6. Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3, at its best, manages to combine its narrative and game mechanics and make the colonial fantasy work. It says “this is what video games do, and you love it!†And it’s not wrong. But halfway through the game, that falls apart. The plot quests force you down increasingly ridiculous and stereotypical paths. The clever hallucinations, the consonance of your character’s bro-ness and your actions as a player, everything that implies that Far Cry 3 knows what it’s doing, that it’s going intentionally over-the-top with video game conventions, all of that falls away the further you get and more straightforward the story gets.
This is Far Cry 3: it’s a game that lays bare all the colonial aspects of all video games. When Far Cry 3 works, it’s a celebration and examination of the power fantasies of gaming, with a sly wink that says “all your favorite games do this, we just admit it.†When it doesn’t work, it demonstrates the soullessness of the enterprise, mindlessly sniping or stabbing faceless virtual enemy after faceless virtual enemy and following the yellow dot on the screen until the stereotype-riddled movies play. Far Cry 3 can be amazing, but that amazingness seems accidental.
