Due to my recent surplus in funds, I arbitrarily decided to get Far Cry 3 from Steam. Some initial headaches from having to toy around with graphics levels, and more importantly constant crashing every five or ten minutes.
In the end it turned out to be one of those dumb things where some Windows thing that you would never have guessed would be interfering with a god damn computer game. I actually had to turn off the "Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service", which I have never used, will probably never use, and have only ever opened by accident. WTF, Bill Gates?
But now all is well and the game is running like a dream. Haven't even been playing an hour and I already foresee myself being sucked into it. FC3 feels like Rockstar made a Fallout game, which is like, the best idea ever. An open-world game where I get to wander around a tropical island as a dumb American? Were Ubisoft reading my mind or something? There seems to be so much to do, from regular missions to a diverse set of side missions, that there's no way I'll make it through this game any time soon.
The plot, cinematics, and characters are also top-notch so far. And Vaas only needed one cut-scene to become one of my new favorite video game villains ever. He has that foul-mouthed, low-class goon quality of GTA villain/protagonist/pedestrian, but with a seriousness that makes him unsettling as all hell: sadistically friendly dialogue, which turns on a dime to outbursts of explosive rage; facial expressions of almost boyish innocence, belied by his eyes, intense and malevolent; and his tendency to both mock and seemingly comfort his victims before killing them without hesitation. Creepy ****ing dude and he's awesome.
