Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Developer(s): Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Shanghai
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: XBLA, PSN, PC
Price: $14.99 (1200 Microsoft Points)

Blood Dragon is a stand-alone, downloadable expansion to the critically acclaimed “Far Cry 3″. You don’t have to own Far Cry 3, or even have any prior knowledge of the Far Cry series. Blood Dragon is a self-contained, retro futuristic sibling to the franchise, & it’s full of insanity. Is it worth the $15 price tag though? Hit the jump & I’ll gladly inform you of what I thought about this love letter to 80′s action films.

Blood Dragon has dragons that shoot laser beams out of their eyes. Sold yet? If not, keep reading I guess, you insane dragon-hating person.

You play as Sergeant Rex “Power” Colt, a cyborg embodying the attitude of every action star in the 80′s. He’s a walking cliché, actually the entire game is a cliché, & it’s glorious. Blood Dragon is a love letter to a decade bursting with neon, one-liners, & over the top flair, & it captures all of that in 1.32GB.

Blood Dragon takes place in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic 2007, that’s over-futurized & full of cyborgs. Ubisoft described it best when they said Blood Dragon is “an 80s VHS vision of the future” – it couldn’t be more true.

The plot of Blood Dragon is your standard 80′s action movie fare – save the girl, kill the bad guy, & save the world. But, what makes it special is how self-aware it is, & how great the writing is. The plot knows exactly how cliché it is, & it pokes fun at itself – it’s charming, refreshing & well executed.

The opening tutorial is a good example of Blood Dragon’s tongue-in-cheek humor. But, Rex himself will immediately give you an idea of what to expect from this acid trip of a game. He’s a sarcastic, gun-toting, wise-ass. Much of the credit goes to Michael Beihn (Terminator & Aliens) who provided the voice over for Rex, as he really added extra layers of sarcasm & fun to the already well written protagonist.

For all intents & purposes, Blood Dragon is Far Cry 3 with a neon-overhaul. Granted, it has a host of new features, but it is very much Far Cry 3 in terms of core mechanics. As an example, a lot of the side-mission content that Far Cry 3 featured is reused. They can play out a bit differently now with the inclusion of dragons though. The dragons take a lot of firepower to take down, & they can really change your tactics if you were trying to disable a garrison in a stealthy manner. They force you to adapt your play-style rather quickly.

That being said, it’s best to view Blood Dragon as a very large expansion pack to Far Cry 3 – similar in quality to Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption.

The changes that were implemented were smart choices, & they help the flow of the game drastically. The first thing people will likely notice as they play Blood Dragon is how the leveling system has been completely overhauled. Instead of choosing a new ability & gaining a new tattoo, your auto-leveled & a skill is chosen for you. I felt like this worked out well, considering how carefully the preset skills were laid out. You weren’t overpowered too early into the game & you were never left feeling underpowered or weak – in Blood Dragon you feel appropriately like an unstoppable cyborg, the balancing is done well.

Speaking to that, as a cyborg you now can run faster, swim faster, breathe underwater, & you take no fall damage. All these aspects tremendously impact the flow of Blood Dragon, & makes you feel more like a predator. Stalking enemies while crouching in tall grass & tagging them with your cybernetic eye modification is very satisfying.
Rex also has a few select weapons that were unavailable to Brody in Far Cry 3, most notably a Terminator 2-esque shotgun that is a ton of fun to use. The famous bow & arrow makes a return, now with a neon makeover, an 80′s Sci-Fi SMG, a pistol straight out of RoboCop, a very explosive sniper rifle, & a Predator-style mini-gun are also available to use & help bring destruction.

You also receive a particularly chaotic weapon once you finish the game. I won’t spoil it, but it is absolutely devastating & is a blast to use. If you have any side content left to finish upon completing the story, this weapon will be more than adequate at helping to mop up leftover side-missions.

As you progress through side-missons, you’ll be able to unlock attachments for your weapons. Unlike Far Cry 3, in Blood Dragon you can equip more than 2 attachments per weapon. This allows for some incredibly fun to use weaponry. By the end of the game, if you’ve completed an adequate amount of side content, your once lame pistol will turn into a doom bringer. For this reason, I recommend tackling the garrisons & bounty board missions early on in the story. The added firepower in the later story missions are worth it.

Surprisingly, the map in Blood Dragon is quite large. There is plenty of land to explore & drive around on. Blood Dragon also has it’s own set of collectibles to hunt for – gone are the relics & memory cards. You now have appropriately themed 80′s collectibles to search for, like TV sets & VHS tapes.

There is still a ton to do in Blood Dragon – it retains all of the stuff that made Far Cry 3 fun, puts a unique spin on it, & condenses it into a downloadable package full of 80′s nostalgia. Blood Dragon hits so many high points & does so much right, it’s difficult not to justify the 15 dollar price tag.

The audio is another strong point of Blood Dragon. As soon as you start the game, the music makes you feel like you’re in a Sci-Fi B-movie straight out of the 1980′s. Everything from the NES-style cutscenes to the superb execution of the atmospheric soundtrack is a joy to hear & see.

These types of parodies can go wrong very easily. A lot of games have attempted to be clever & go overboard on stupidity while still remaining fun, & they usually always fall on their face. But, Ubisoft managed to turn a parody into something that’s actually incredibly fun to play.

If you rush through the story, you can probably finish in about 6-8 hours. But, that would be a mistake as most of the fun comes from exploring, hunting the newly skinned cyborg animals, & using different tactics to take over a garrison.

If you’ve never played Far Cry 3, & you’re a fan of great FPS titles that tailor to your play-style, then Blood Dragon is for you. If you’ve played Far Cry 3, loved it & want more, then Blood Dragon is definitely for you. Because, that’s what Blood Dragon is: more Far Cry 3, & who doesn’t want more Far Cry 3?

Pros: