This article may contain big, sweaty *spoilers* for both Bioshock: Infinite and Far Cry 3, but you knew that already, right?

Discussion over Bioshock: Infinite is currently estimated at taking up around sixteen percent of the entire internets. Nick Rueben gives five reasons why we should still be talking about Far Cry 3.

1. Did I ever tell you the definition of Ludonarrative dissonance?

No? Well, here’s the Wikipedia page anyway. Basically, ‘Ludonarrative dissonance’ is a term that gets used by your industry critic types when a character’s actions in a game don’t really make sense with the personality the game is trying to establish. A good example is the amount of killing the supposedly tentative Lara Croft does in the new Tomb Raider reboot, or if Super Mario Bros suddenly turned into a resource management game in which you had to pimp out Princess Peach the moment you’d rescued her.

Other writers have drawn attention to it, but while Infinite was a lot of fun to play, the body count you’d built up by the end felt at odds with what was essentially a tale of personal redemption. This was pretty unavoidable considering the game was a first person shooter, but Infinite draws attention to itself by aiming to transcend the genre, and can’t quite work out whether it wants to be commentary or entertainment. On the other hand, Far Cry 3 managed to take the same violence as its central mechanic, and actually weave it into its narrative. The whole story is effectively about Jason becoming desensitised to his own horrific actions, and eventually enjoying them in the same way we do as gamers. Kinda handy for an FPS, dontcha think? Which leads us to…

2. Jason has a character arc, Booker just switches targets.

Booker kills some Native Americans. Booker feels bad about killing Native Americans. So Booker kills some floating fascists instead. You could probably argue that one group is more deserving of having their heads popped like piñatas than the other, but you get the sense that, for DeWitt, this whole Schrödinger’s slaughter-fest is just another day in the monochrome office. In Far Cry 3, rather than having people shout at us for being a killer over an intercom and expecting us to feel bad about it, we get to play through Jason’s descent, and thus get a real  sense of the impact his actions are having on his character and psyche.

Also, while Booker doesn’t look like the sort of guy you’d trust with your child for five minutes in case he’d swap it for a six-pack and a lottery ticket, Jason looks like J.D from Scrubs with a toy assault rifle. It’s made clear quite early in Infinite that Booker is a haunted man with little to lose. Brody, whilst a little directionless, is set up for a life of privilege. The point is, apart from having slightly fatter pockets than your average twenty-five year old, Jason Brody is entirely that: completely average, and also kind of dorky, and this is what makes his transformation so compelling to experience.

“Hey Turk, guess who showed Eliot his big gun last night! Let’s celebrate by crying over some poignant indie rock together in a totally hetero way.”

3. Far Cry 3’s gameplay aids immersion, Bioshock: Infinite constantly reminds you that you’re playing a game.

Ok, so they’ve both got those stupid fucking weapon vending machines. Can’t we all just agree by now to let the merchant from Resident Evil 4 make a cameo in every game and be done with it? But whilst Infinite’s set pieces come across like distractions between chunks of exposition, Far Cry 3 allows you to mimic Jason’s journey perfectly with every moment you play. As you learn the controls and grow familiar with the nuances of combat, you become more comfortable with killing from a mechanical standpoint, just as Jason becomes at ease with what he’s becoming in the story. What started with a tense, awkward tutorial sequence in which you’re given almost no time at all to learn the controls before you’re fleeing for your life evolves into a complete mastery of the games mechanics, and, just like Brody, it starts to feel like winning.

4. Unlike Booker, Jason actually notices that he’s SUDDENLY FUCKING MAGIC.

One of my favourite things about the original Bioshock was how each of the more traditionally ‘gamey’ elements were painstakingly woven into the history of Rapture. In Infinite, aside from the admittedly awesome short animations you get each time you find a new Vigor, Booker makes no comment on the fact he’s suddenly got access to a set of powers that make Magneto look like Mary Poppins, or that Elizabeth seems to be rocking Solid Snake’s infinite ammo bandana under her corset. Unlike the Vigors, Jason’s Tatau is constantly referred to during the narrative, once again blending an integral part of play with storytelling. It’s never fully explained in Far Cry 3 whether the Tatau actually exists, or is simply a figment of Jason’s fragmented imagination. Still, at least it actually gets mentioned outside a few audio recordings. And finally….

5. Bioshock: Infinite tries to hide from the fact it’s a videogame, Far Cry 3 revels in it.

Infinite told a great story, and I’m not trying to deny that. But I’ve seen similar subject matter handled better both in film and literature. This wouldn’t be an issue were it not for Infinite’s obvious literary aspirations. There are aspects of the game that were amazing achievements, testament to some incredible writing and some seriously hard work on the design front. But you just need to look at the painstaking lengths the developers went to make Elizabeth seem real to get the sense that Bioshock: Infinite was uncomfortable with being a videogame.

There’s a great scene about a third of the way through Far Cry 3 where Jason fends off pirates with a grenade launcher from the back of a moving car, and his response, whooping with excitement when he should be horrified not only perfectly mirrors your own as a gamer (albeit a gamer that’s not sick to death of on-rails turret sections) but really strikes a chord as you notice what Brody is becoming. Far Cry 3 not only doesn’t try to escape from the fact that most of its appeal is as a high-adrenaline action game, but actually embraces this fact and uses it to enhance the story.

I wanted to finish up by saying that I actually had a lot of fun with Bioshock: Infinite, I just feel that it wasn’t nearly as deserving of the amount of critical attention it was given when something like Far Cry 3 had so much more to say. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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