So, A Running Blog. I Like These. They make me feel warm and cozy about life. I started this a while back and Decided to comment on games as I play them. I TAKE FOREVER to play games and I'm cheap when it comes to games so I find myself playing older games on a consistent basis.
It starts out with the overall story base. The main enemy here as far as I can tell at this point, is introduced right off the bat. Vaas. This Story line is not your typical story line. I'm almost half way through the game at this point and I kind of want Vaas to win. I hate the main character that you play as. Jason Brody. He is such a bitch. Now, maybe that's on purpose because he will harden throughout the game. I don't know as of yet. I do know that you find other characters and story arcs as you go through. For instance, Government plots that you need to help move along so you can gain information about your friends. Friends who I must say as a person I hate each and every one of them. So Video games have gotten really good over time and this is just way over active on the writing and reactions. However, there are enough good game play moments to make it tolerable.
here are some fun moments so far.
I was walking through the woods on my way to an enemy base and I hear something. I'm like, is that a Bear, where the hell is this Bear. I look all around. I look beside me, behind me, In front of me and behind me again. Man that bear sounds so close but where is it. Oh Well, Marching on. Boom It's now standing right in front of me. It promptly kills me. Awesome.
I'm just walking along a bank picking flowers. I get grabbed by a Gator, I'm screwed I think. Nope I totally kill it with my Knife.
Enemy bases are the most fun at this juncture in the game (I just saved Oliver). It offers enough challenge for it to be fun, but not so much where it's tedious. Sometimes, I just shoot the cage where animals are being kept and the animal literally kills the entire base and I capture it. The best is when a random animal wonders in and all the enemies run after it. It gives you three or four things when that happens. The opportunity to Mark everyone so you don't have the random guy show up out of nowhere. The animal will always kill at least one of the enemies for you. Typically, if you're fast enough you can run in while their attention is elsewhere and deactivate the alarm. You always want to deactivate the alarm. It's a huge pain in the rear if you don't and they activate it for backup. You might as well kiss the extra XP goodbye if that happens. Spary and Pray people.
Arrow Vs. RPG. Arrow wins every time.
I've gone on a few "Kill" Missions, but no hunting missions. They were fun. I went on one particular one and just set the entire building on fire.
You get to burn a bunch of pot fields. To which your character just gets really high and starts laughing, and a Reggae song takes over your sound and you can't even hear what's around you. As you burn the fields and blow up the boat it gets Hilarious.
Saving Oliver was also a cool mission. I like quick Sniper missions like that. If you're quick enough they go by fast and furious.
Hang Gliding is way more fun than you would think.
Things I don't like. So. Far.
Dogs. Radio Towers(not exactly a challenge so far.), The "Drug" missions where its the lame just push forward and watch, I hate those in video games. %90 of the characters and story line. Driving.
Part 2: Picking up after my first bit of play.
So, I started off picking off a few of the extra play things on the boards. They tend to be a little easier, but I had a really tough time with Glitches during this one. I would be on a hill barely near the camp site and they would all get triggered and run at me.
Then I played some story line, This part you had to infiltrate a boat. It glitched out like crazy. First time out I tried to take a jet ski over and sneak aboard the men aboard heard the jet ski which made it impossible to get onto the boat.
The water had sharks in it. I haven't gotten far enough yet to be able to easily take them out. So swimming wasn't a thing. Then, once I got on board I was quickly dispatched by like three thugs with shotguns.
Reload, because I died. Boom it drops me straight in the water no jet ski. OH NO!!! Sharks!!! I just swim for the ladder man.
Reload, because I died. Maybe the sharks belly is full or it will spawn the Jet ski. No such luck.
Reload, because I died. Swim for it. Made it the ladder, climb aboard right into a pack of angry foes.
Reload, because I died. Screw this, I'm going to reload checkpoint from the menu. Lets try something different. OH MAN!!! there is a hang glider near by. Lets climb that hill and just glide over there. Nope, Invisible wall I drop directly into the middle of three sharks.
Reload, because I died. maybe, I just messed up with the hang glider, I'll try it again.
Reload, because I died. Well that doesn't work at least I'm loading on land. Back to plan A. Jet ski. I ride over get on board. Zero enemies loaded. Maybe the game just felt sorry for me. I'm prowling around. I find the door I'm supposed to open. The enemies drop from the sky and when they land they all die instantly. Well, I guess I'll go loot the bodies. Thanks for not working correctly.
Getting through the inside of the boat was pretty fun. Lots of sheer panic from the enemies as their buddies drop dead right beside them.
You have to swim out of the boat at the end. It was ok, It tried to snare you with panic, but I noticed that your health bar doesn't actually drop under water during this section. Glitch, possibly.
I went through a tunnel maze after this. one part I tried to be stealthy and it just wasn't working so I just went full assault weapon and slaughtered everyone in sight.
Snakes lots of them. Easy to kill, just a minor annoyance. The puzzles could have been figured out by a 3 year old. Then the go to escape right away before you die thing, with no actual urgency behind it. This game tries to get you to move quickly, but it doesn't matter so ultimately any sense of urgency you should be feeling lacks that extra push you need for the adrenaline rush.
Part 3: Third play.
Third sit down with this game. I took the time to hunt and upgrade everything. Did a few Skull Missions and a few hunting missions. The hunting missions are annoying.
Fully upgraded a few things. Unlocked several skill points. Still on the Missions with Buck. I went through quite a few of those fetch missions. I didn't exactly do them too stealthy this time, I'm not sure If I just wanted to hurry up or if I've just at that point where I don't care as much. I did enjoy the mission in the caves/ mines. Basically, there were sticks holding up rocks and if you hit the sticks. Smoosh. Splat. You get the Idea. Funny stuff.
Guess what, Buck Turns on you. Descent triggered button timing Knife fight. I wish it was 4 times as long. It would have been more fun that way.
There was another weird drug induced mission. I hate those.
So, We're Killing Vaas Now. Yeah, like we didn't realize that was going to happen. So there is a trap set up and there is a Cargo shipment the tribe and you are attacking. It's full of Militants who you later find out are just the new harder to trick version of the normal Pirates.
the Truck gets away you chase it down, Boom It's Vaas. Enter the hardest part of the game so far. You're captured, all of stuff is taken. You have to get to the Helicopter quickly. If you're seen a timer starts. I struggled with this. I have to admit I leaned too heavily on the Bow and I'm not as good at being sneaky. I eventually figured out running for it wasn't going to work. So I approached more like an enemy camp and it worked out. I disarmed the alarm and sneaked through.
It meant nothing. So, I get back all my crap. That part wasn't easy either. Then It's time to go after Vaas. I had to restart it, because the first time I jumped off a roof to the outside of the compound, because It told you. "Escape the Compound" and I was like, Ok, I'll just jump out. Nope, It meant through the enemies. Luckily they had some Tigers cages, So I blew up the big gun, Released the tigers and watched as they took out almost all of the AI. A few Silent take downs and onto the Boss fight.
We then get to go to the next Island. There's a timed fire fight in there, but it was entirely too easy.
We get to the new island, meet the new characters. Then another weaponless stealth mission, this one was super difficult. I realized quickly that these AI's are a lot better than the Pirates that preceded them. Utlimately, I got through it all. It took me at least 3 or 4 tries, not quite as many as the stealth to Helicopter thing or the stupid Gimmick filled Vaas Boss fight, but it took me a couple of attempts.
Once through, it tells you. You will blend in with the AI just don't make any weird moves. So I'm like well disarming alarms will be a snap. Fist thing I do when I have the cute little suit on. I go to an enemy base to free it up. I just casually walk right in everyone goes beserk and starts shooting. Then the game tells you. OH BTW this little perk is useless because most areas are restricted and they will attack intruders on sight. So, why exactly did I go through the trouble of stealing the suit?
Well, Time to go through the Island and Climb Radio Towers and Liberate Camps. That's next on the list of things to do.
Play Through 4:
Climbed a bunch of Radio Towers and Liberated a bunch of camps. Well, In two different camps the animals literally did all of the work. Camp one, A Bear. I knocked out the guy with the sniper rifle to give the bear a chance. The bear finished off the entire camp from there. I had to take down the bear. Camp two, A tiger. I hit his cage, he killed everyone but one guy. I hit him in the head with a Sniper bullet. Blue Flag up. Easy.
Other than Towers and Camps I did a few missions. I'm really getting a little too close to the end here. I looked and I only have a handful of missions left. I would like to do some side stuff in the next play through. I'm enjoying the game for the most part so need to enjoy playing it all the way through.
Mission number 2 Blitzkrieg. You basically run into a camp under attack from pirates. They look like Vaas's guys. This uh. Doesn't make since. If Vaas was working for the guy you and the German dude are pretending to work for. Why are Vaas's men attacking the compound. Why bite the hand that feeds you type of thing. I died twice. Why? because it was like 11:30 PM, I ate a lot of food and needed to go to bed. HOYT that's the main bad guy. Well at least so far, I expect a turn. I mean possibly Willis is really the bad guy? Maybe I'm the bad guy? I don't think so. Vaas is alive. This I'm certain of. Even if he doesn't come back in this game, He will show up at some point. I digress. This one is lots of point and shoot quickly, which I admit is normal game play, but it can get your blood moving if you don't pay attention and have too many guys coming at you.
I hit up a few challenges after this. My next play through will be mostly non-story line quick play stuff. Maybe I'll finish up making the islands safe and liberating camps so I can move about a little more freely for the rest of the game. Knock out some hunting challenges and some kill challenges. I might just focus on finding all of the letters as quickly as possible, I finished buying up the maps so I can run around and quickly grab all of that stuff. I'm definitely just going to marking off stuff during the next play through. I would guess two maybe three more plays and this one will be done.
Play Through 5:
So, I did a little bit of the side play stuff and a few missions. I climbed every tower and opened up the map completely. No achievement for that. Bull. I liberated every camp to make the island easier to traverse without randomly getting into fights. I bought the rest of the weapons. I did a few hunting missions. Took down 3 bears with a pistol. The hunter syringes helped out a lot.
I also realized that I had a part of my skill map blocked off because I wasn't reading the fine print. I had to buy 3 Body armors. I thought the point of video games was to get shot the least amount possible so I don't make it habit of even needing them. I ended up doing a few kill challenges to get hit a bunch so I could buy the armor to unlock the skill sets.
Missions were quick and not really that great. My flight or Fight really makes games easier than they intend. The first mission was to get the list of traders for the main man Hoyt. I basically just walked in because I still have the disguise on. Took the picture. Hit the cars with RPG's jumped in the river swam around picked up the list. Triggered an escape timer and tons of Enemies. Wait. A river. I Jump again. Timer still going. Wait another River. Jump again. Wait and Alligator. Killed it. Made it out with the majority of the time left on the clock.
The second mission was just a story line mission. Mostly trigger pulls and listening to ranting. Found out the third brother was still alive. Obviously. I think anyone playing this knew that.
So at this point. I've collected all of the letters, Have all of the weapons (I think, new stuff just randomly pops up), Radio Towers, Camps. It's feeling kind of done. I might string it out a bit. Do some hunting and random stuff. So I might have 3 or 4 playthroughs left just because I'm enjoying it. I definitely won't attempt the Relics or Treasures. I just don't care enough. I think a few hunters missions are in order so I can level everything up. I'll probably do the Knife Kill missions. I don't care about the Challenge of the Rayak or whatever. So I won't be doing those. I tried a few, but don't care enough to do them all. I liked the one I did. It was a sniper rifle one. I didn't even get into the second Tier. Which just reminded me how bad I am at video games in general. I need to play some more Halo 5 and Gears 4 over the holiday. I'll probably finish this up before the end of 2016.
Side note. I was on the way to Liberate a Camp and the game broke. I went straight through the ground and fell forever. If you play video games you've experienced this. Lets be honest. I will say it didn't last long and it reloaded so no harm no foul really. I haven't seen it in a while, but I know my wife experienced it with Batman Arkham Origins a few times.
Play Through 6:
Well, I finished up the Letter Gathering, I thought I was done, but I guess not. I went ahead and did a few more Trials and finished up the Headhunting things. Finished Leveling up. No more skills to gather. Finished with most of the stuff that was available. I think I'm just going to try and finish it up.
From the count in the Journal I have 4 or 5 tasks left and I'm finished. Well, Might as well get started. My first mission is to blow up the Communications station. Looks like I have to work my way up to the tower through the bunker. Well, I think I'm just going to cut to the chase here. I worked my way up by disarming the first alarm I could get to and then I just opened fire on everyone. I didn't really try very hard to be discrete about the whole thing I just opened fire. I love it when a plan comes together.
One notable part when I can around one corner coming through the bunker they kicked some gas tanks down at me that were on fire. It was crazy. I barely got out of the way.
The second section of this was a bit tough at first. It was a duel part deal. One you had to survive and two you had to protect your bomb. I died the first time, Way too many people hitting me at once and I didn't have the lay of the land. So, I didn't know where to to go. Second time through I did some looking around before hand and laid some mines. This helped out quite a bit. I was able to run over to the top of the bunker and use that to defend myself and the bomb until the helicopter arrived. That was an ok mission. Nothing special.
The next mission was to blow up the fuel reserves. I had to restart several times because the AI Sam kept dying over and over. I learned after the first few times to park him out of the way and just run in myself. Lots of heavy armored guys. However, It was rather straight forward.
Next mission was the start of the finale. Time to play some poker. Sam Bites it. Obviously. Then we go into another one of those Dream sequences this game likes so much. The final boss. was an over simplified timed button push. There was some babble there, but nothing of any importance. Then you have a time line to escape and find the Final Brody Bro and get on the escape route. Well. I did my normal screw this and run tactic. Up and over and landed right on a jeep I got in Drove off and was followed with rockets. I jumped the bridge and took the off island approach, I thought it would be less dense. I was wrong. Still tons of AI's. I kind of drove the jeep around the compound and uh... Kind of wrecked it right into the building they were keeping the brother in. So that was easy. Helicopter ride was a bit weird. They did the fun music open fire approach for the ending. I mean I really liked it with the Weed level, but this one was a bit much. I didn't really care for it as much. Honestly these last few levels were some of the worst in the game. So Here is a thing. before you start the mission you get a call from Dennis that spoils the ending. He's like you should forget about your friends and family we are your family now. That one call totally gave away the fact that the Tribe was going to turn on you in the end. Yeah, more drug induced hallucinations. They make you choose the Tribe or your friends. I chose my friends because it felt like the right thing to do.
Anyway, I've finished the game. So... I've Started a few others. I've been playing random stuff online as well.
So, stay tuned for another one at some point.
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