Far+Cry+3


 * Far Cry 3 **

__**Description**__**:** The game starts out as a group of college age people on a trip together to a tropical island. They all go sky-diving and the next thing you know, you are captured with one friend by a group of crazy locals. You (Jason) are with a friend named Grant. Your first mission is to escape by following Grant as he teaches you how to use the controls to do basic things. Grant is soon killed and you are left to run on your own. Eventually you meet a friend named Dennis who offers more information for you and gets you on your way.

This is a first person shooter game where you have no control over which character you play or what the character is like. The setting is a tropical island full of trees and other foliage. The graphics in this game are amazing. This is kind of the eye candy that makes you want to explore the island. Your job is to save your friends but along the way you find all kinds of things from money gold, drugs, and other things which you can keep or sell at the store to get money. the money allows you to purchase other weapons and more ammo.

If you take a moment to watch the short video below you can see the type of graphics this game has.

media type="youtube" key="kb5pXSN_BSI?list=PL4B40C312573F5F80" width="560" height="315" align="center"


 * The Learning Involved: ** I learned right away that I needed to read all of the text in the first part of the game so that I knew exactly how to use the controls. The game originally guided me through a small mission or a tutorial to teach me how to use the controls and to get a little practice. I needed some basic controller skills to be successful and without having those, I became frustrated. I needed to be able to multitask and know when to hold a key or simply just click it quickly. I did not make it far enough in the game to know any of the terminology. There is quite a bit of bad language in this game but it is rated "M".


 * __ Kinds of Teaching Involved __**** : ** The game taught through a few different principles. The active, critical learning principal made it so the player had to be active in the game and not passive. When I started, I tried to just ignore the pop-up text that helped me to become familiar with the controls. By doing so, I continued to die over and over again. This forced me to stop and actually take an active role with the game. No matter where you are in the game there are no places where you can just sit back and watch, you must participate always. The practice principle gives lost of practice using the skills and controls. If I did not use them correctly or quickly enough, I got more practice by dying and restarting where I had been before. The committed learning principle gave opportunities for lots of effort and practice. Right as you begin the game, you feel as if you are in this game and are always learning and getting better at the skills. As a first person shooter game, I am guessing that this feeling as though I am really in the game is part of the draw to play it. The pacing of the information was “just in time” when I needed it. I did not get a lot of front loaded information but instead would receive it right before I needed it. Example: when I needed to know how to get the animal skins I needed or how to get in and drive the car. For me, this made it so much easier than learning it our of context. I made me think of the science James Paule Gee talks about. He stated that it is harder to learn the terminology if you aren’t doing “hands on learning.”


 * __ Kinds of sites __** : This game was released in Sept. 2012 so there a not a lot of sites offering cheat codes and walkthroughs. I did find some and here are examples of each.


 * http://www.cheatcc.com/ps3/farcry3cheatscodes.html
 * http://blog.games.com/2012/12/12/far-cry-3-complete-walkthrough/

The first is a cheat code site that gives information I am not sure what to do with. I am guessing that at some point in the game you can put in the coordinates and give you an easier game. The second is a walk through with step by step instructions including images. I think someone as new as I am to the games, could get pretty far using these rules or cheats. The most discussed sites around this game showed more like trailers or clips from the game. There were a couple sites with walkthroughs but I did not look far enough to tell whether they took you just through the beginning or all the way to finishing the game.


 * __My Overall Reflection:__** I hoped that this would be a game I could connect with and play occasionally. I was wrong. I did not enjoy playing the game but I did enjoy watching it. As I sat watching a “gamer” play it, I quickly realized that I was missing a lot of basic knowledge and skill that I needed in order to be successful at this game. After a few minutes, I realized that I enjoyed watching someone explore and play the game without dying and becoming frustrated. He /She made it look so easy that I got pulled in and enjoyed watching the game itself. I found myself directing where to go and what to pick up along the way.