The uprising has begun, and you're trapped on an island with the rebel goats.

YouTuber Robbaz used Far Cry 3's editor to create a fictional universe where goats are your primary enemy. It's a silly video, but it's fun to watch the goats fly into the air because of explosions. I would play the hell out of this if it was made into a real DLC where the goats actually attacked you.

You can bet your cookie jar that this won't be the last silly/goofy/crazy video to come out of the editor, but it's certainly the silliest I've seen today.

Far Cry 3 Editor - Escape from Goat Island DLC [YouTube via Reddit]

Ubisoft's tropical action game Far Cry 3 comes out today. It's massive, it's open-world, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. And while it ain't exactly as deep as Skyrim (despite Ubisoft's hilarious marketing slogan: "Like Skyrim with guns!"), it is big enough to warrant some tips.

The game does a good job of setting you loose pretty quickly—get a couple of basic missions under your belt and you'll be off to see Dr. Earnhardt and begin your adventure. Once you've begun, there are a few things you can do (and keep in mind) to make your trip through the Rook Islands more fun and survivable.

First Thing You Do, Go Hunting

After taking down your first outpost, you'll be more or less free to do whatever you want. While one of your first priorities should be to climb some radio towers to unlock more free guns (more on that in a minute), you'll need something in which to store those guns. So, you'll need to get crafting.

Go and hunt deer, goats, and boars in order to expand your loot carrying capacity and ability to hold weapons. Hunt down the three animals you'll need to upgrade your holsters as soon as possible. (Sharks aren't actually that hard, just find a rock outcropping and shoot them when they draw near.) Craft hard at the start, and you'll be much more prepared for the challenges the game throws your way.

Second Thing You Do, Don't Stop Hunting

Even if you're doing some other mission or sidequest, remember that you can always be hunting. You'll need multiples of every type of hide to craft the various types of containers and holsters, so if you see an animal, take it down, especially in the early goings. This is one reason the bow or another silent weapon can be great—you can take down an errant goat, skin it, and go about your business without alerting every bad guy within earshot. Never stop hunting.

Save After Hunting/Crafting

One of the weirdest features in Far Cry 3 is its odd save system. You can't quicksave, and only have one save slot in addition to your game's auto-save. I actually played Far Cry 2 on 360 before I played it on PC, and got used to that game's stringent save system, but still, the fact that you can't save multiple times in Far Cry 3 is pretty annoying.

More annoying still is the fact that the game doesn't autosave after everything you've done—it autosaves after you finish a mission or buy new gear, but not after you've crafted or gathered crafting materials. However, it's possible to offset this annoyance by remembering to save. If you're about to infiltrate an outpost and happen to take down a boar you'd needed, save afterwards and if you die, you should start up again at a checkpoint, but with the stuff you've collected intact.

In other words: When in doubt, save.

Don't Buy Guns

In Far Cry 3, you have two options for obtaining weapons: You can purchase them outright from weapons dealers, or you can unlock them by climbing radio towers. You have no reason to ever buy a gun in the game. Rather, you should make it an early priority to climb five or six towers, at least until you've unlocked the grenade launcher and top LMG.

Money is constantly in scarce supply on the Rook Islands, and is almost always better spent on weapon upgrades than on the weapons themselves. Get the guns for free, pay for the silencers and long-range scopes. And speaking of choosing what to pay for…

Don't Waste All Your Money On Ammo & Armor

Ammo is right expensive in Far Cry 3, and if you're not careful, ammo-refilling stops can become like a tax on your wallet. Remember that you don't have to fill up your ammo all the way, every time—it can feel better to go into a fight with a full stock of ammo, but once you've upgraded your ammo and explosive capacity, you'll have enough bullets and bombs to take on three or four of the story missions. Same goes for body armor—it gets shot off really quickly and doesn't actually keep you alive for that much longer, but it's a $200 tax if you buy it every time you stock up. Most missions that require lots of fighting leave some lying around, so you're almost always better off stocking up on health injections than on armor.

Never stop scavenging and looting, and you can save your money for better things, like the custom weapons that open up as you collect runes.

Space Out The Story Missions

The best parts of Far Cry 3 are the parts where you're taking enemy outposts, exploring nooks and crannies, and climbing radio towers. That said, the story missions are pretty fun, too, and wonderfully varied. The sweet spot the game hits is in the balance, but it's a balance that you can upset if you plow through the story too fast.

At various points in the narrative, the (annoying, unavoidable) notification telling you about the next mission will helpfully suggest you explore the island first, if you want. Take that opportunity! Get into scrapes, try out different weapons, improve your skills.

Think of the story missions almost as super cool, interactive cutscenes to break up all the open-world adventuring you'll be doing.

Circle, Circle, Circle

This one's old hat for Far Cry 2 veterans, but the key for surviving Far Cry 3's often difficult shootouts is to keep moving. Staying put and behind cover as you would in Call of Duty or a similar game will lead to a quick death, particularly if you're up against any molotov berserkers. Instead, stay low, and circle, circle, circle. Pulling back and around can allow you to flank even the most aggressive enemy, and with enough circling and quick thinking, you can take on almost anyone.

Use A Bow

The best weapon in Far Cry 3 is the bow and arrow. This is not opinion, it's just the best weapon. It's silent, it's deadly, it can one-shot most normal enemies, and it can eventually be fitted with fire and ruinously powerful explosive arrows. Get used to the bow early on, and use it religiously. And remember: Once you kill an enemy or animal with it, run over their body to snatch your arrow back. Bonus: You'll save money on ammo later.

Watch Out For Crocodiles

Actually, ignore this one, because no matter how vigilant you are, they WILL GET YOU.

Hoard Green Plants

Green plants are your friends. Some of the other plant types give you syringes that increase your awareness or flame resistance, but they never last that long and I've never gotten much use out of them. But health syringes are worth their weight in gold. As cool as the gnarly healing animations look, they're slow as hell, and if you're under fire from a bunch of dudes, the syringe will save your life when the regular animation would get you killed. Which reminds me...

Never Go In Without Some Health Syringes

It's easy to forget this one, but never go into battle without at least a couple health syringes in your pouch. Health gets chomped down pretty quickly in Far Cry 3, and there's no worse feeling than stumbling behind cover, bleeding out, only to realize that you're a long healing animation away from not being dead.

Loot, Loot, Loot

Since scarcity is such an issue in the game, you'll want to loot every container you find. Develop an eye for those glowing boxes, and everywhere you go, just run by and press "loot" really quick. You'll get a piece of random loot (if you're lucky, a Shark Fetish item!), and some money or ammo. Sometimes, loot boxes will have a few hundred dollars in 'em, so it's always worth checking.

Don't Forget The Easy Ways To Earn Cash

Sure, you can earn money going on assassination and hunting missions, but those take time and can be dangerous. There are also some really easy ways to earn money in Far Cry 3. For starters, each time you activate a radio tower, you'll get a medical supply-run mission—these take under a minute, and are generally very easy. They're also fun—a quick, wild ride down a mountain or over a beach, and you're $200 richer. The sharpshooting competitions and trials of the Rakyat are also an easy way to earn dough—these are also fun, don't take very long, and get you good amounts of cash. Just be sure you've crafted a big enough wallet!

And that's it! Keep that stuff in mind, and you'll be marauding your way from mountain to lagoon in no time. But seriously, and I feel like a broken record here, but: Mind the crocodiles.

Sure, it's a small easter egg—just a logo, nothing major. But still, neat, right? And this is but one of many rumored easter-eggs in Far Cry 3.

Update: One of our readers, Tails89, pointed us to this other Assassin's Creed easter egg—this one mentions pieces of Eden as well as genetic memories.

The last couple of weeks have given us two of the biggest games of the fall, both from Ubisoft. Assassin's Creed III continues the historically focused swashbuckling adventure series, and Far Cry 3 lets players loose on a violent South Pacific island paradise.

Both games feature the number "3" and both games have a second word that begins with "Cr." Both are very ambitious, open-world games that push the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to their limits. And as a result, both games shine brightest on PC.

The PC version of ACIII came out last week, and I've been playing it since then. While it still has most of the problems that left me disappointed with the game, the PC version is certainly an improvement. My PC has an Intel i5 with a GeForce GTX 660Ti, and the game runs pretty smoothly at mostly high settings (I keep anti-aliasing and environmental detail set to "normal").

The biggest difference between the Xbox version and the PC versions of ACIII is smoothness. ACIII runs mostly at 60 frames-per-second for me, slowing to around 40-50 when I'm in open cities. As a result, everything in the game feels more responsive. In a game where the controls are as generally unresponsive as Assassin's Creed, every bit of tightness matters. Even on PC with the settings turned up, Assassins' Creed III isn't a beautiful game—the landscape has a plane-like, hard-edged quality, like everything has been cut out of cardboard and built on a theater set. But Connor himself looks crisp and animates beautifully, and combat on PC is fluid, fast, and enjoyably brutal.

The PC version of Assassin's Creed III is the superior version, though not in some ridiculous way: mainly because it runs more smoothly. It's not a quantum leap, more of a solid port. I should say that I haven't played or seen the Wii U version of ACIII, though I can imagine that moving the map and HUD elements to the gamepad would make the game pretty cool. I'd be surprised, though, if it performed or looked much better than the other two consoles.

The differences between the PC and console versions of Far Cry 3 are much more stark. On console, Far Cry 3 runs with a low framerate, texture pop-in, screen-tearing, and some generally sluggish performance. The game is still fine looking, particularly if you've never seen it running on PC, but as the Xbox or PS3 attempt to render the Rook Islands' hills, valleys, and flora and fauna, you can almost feel the years-old consoles groaning.

On PC, meanwhile, this is one of the best looking games of the year. On my setup, the game runs at a solid 50-60 FPS no matter what I'm doing, with a lengthy draw-distance that has me watching battles on the ground play out as I hang-glide hundreds of feet over-head. It is possible to snipe guys from the top of a mountain several clicks out, and the world-state remains consistent even over very long distances. The only place where the framerate chugs is during the first-person cutscenes, when the hyper-detailed, performance-captured characters come front and center. But, if there's one place where I'm okay with a framerate dip, it's during cutscenes, the one place where my life doesn't depend on performance.

The PC version of Far Cry 3 is also much more adjustable than the PC version of Assassin's Creed III. FC3 offers scads of adjustable options, including some good Directx 11 features like multithreading and several types of ambient occlusion, which remove the weird shadow-like outline that ghosts the characters and items on consoles. It should be possible for just about any modern PC to run Far Cry 3 without a hitch; the team making it clearly care about the PC, and have gone to great lengths to make the PC version the strongest of the three. (The only bummer: Amid all those tweakable options, you can't make Far Cry 3's invasive HUD go away. Why, Ubisoft? Why??)

So: Two big Ubisoft games, two superior PC versions. Assassin's Creed III is a strong port, and while it doesn't take advantage of everything modern PCs can do, it still offers a crisper, smoother experience than consoles. Far Cry 3's PC version offers a markedly superior experience to consoles, and is easily the definitive version of the game.

The only downside to both of these games, then, is that they require the use of Ubisoft's "Uplay" game portal, which is basically Ubisoft's answer to Valve's Steam service. You can still buy the game through Steam, but then you'll have to launch it from Steam, which will open Uplay and you'll have to launch the game again from there. Two types of DRM for the price of one! Or, as is doubtless Ubisoft's plan, you can just buy the game direct from them and bypass Steam entirely.

Uplay is a nuisance, inferior to Steam in every way. It's a pain to examine a game's achievements, I can find no way to track my playtime, and since no one is using the service, it's very difficult to tell which of my friends is playing the game. I've already spent so much time accumulating Steam and Xbox LIVE friends; must I really do this all over again for Uplay? The user-interface is a bummer, and it takes far too many clicks to get to a game. Worst of all, there doesn't appear to be a way to put a shortcut to a game on my sidebar; the shortcut I have just brings up Uplay, where I have to click "play" one more time to launch the game. In the case of Assassin's Creed III, that brings up yet another menu where I choose between single- and multiplayer. Three clicks may not sound like a lot, but in this day and age, it feels like two too many.

I like the idea of Uplay rewards well enough—you earn points for in-game achievements and spend those points on little perks for any of your Ubisoft games, like a gun or an outfit. Unfortunately, most of the rewards aren't that hot, and the single-player mission you can unlock for Far Cry 3 is a random crawl through an underground bunker filled with komodo dragons that eventually gets filled with gas (?) and you have to escape. (??) Plus, Ubisoft left off the best reward of all. To plagarize my own joke from this weekend:

(I mean, seriously.)

But no, there's no way to do this. And if you buy a Uplay game in Steam (including both ACIII and Far Cry 3), starting the game in Steam kicks you over to Uplay, where you have to start it again. Jeez!

While I get why Ubisoft would want to build its own game portal and get out from under Valve's shadow, I'm surprised they've done such a crap job of it. Both of these games, Far Cry 3 in particular, are banner PC releases in a year where Ubisoft has already earned goodwill (or at least, undone bad-will) with PC gamers by relenting from their draconian always-on DRM scheme. Far Cry 3 will be, I suspect, many gamers' first encounter with Uplay, so it's that much more of a shame that it's such a drag to use. Considering that I'm playing both of these games in front of my TV with a controller, the fact that neither one can be accessed using Steam's big-picture mode is a hassle, and makes Ubisoft look one step behind Valve yet again.

That said, an annoying game portal is merely a portal, and both games are very strong on PC. And hey, at least there really isn't any sort of always-on DRM. If you're considering which version of Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3 to pick up, go with the PC. As is usually the case, you'll get more or less the same core game on consoles. But, particularly with Far Cry 3, the PC is the only platform that feels powerful enough to really manhandle these outsized, ambitious games, which makes for a noticeably more enjoyable overall experience.

Except for Uplay. Have I mentioned? I don't care for it.

Hey dude. I think you're taking the whole "party like you're on fire" thing a little too literally here. You're supposed to be dead!

But I guess this amusing glitch is fine too. It makes death a little less depressing, at least.

Far Cry 3 Glitches: We Blame the Drugs [Gameranx]

As a game, Far Cry 3 shines quite brightly. As a story, it's a little bit more of a mixed bag. It has some excellent moments, some fantastic characters, and some really funny writing. It's also dumb when it doesn't need to be, and misses some opportunities to tell a more interesting and subversive story.

Rather than keep on talking about it, I thought I'd show you. The video above is the first 10 or so minutes of the game, and they capture the things that make it great as well as the things that make it dumber than it needed to be.

Obvs, spoilers for the beginning of the game follow. If you want to go in fresh, don't watch or read past here!

So the beginning monologue by Vaas is just out of sight. Great stuff. As I mentioned in my review, Michael Mando gives a magnetic performance, and he's a blast to watch. Here, he's just so menacing and intense—the timing and expressiveness are beyond any games I've played short of Uncharted.

Then, Jason and his brother Grant break out of the prison, which leads to something of a tutorial about the basics of stealth and movement. It's fine, and has some good writing, establishing Jason as a weaker younger brother who doesn't think he has what it takes to survive this. The scene where you watch Vaas dealing with the people who couldn't be ransomed is chilling and intense, and a little bit darkly funny, if you stick around for the whole thing.

And then, after miraculously escaping captivity and death, Grant decides to spread out the map and make a plan. He stops whispering and speaks in his full voice. And then… it's revealed that you're like two feet from the pirates' guard post. What? Then Vaas is standing there, and shoots Grant, and lets you run away. Such a dumb ending to such a great sequence!

As he runs, Jason quickly starts spouting exposition to himself about how he needs to rescue his friends, as if we weren't there twenty seconds ago when he and Grant talked about how Jason wants to rescue their friends.

So: Electric performances, sharp writing, a real sense of dread, killer atmosphere. And then characters do something stupid for no reason other than because the story dictated that one of them needed killing. The good and the bad of Far Cry 3's writing, all in the first ten minutes of the game.

Far Cry 3 features a varied and highly enjoyable arsenal—you'll use all the first-person shooter staples, from silenced sniper rifles to grenade launchers to my favorite, the silent Rambo bow. But as cool as these deadly tools are, the way the game describes them all is just as cool.

Right off the bat, you get a "Handbook" menu that gives you background information on the characters and locations in the game, as well as the flora and fauna of the Rook Islands, and each of the weapons you'll be using to fight your way through them. In a smart move, Far Cry 3 takes a note from Assassins Creed and keeps the entire handbook in the fiction of the game.

Assassin's Creed III's Animus notes were written by the cheeky Brit Shaun, and each one drips with his dry humor, biases, snarky asides and human insight. Similarly, Far Cry 3's handbook was written by a character in the game, though at first it's something of a mystery:

His descriptions of the game's weapons are funny, colorful, and informative.

(Do I want to know what "Bulgarian Beet Thigh" is?)

(Ha! Arizona zinger!)

(Do I detect an FPS Russia shout-out?)

(Throughout the handbook, you will get a distinct feel for the author's feelings about his ex-wife.)

(I enjoyed this one.)

(The fact that this gun is basically a more-powerful AK47 was actually very interesting. I've been using these puppies in video games for ages, and never knew that.)

They paint a picture of an island that has long acted as a waypoint for the drug smugglers and weapons dealers of the world, where surplus guns and bombs wind up falling off the truck to create a unique arms ecosystem. They're often crude, racist, and sexist (particularly towards the writer's ex-wife), but it's all presented in a way that's in character for the guy talking.

A ton of writing went into the handbook; in addition to weapons it also has an entry for every vehicle:

plant:

and animal in the game:

And they're all pretty funny. It's another example of how Far Cry 3 goes above and beyond to fill every nook and cranny with fun stuff to see and do. I love it when games do this kind of thing—The Witcher 2 also had its questlog written by the in-game character Dandelion, which made it actually fun to read through the lore catalogues and story recaps.

You can read my full review of Far Cry 3 here.

Among the many things I like about the wonderful Far Cry 3, one of the most remarkable is how polished it all is. This is an ambitious, massive game, so it's all the more noteworthy that everything works so well.

Ubisoft Montreal has nailed all the big stuff, sure—combat is punchy and fluid, guns feel great, stealth is consistent and fun, and traversal feels grounded and solid. But they've also gotten so many little things right, and it's in those details that Far Cry 3 truly sets itself apart.

Of all things, the climbing encapsulates the game's polish for me. Check out the video above—you're walking along, and you'll see these vines hanging down from a cliff. Obviously, they're a subtle signpost indicating that they can be climbed. Up we go.

But where most games would have you scale the wall while a climbing sound plays, likely skating above the vines, Far Cry 3 goes the extra mile. Jason Brody's hands actually grasp the thickest vine and climb it all the way up. Check out how he flattens his hand when he reaches the top, levering himself up realistically. Then, on the way back down, he braces his legs and slides.

It's in the little things, the believable physicality of Jason's movements, that Far Cry 3 sets itself apart from most shooters. In the past, only Call of Duty games have so realistically placed you within the shoes of your protagonist. I'd argue that Far Cry 3 outdoes even Call of Duty in this respect. Comparisons notwithstanding, it's just nice to play a big-budget game that is both this open-ended and this polished, and Ubisoft's attention to detail is simply one more reason Far Cry 3 is such a resounding success.

Far Cry 3 is a really, really good game. One of the year's best, I'd wager. I've had so much fun with it that I'm playing it again, just for the heck of it, and shooting for 100% completion.

One of my big gripes, however, is the unfortunate amount of screen clutter. The problem is even worse on a second playthrough, when I'm already familiar with the rules, objectives and mechanics.

The game's invasive, pestering heads-up display is one of the most annoying in recent memory. My annoyance is doubtless due in large part to the fact that the game itself is so good, its world so lovely and immersive, that I wish it'd get out of my way. Far Cry 3 is a game that demands to be documented with screenshots, but the invasive HUD stymies every attempt.

Rare is the moment when there isn't some sort of message on screen, either a note nudging you on towards your next story goal, a tutorial for a skill you mastered the first time through, or a tip on how to overcome your current obstacle. All of these are perfectly helpful for some players, but unfortunately, more experienced players can't turn any of them off. Not the tips, the tutorials, the objective reminders and waypoint indicators, or the info-stocked mini-map. (And by now I hope we all know how I feel about mini-maps.)

This image up top is from a hunting mission in the game, and I think it sums up how annoying the HUD can be. Here we've got not one but two text boxes on the left-hand side, as well as the mini-map in the lower-left. Not only that, but you've got to do this mission with an RPG (which on its face is awesome, since you're hunting rabid dogs… with a rocket launcher), so the right side of the screen is filled with a huge weapon.

The result is greatly reduced visibility, a problem that would've been greatly mitigated by giving players the ability to turn off or minimize the HUD in the options menu. Alas, the game allows for none of that. All that's left now is to hold out hope for a patch. Given how deep, unpredictable and flat-out fun Far Cry 3 is, I can see myself playing it for months and even years to come. It's a shame the game will always treat me like a newbie.

For nearly all of its pre-release marketing, Ubisoft has for some reason decided to focus on Far Cry 3's cast and weird stuff like animals. Instead of, you know, the things people like most about those games: free-roaming action.

This 16-minute clip, on the other hand, has almost nothing but, and is of the PC version to boot, so if you kick the video up to 1080p you'll get a look at some grass so nice it makes you want to skip through it in slow-motion.

Kirk reviewed the game earlier today. He thought it was pretty damn good.

Far Cry 3 - Let´s play Special Dr. Earnhardts erster Auftrag / PC [YouTube]