PixlBit

Basing an entire game around a gag is risky. What if the joke isn’t funny? What if it peters out after the first twenty minutes? So much could go wrong centering a game entirely on a goof. Thankfully, Ubisoft Montreal went all in with their giant farce, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and scored a big win.  By weaving well-crafted jokes into a quality shooter, they’ve created the perfect game for fans of satire and game-bullets that should inspire other devs to cool it on the artsy-fartsy stuff every once in a while.

Set in an ‘80s vision of 2007 after multiple apocalypses and Vietnam War II, Blood Dragon pits your part-cyborg character, Sergeant Rex Power Colt, against a madman who plans to make the ruined future even worse. It’s a ridiculously perfect story, allowing Rex to traipse around an island littered with enemy outposts and future-critters (like cyber sharks) between taking dips into the main story.  A story that encapsulates everything about stupid ‘80s action movies and video games and also pokes a few jabs at modern games, including vanilla Far Cry 3

Where Far Cry 3 forced you to endure a narrative that tried so hard to be so serious and failed gloriously, Blood Dragon provides the same activities without all of that highfalutin coming-of-age flimflam. The missions are set up similarly, allowing you to use several approaches to reach your goal, whether it’s rescuing someone, blowing up a thing, or escaping with your life.  You can typically approach a situation with stealth or balls-to-the-wall shootin’, with a few exceptions.  Some scenarios only allow for one basic approach, but it’s normally due to it being a tightly scripted -- and therefore highly humorous -- bit of the story. 

You can get all of your open-ended fun while exploring the island in between missions. You’ve got an entire landscape filled with enemy outposts to capture and other little side quests to tackle in the post-post-apocalyptic landscape.  Taking over outposts provides you with the option to snipe cyber soldiers from afar, to set blood dragons loose inside the confines to do the dirty work for you, or to carry out any other imaginative scheme you can devise.  In these battles and other little errands you can take on, witnessing the interacting systems of the game world is the most satisfying.

Not only can you unleash a blood dragon on patrolling soldiers, but sneaking around just might catch the eye of a roving future-tiger, slaughtering you in the bushes before you can fire a shot (clever girl).  The world cuts both ways, and that’s what makes it challenging and fun.

The world’s aesthetics took some adjustment since everything takes place under a darkened red sky and not the sun-dappled tropics of Far Cry 3.  At the start, the visuals didn’t get me very interested in just poking around, but each of the quests gave me plenty of reason to explore the environment until I eventually realized I had grown to like the unusual color palette.

There really is quite a bit to do on this little island, although don’t be disappointed that it’s not as expansive as its big brother; this is a downloadable title after all.  I think the amount of content is just about right, though.  There’s going to be a definite wall that the game’s humor hits, which is possibly right after you finish wringing out every bit of content available. (I’m still laughing at plenty of jokes in my post-game exploits). Even if you do enjoy just roaming around without specific tasks, when you kill wildlife or roaming patrols, you’ll earn experience points that level up your character and unlock skills, so there’s reason to walkabout in between missions.

All of the RPG systems involved in upgrading Rex are pretty simplified, with each level increase unlocking specific skills.  There’s no skill tree or character customization to speak of; you just make Rex better and better.  There’s also no time wasted on collecting items like animal hides that need to be crafted or sold, since “pilfering” a slain animal just gives you an automatic payout.  These bare bones systems feel just right in this world where there should be only one way to improve a super soldier: make him more super.

You’ll feel like you’re playing a real badass every time you complete a mission and get treated to a hilarious 16-bit moving tableau or hear the spot-on ‘80s soundtrack jams.  Everything ties together to make you feel just like the worst/best action hero we all loved to watch twenty five years ago. In fact, this is probably the way this sort of game should be approached anyway.  There’s no need to gussy things up and pretend to tell deep morality tales in the midst of slaughtering thousands of soldiers.  We might as well be honest and admit that the shooting-filled mayhem we love in games is born of ‘80s action movie cheese and it should be embraced more often.  No other game embodies these honest sensibilities in a more perfect way than Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. So, flip those faux-art games a cyborg middle finger and go save the world, bub.