Far Cry 3

Felt like they had something much bigger planned but had to cut a lot of things out. The whole time it felt like they were rushing themes, you have you're "I'm Jason Brody and I'm a wuss phase" to "Grr I'm a badass no one understands me" to "Hmm the final choice between friends and my Island Warrior Destiny".

There just was not enough exposition between these points, and I even stuck around and did the interaction/drug flashback scenes at the "camp".

Also, there wasn't enough time with the villains. Vaas had so much potential, but was underused. And Hoyt? You see him maybe 2 times between meeting him and killing him.

IDK, I just thought we were going to see a lot more interactions between the characters. As it is it feels as though they were going through the motions, providing just enough narrative to show how/why things were changing but lacking crucial detail.
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IMPERIVM
GT: Commando GMC

Far Cry 2 was like that as well. You only meet the bad guy a few times...In fact you don't hear anything from him for majority of the game.

So yeah, they do lack in those story and character development departments and focus on the gameplay.

Vaas wasn't meant to be in the game in the first place. It was always have been Hoyt, they were just impressed with Mando's voice acting that they made this character for him. Probably they already hired the Hoyt guy so they couldn't scrap him so in the end, they had to split the screen time with Vaas and Hoyt.

But yeah, the game seems lacking in the second part of the island. Although there are stories around the different sceneries and places all throughout the island. Whether it's an abandoned house or a road death trap, you can tell there's a history behind it. But the game's story won't let you explore the island. The missions were jumping all around the island instead of gradually introducing you to different areas which kinda ruined it.

Also, there wasn't enough time with the villains. Vaas had so much potential, but was underused. And Hoyt? You see him maybe 2 times between meeting him and killing him.

Well as I've pointed out in an earlier topic, that's pretty much the scourge of all modern FPS. Since they're all so hell bent on offering absolutely ZERO real cutscene for their so called realism, villains are bound to be completely absent from the game aside from the occurrences of the hero being kidnapped and tied down, since otherwise, you'd shoot them down as soon as you saw them. Overrall, their stories inevitably focus on what happens directly to the main character, thus leading to underdeveloped and completely all over the place plots. It's hard to imagine an FPS with a great story nowadays, yet in the past, games like timesplitters 3 or both no one lives forever have proven able to achieve that.