PixlBit

A bit of warning: I have Far Cry 3. It's one of the games that's on my backlog list. One of the many, many games. I'll get to it eventually. I promise. Really, I will. Don't harass me anymore!

Okay.

Having never played Far Cry 3, I was intrigued at the premise of Blood Dragon. This is a standalone DLC that puts a twist on what Far Cry 3 had established. Where the core game places you in the shoes of a douchebag affluent college boy trying to deal with some awful circumstances, Blood Dragon decided to go a very different route.

In Blood Dragon, you play Rex "Power" Colt, a cybernetic commando in the far future of 2007. Yes, the future of 2007. This game was made by people who knew and loved the action science fiction action movies of the 80s and early 90s. The creators know what made those movies fun, and what made them bad. Which this knowledge, they decided to write a love letter to that genre.

As Rex Colt, you have infiltrated the island fortress of Colonel Sloan, a madman who has access to weapons that could pull the already war torn world further into peril. As a first person shooter, you run and gun or stealthily make your way through the various bases controlled by Sloan, as well as kill the various wildlife on the island.

Completing objectives and the various techniques you use to off enemies award you with points you can use to upgrade yourself and the weapons you'll acquire. This includes the recent favorite weapon in video games: the bow. Seriously, bows are all over the place the last few years. What's up with that?

The gameplay isn't anything to gawk at. It's the typical standard in most single-player fps games now, but that's not a knock on it. It works well and competently to get the actiony feel of the genre. The stealth gameplay works great and allows you to gauge how close you are to being detected. There were many times where I would see how far I could press my luck trying to sneak up on 2 or 3 sentries, hoping to take one down and grab the others immediately after.

Visually, the game is stunning. It takes place under heavy cloud cover and lit by neon. Even the titular Blood Dragons are lit from within by neon, making them both stunning and frightening to look at. The game is all chrome and leather. One of my favorite throwback details was the effect of too much damage, which turns Colt's vision into damaged video feed reminiscent of worn out tapes rented at the local Blockbuster.

The story was a lot of fun as well. Filled with corny one liners and over the top sequences (that finale, man).

Far Cry: Blood Dragon was a lot of fun for the few hours it took to play it. I don't think I'd want it to be a full fledged game, as that might dilute the fun, and the color palette may grow wearisome if one had to deal with it for more than the 8 hours or so it took to do everything in this game. Honestly, I'd liken Blood Dragon to Pacific Rim; it's created to show the love those involved have for a certain type of entertainment. It won't revolutionize anything on it's own, but for others who also have fond memories of 80s movies (or mecha anime, in the case of Pacific Rim), it'll brighten up the hours you're experiencing it.

Grade: B-