While the summertime may bring blockbuster flicks to moviegoers and outdoor concerts to audiophiles, many in the gaming community will find themselves twiddling their thumbs awaiting the fall for the big releases, and that sentiment is only compounded when new consoles or on the horizon. So what is there to play while Xbox and Sony puff their chests at one another from across the convention floors? Well, look no further than your console’s shop for the excellent awesomeness that is Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.
Many already know what Far Cry 3 is all about, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick crash course; you play as Jason Brody, a UCLA student who goes on the vacation of a lifetime with his brothers and friends to an island in the middle of the Pacific to soak up some sun and do a little adventuring. What he didn’t expect, of course, was to have himself and his loved ones kidnapped by pirates. You then see yourself become the ultimate warrior in a first-person RPG shooter that has gotten awards and accolades from numerous gaming sources. And since it had such universal acclaim, it’s no surprise that they would release some kind of downloadable content to cash in on that success and expand the story of the island dwellers, right? Well, not quite.
Blood Dragon is a bit of a far cry from, well, Far Cry, insofar as it has absolutely nothing to do with the original game. Sure, you’re on an island and there are bad people, but Blood Dragon stripped away everything that made Far Cry 3 what it was and made it into an entirely different beast. Rather than roaming through jungles with an AK47 hunting down pirates as Jason Brody, you’ll find yourself sprinting heroically through cyber-looking night jungles with a laser hunting down robots as none other than Rex Power Colt, a cyber-commando and veteran of Vietnam War 2. So yeah, it’s different.
Blood Dragon more or less power-tosses you into the plot of a bad 80’s action movie, but it’s very tongue in cheek in its approach, though that’s not to say it doesn’t have good 80’s elements, specifically having 80’s icon Michael Biehn (star of films like Aliens and Terminator) voicing Rex Colt. Jokes will be made about 80’s movies in general, the game’s very own plot, and the bulk of the jokes are aimed at videogames themselves.
The majority of the time spent with Blood Dragon will have you pausing the game to have a good chuckle at a corny line or a hokey joke, and that’s okay. All of its campiness is very intentional, and is made to give you a bit of a reprieve from the seriousness of most other games. The reasoning behind making Blood Dragon is still a bit of a mystery, as the folks at Ubisoft still have yet to release any actual expansions to Far Cry 3, but that doesn’t mean Blood Dragon is unwelcome. At a low price of only 14.99USD, it’s hard to avoid this bad boy. If you’re a lover of the 80’s, or just someone who enjoys a “so bad it’s good” movie, Blood Dragon might be blasting out of your TV soon.
