Hunting and upgrading
It won't be long until you realize that you just don't have enough ammo for your SMG, or need a bigger wallet because the max you can carry is a $1000. This is where hunting and crafting comes in. Thankfully, if you listen to my guide, you'll already have a bunch of outposts unlocked and you'll be able to travel to the nearest location of the specific animal you're hunting.
Upgrading your carrying capacity for ammo, loot, syringes, and anything else will require certain animal skins. They're usually not that crazy, as most of the time it's either two or three of a certain type of skin. The challenge comes with getting the tougher animal kills early on. Although limited in range, the shotgun will be your best friend when taking on the deadly predators of the jungle, such as tigers and leopards.
The right loadout
That brings me to what weapons you should carry with you at all times. One of the most important upgrades to craft early on are weapon holsters, as they allow you to carry up to four guns at once.
Again, there is no right or wrong here, but if you're going the stealth route, which again rewards more XP, these guns are absolutely essential. Handgun, SMG, Sniper Rifle and Shotgun, with the bow being the alternative to a shotgun, depending on how adventurous you are.
While there are numerous of these in the game, the initial guns you'll want early on thanks to their silencers are the 6P9 handgun, Skorpion SMG, and the M-700 sniper rifle. The 1887 shotgun will be a safe bet from deadly predators early on, of course until you unlock the much better SPAS or the signature Bull shotgun.
The handgun and sniper rifle are pretty straightforward, since they're both fairly accurate, one short range and the other long range. The SMG is really necessary for the surprise moments, such as an enemy catching you off guard, or a predator sneaking up on you from behind and you don't want to use a shotgun to make too much noise. For hunting however, the sniper and the shotgun (or bow) are a deadly combination.
Don't worry about skill points
This is somewhat misleading and I apologize. You should of course always use skill points to unlock various skills, however don't worry about carefully calculating them. The goal of the game is to become awesome, not specialized, meaning you'll eventually be able to get every single skill point.
However, if you want to get the most out of being stealthy, it's important to put skill points into the Spider skill tree, which focuses on stealth. Jungle Run, Takedown Drag, Running Reload, Expert Swimmer, Horticulture 101, Zoology 101, Look Takedown, Knife Throw Takedown, Nimble Fingers, Quick Swap, Nimble Hands and Ninja Step are all essential to getting the most out of your stealth kills, as well as gathering animal skins and flowers for upgrades and medicine.
Remember that some of them require you to either progress through the story or complete a goal, such as Takedown Drag requires you to first successfully pull off a stealth takedown.
The best thing about Far Cry 3 though, is that you can literally do everything the opposite way of what I've suggested, and still have a hell of a lot of fun.
Far Cry 3 came out today, and that means you can unleash chaos unto a tropical island paradise. Hey, we loved it, so that counts for something right? There is a ton to do in Far Cry 3, that it could get a bit overwhelming at first. Whether you're going to want to tackle story quests, take over outposts, hunt animals or just uncover the map by climbing radio towers, we'll give you the scoop on how to get the most out of your early game time, to succeed later in the game.
It is important to note that there is no right or wrong way to play Far Cry 3. Being a true sandbox game, you can tackle anything you want in any order. However, there are certain progressions and unlocks that are available to you after certain objectives are met.
Explore and climb radio towers
While this one might seem like a no brainer, it is one of the more important things to do in the initial parts of the game. There are also no levels of enemies to speak of, so you can literally venture across the entire island without worrying that you'll get one-shotted by certain enemies.
Aside from uncovering key locations as well as hunting spots, climbing radio towers unlocks various weapons in the shop that you can pick up for a fee of 0$. That's right, all those sweet guns that you have been drooling over and couldn't buy because they were too expensive, will progressively become free, meaning all you'll need to spend money on are attachments.
Be a silent assassin
Granted, this isn't Hitman or Splinter Cell, but stealth is actually one of the more important factors in Far Cry 3. Not only does it make disposing of enemies easier (especially since they like to call back up), but you get a significant boost in experience when taking over an enemy outpost completely hidden. Crouching and using bushes and trees and hiding places will be your best bet at staying out of sight.
The key to this is obviously staying away from weapons like shotguns and LMGs, and focusing instead on handguns, SMGs and sniper rifles that all have a suppressor attachment. Since most of these guns won't become free until you've liberated a certain amount of radio towers, you'll be relying on your trusty knife to get the most out of taking out your enemies unseen.
The knife is actually amazing. Not only is it the quietest weapon (obviously), it has an amazing range when performing stealth kills. You can be five to ten feet behind an enemy when the Takedown prompt appears, which means you never really have to get that close and risk being seen. It's also handy to note you don't have to be behind your enemy to get a Takedown kill. Even if you're hiding in a bush and the enemy walks toward you, when they get within the Takedown range, they can be swiftly taken care of, and then dragged into the bushes.
Systematically take over outposts
I've mentioned that taking over outposts silently is the key to survival and also a lot of bonus XP. Outposts also allow you to access weapon vendors, extra side quests and most importantly, fast travel. While it's fun to run or drive around the beautiful island, when you just want to get down to business, fast travel is the way to go.
There is a checklist of sorts that you should be going over when taking over an outpost. First and foremost, take out your camera and mark every single enemy that you see. This will let you know which enemies can be taken out without alerting others. If you see a cage with an animal in it, use it to your advantage. If it's a vicious predator like a tiger or a leopard, chances are it's going to take out a bunch of enemies for you. Just shoot the cage door and watch the chaos ensue.
Once the cage sequence is over, or there is no cage, it's either time to snipe enemies from afar. If you don't have access to a sniper rifle yet, then it's important to check the location of the alarm, and disable it. It's not always necessary to do, but it's good to be prepared just in case things get a little messy.
Then it's time to get in there with your trusty knife. The key to successful knife kills is throwing stones to distract your enemies. You have unlimited stones so don't worry about wasting them. Throwing a stone will make a soldier go investigate that location, which means you can throw multiple stones in succession (while hidden of course) to isolate them and then take them out.
Later in the game, you'll have access to multiple takedowns, such as vertical takedowns from the top, slashing an enemy and then throwing his knife to kill another, killing an enemy then pulling the pin on his grenade and pushing him into another enemy, etc. These will make taking care of enemies not only more fun, but much easier as well.
