dogs just before victory, got spotted, shot, and mauled to death in only a few moments. 6. Death for a cause Now armed with four weapon slots I bring a Sniper Rifle (M-700), a Recurve Bow, an Assault Rifle (MS16), and the Flamethrower. Strangely enough the sniper rifle doesn't appear to have very good range or accuracy. The bow doesn't appear to be powerful enough to take down any enemies. The assault riffle appears to be more of a semi-auto pistol with its little damage and slow firing speed. Being more use to the later far cry games, I assumed the flamethrower would be just as useless as the rest of the weapons but I was [b]dead wrong[/b]. It turns out the flamethrower is the god among weapons in this game, taking down anything from Heavies to Bears with only a single hit. The trade off seems to be that every time you use this weapon, you end up on fire no matter what you do. I managed to die multiple times in quick secession learning how to use it properly at an outpost. I think this may be the turning point I need to get through this game. [img]https://imgur.com/AEX2MuU.png[/img] 7. The price of vanity This has to be my favorite death in my entire Far Cry journey. While tackling more outposts and starting my path of the hunter missions, I discovered a small ocean area full of sea turtles. The colors were gorgeous and I decided to take a screenshot and save it to my PS4. Through a cruel twist of fate, I discovered that the screenshot menu is not a pause menu and while uploading my screenshot to Twitter my character drowned. I would say it was worth it but Far Cry 3 has a blur effect it adds when you're in the water so the screenshot was far too blurry to really enjoy. RIP [img]https://imgur.com/L5XHvWP.png[/img] [size=3][color=grey][b]update[/b] found another turtle [i]yey[/i][/color][/size] [url=https://twitter.com/Wretchin/status/1251663944944517120/photo/1][img]https://imgur.com/fZxBQNa.png[/img][/url] 8. A terrible action movie scene Its been a while since I've died and a lot happened in the story. Much of my time after discovering the power of the flamethrower was spent gaining skill points, unlocking all the radio towers, taking out all the outposts, hunting all the rarest creatures, and even collecting over 30 relics to unlock special weapons. Arsenal evolved, a sense of confidence taking root, I finally return to tackle the main quests. Very quickly I'm captured by our insane big bad Vaas who traps us inside a house to burn to death with our very own girlfriend [b]Liza Snow[/b]. Unfortunately for Vaas, he doesn't realize I've packed at least four vials of flame proof serum and that appears to be all I need to become utterly invincible as I rescue both myself and the girl with no deaths. Bringing her back to cave I left Daisy, I return on my next mission to track down and recover [b]Oliver Carswell[/b]. According to the official character information in the game, Oliver happens to be very, very rich and I figure I can get a handsome reward for my efforts. This proves to be a very difficult undertaking on master difficulty as I'm forced to use our escape boats machine gun to take on other machine guns, rocket launchers, and helicopters that all try their best to end our journey. I died a great many times attempting this and eventually became a master at mounted machine gun aimery. Enjoy your freedom Oliver, it'll cost you. 8. The unending torture that is Willis Huntley. Our next friend in need of rescuing is [b]Keith Ramsey[/b] who was sold to a complete piece of garbage named Buck. In exchange for Keith's life, we are to bring Buck an old knife probably worth more than the entirety of Rook Island itself. After a good few cave missions and a boat mission with in game references to Indiana Jones, we recover the knife and go to exchange it for Keith. I can't say anything deeper on the situation with Keith and Buck and it's better you don't google it. Buck ends up getting too greedy and attempts to backstab us with the knife we got for him and we turn the tables and Buck ends up dead. This leaves us with both Keith and the knife. Keith tells us he wants to leave [b]asap[/b] which I can't blame him. He also tells us that our brother Riley is dead, aka leaving Jason Brody as the only brother left. (rip grant) Realizing the horrible impact of what Vaas has done to us, we decide to stay on the island to get revenge even if our friends were to leave on the escape boat without us. Meanwhile we manage to befriend a CIA agent named [b]Willis Huntley[/b] who has been gathering information on the mainest of main bad guys in this game, Hoyt. I believe he is the boss of Vaas, who is the boss of the pirates. As it turns out, Willis says nobody can stop Hoyt and opts to leave the island, giving us the opportunity to ride with him and get parachuted into Hoyt's private island which we were not given access to previously. In exchange for this favor however, we have to fend off waves of pirates as he tries to fix his plane. We're so utterly overwhelmed by the insane amount of pirates that I end up dying the absolute most I ever have in this game to date. It was so taxing that I even needed to take a break and sleep after the ordeal was over. Not only do you need to stay alive, which 3 shots means death, you also need to keep Willis alive and keep the plane from blowing up. Though I died many times, Willis was the one that kept me from victory the most. Being unable to change your weapons to better crowd control ones also kept me from winning easily. Having only the bow, a flamethrower, and mines was absolutely disgusting. [font=courier][color=darkgrey][size=6][size=2]- - - PAUSE - - -[/size][/size][/color][/font] Now I need to pause here to say [b]oh my goodness[/b] the amount of glitches in this game is absolutely insane. I've run into so many at this point and though most of them are hilarious and harmless, some have caused me to have redo missions. I will try to get videos of each glitch I come across because they're really interesting. [font=courier][size=5]Some of the glitches:[/size][/font][/center] • Random bouts of lag and the occasional freezing completely, prompting a restart • A cassowary stuck in its walking animation makes it look like it's dancing [url=https://twitter.com/Wretchin/status/1253113021221634048](video)[/url] • Jumping into the perfect spot of an acid pool causes us to remain in a dying state permanently without being able to move out of the pool [url=https://twitter.com/Wretchin/status/1252122201030971392](video)[/url] • The waterfall effect that splashes your camera continues despite no water being around [url=https://twitter.com/Wretchin/status/1252449545218191360](video)[/url] • Vaas has a cutscene that seems to fastforward insanely fast [url=https://twitter.com/Wretchin/status/1252448516099543041](video)[/url] • Two bows are shown on screen at the same time in our hands [url=https://twitter.com/Wretchin/status/1253111057251315712](video)[/url] [center][img]https://imgur.com/1BSxu4W.png[/center] [center] [font=courier][color=grey][size=6][size=2]- - - - - -[/size][/size][/color][/font] 9. A whole new world I may be getting a bit of the timelines mixed up but having to do multiple missions for different people at the same time ended up getting a bit confusing. We end up meeting Citra, sister of Vaas, the leader of the resistance group that originally lived on the Rook Islands. She ends up getting her hands on the knife that Buck originally wanted and in exchange turns us into an 'official warrior' by giving us poison that ends with us having to fight a god during a hallucination. As trippy as it was, it somehow prepared us to take on Vaas, who's compound we break into and we inevitably burn it to the ground with Vaas dead inside. Once getting a nice ride to Hoyt's island thanks to Willis, we make our way towards a place called Thurston Town which up until this point I've been calling Thursday Town. Here we meet with an undercover CIA buddy of Willis who tells us we need to dress up in Hoyt's militia gear to go undercover. Unlike the pirates who sport a flashy red outfit, Hoyt's soldiers wear yellow. While on my way to commandeer one of these pretty suits, I end up learning that there's entire weapon classes we've never seen before on this island. Running into a small group of the yellow baddies we get taken out with a single sniper shot. Looks like we're going to need to be a lot more careful on this final island.

[center] [img]https://imgur.com/O7gJ7O6.png[/img] [font=courier][color=grey][size=6][size=2]ZERO DEATH MISSIONS[/size][/size][/color][/font] [size=2][color=grey][rating the difficulty from [b]1-5[/b] skulls][/color][/size] [size=4]- Harvest The Jungle [ [emoji=skull size=1][emoji=skull size=1] ][/size] In this mission we're tasked with taking down some [b]boar[/b] with the starter pistol and collecting some plants of various colors. The plants and the boar are an easy task however I find it's more fun to pick on other wildlife while traveling to the hunting grounds. Along my travels I end up wasting about half my ammo trying to hunt deer and eventually decide to give up on it. I found on this master difficulty that animals have an insane amount of health. I dumped many shots into the face of a buffalo and he didn't care. I almost had to make that my third death in this series but I pulled off a win by mag dumping my remaining bullets in total panic. I can tell hunting in this game is going to be one of the toughest challenges. [size=4]- Secure the Outpost [ [emoji=skull size=1] ][/size] In this mission we're tasked with taking on our first [b]outpost[/b] armed with only our starter pistol. Typically I prefer to go into things quiet and if it ends loudly then so be it. I managed to grab my first silent takedown but the dog roaming about spooked me and I opted to open to fire so he wouldn't give away my position. This ended up giving away my position and I took the rest out with a pistol and an assault rifle I took from one of the pirates. Listening to them bicker and talk about how this pirate life wasn't the one they were hoping for makes me wonder what pirate life they were expecting. The world may never know.

[center] [img]https://imgur.com/O7gJ7O6.png[/img] [font=courier][color=grey][size=6][size=2]PATH OF HUNTER MISSIONS[/size][/size][/color][/font] [size=4]- Bow Hunt: Leopards[/size] I decided since I tend to die so frequently to animals and it's not necessarily part of the main story to do the Path of the Hunter missions I'll put them in a separate post. Man was this one a challenge. I'm use to using a bow but the master difficulty means I can take at most three hits before dying and leopards are so fast they will kill you if they reach you. I died three times before finally snagging a win. Sadly the only way I managed a win was by standing on top of a structure that they couldn't reach and picking them off slowly. It only takes 3-4 arrows to down them but once they're hit they take off running and I need to bait them to come back by stepping off the ledge. This proved tricky since they run back immediately and if I can't get back on the ledge in time they will end up killing me. Overall not the hardest hunter quest but it's my first and it makes me wonder why I like to punish myself with hard difficulties. [size=4]- Bow Hunt: Black Panther[/size] I opted to hop on a rock like the last hunt to try and take this black panther down. I'm unsure of how many hits it took before going down by I managed to get killed once when I discovered the rock I was standing on was one the black panther could access. Turns out he's a one hit kill! Who would have guessed? Either way on my second try I managed to grab a good rock to stand on and lure out the panther by throwing pebbles nearby. Just as I managed to grab my victory pelt I was ambushed by a leopard and was not given a prompt to get the leopard to stop attacking. I figured this must have been some kind of glitch as this leopard managed to kill me in the button mash cutscene with ease. Either way I had already taken the black panther down and despite dying I didn't have to redo the hunt. Looks like I'm getting better at.. is it cheating? Or maybe just using the environment to my advantage? I'll let you decide. [size=4]- Bow Hunt: Goldentiger[/size] Now a master of troll hunting, I immediately hunkered down on top of a building and used pebbles to lure out the golden tiger. Not a single death this time as I knew it would likely be instant death if I were to jump off the roof. Once I downed the golden tiger I had to down another tiger to be able to get my trophy pelt. With that I was able to craft the final ammo pouch which is great because I really needed it. Hopefully that's all the bow hunts I need to do, lets get some flamethrower hunts! [size=4]- Bow Hunt: Blood Komodo[/size] Same song and dance, lured this bad boy in with some pebbles and stood on a house to take him down. Super fast hunt, four arrows to take down. [size=4]- Rifle Hunt: Deer[/size] Probably the easiest of all the hunts so far. Tasked with hunting 5 deer that never attack is child's play with the hunter instinct injection. Just as fast and easy as the komodo hunt. [size=4]- Bow Hunt: Maneater Shark[/size] Well I definitely didn't like this hunt. Sharks and the ocean are actually a nice little fear of mine. I snagged myself a boat and sailed my way to the middle of the ocean to hunt down a shark specifically known for eating people. Lucky me! I tagged a great number of sharks and spent the better part of the day shooting each one with arrows until the big boy finally sank in defeat. Unfortunately for me you have to dive into the water to get your trophy which lead to multiple shark attacks that may or may not have made me screech like a small child. Nevertheless, the shark was no more. [size=4]- Shotgun Hunt: One Horn Buffalo[/size] This quest was actually very easy. Guess what I discovered along my trails? There's actually a serum you can take that increases your damage to animals! It now takes a max of two hits to take a big enemy down! I was completely thrilled with this discovery and the very first buffalo I ran into happened to be the One Horn. Leaving him with no horns and no options, I take my trophy and book it to the next hunter quest. [size=4]- Shotgun Hunt: Undying Bear[/size] I had very bad memories of this quest when I had first played through far cry 3. this boy was tough and his ancient ancestor the Great Scar Bear also through me for many loops. Expecting a tough fight, I was actually surprised to find even the Undying Bear only lasted two shots with the enhanced serum. Another hunt complete! [size=4]- Machete Hunt: Albino Crocodile[/size] Well this boy was certainly gorgeous. I've always had a soft spot for crocodiles because of how gorgeous they look, especially their wonderful skeletal shape. Going from the usual green boys to a white one with neat tribal patterns really blew my mind. The only way to fight a crocodile with a machete is to jump right in and wrestle with them so I got an up close look. They remind me of the brilliant sheen of the white crocs in Far Cry New Dawn. Really cool stuff, 10/10 would hunt again. [size=4]- Bow Hunt: Komodo Dragons[/size] The backstory to this quest is what really stood out to me. Komodo dragons had killed someone's pet cat? You're done, dragon. You've gone too far. [img]https://imgur.com/qOW2BwT.png[/img] [size=2][b]This hunter is fresh out of mercy.[/b][/size] [size=4]Remaining Hunts[/size] The rest of the hunts didn't particularly prove any sort of challenge. I was faced with a Cassowary, a Tapir, and a pack of dogs. None of them gave me a run for my money even without the serum. I managed to complete all the hunter quests and earn myself the final upgrades to all my weapon pouches! I'm ready to actually start doing the main story quests!

My personal thoughts so far on Far Cry 3 on master difficulty is that the plot as I remember is very good. The pacing, it's great. The bad guys, very interesting. Maybe not Hoyt as much as Vaas but I digress.

However, there's a point where challenge provides the opportunity for a game to feel more fun and more rewarding to win. This level of difficulty takes that a step further and makes things feel significantly more frustrating and thus robbing of the reward feeling.

Also I see where this game has improved from 2 but certainly lacks were 4 made improvements. The fall damage in this game is ridiculous, mountains have taken me out the most and I'm not even being that risky about it like I tend to do in the later games. One small jump can and will lead to death and that gets really frustrating when you've been trying to focus on exploration. They fix this a lot in 4, taking away as much fall damage and adding the grappling hook so you're not stuck by the presence of a mountain every time.

I'd say I'd enjoy this game a lot more on just a slightly lower difficulty but I really love making things hard for me at least for one playthrough. I'm having fun with it!