Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Rather than just being a typical add-on, Blood Dragon exists more as a complimentary stand-alone experience to Far Cry 3’s tale of survival and savagery—it’s an insanely fun, ridiculous ode to the bygone era of games that got by on having great action gameplay and a title that sounded cool.

This is a downloadable game that dares to dream big and pulls it off by throwing caution to the wind and letting loose, but on a very solid base of gameplay mechanics.

Based on the hilariously over-the-top action movies from the eighties, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon knocks it out of the park. It's a great futuristic shooter resembling Far Cry 3 in gameplay and adding a huge amount of cheesy oneliners, dumb action and cheap entertainment. Blood Dragon is a lot of fun and an experience you won't forget anytime soon.

A game with its own character, appealing and original. Ubisoft Montreal moves a step forward within the downloadable content industry. They offer a product full of fun and action that also exudes quality at a very affordable and competitive price.

For anyone who yearns for the days of Knight Rider, new-wave, big hair and cyborg arms, Blood Dragon is an essential bit of bizarre nostalgia. [Issue#231, p.85]

Colt is a great lead character. He's funny, angry, and an absurdly remorseless killer. The perfect lead for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

Blood Dragon isn't just an homage to great memories, however, but a terrific game in its own right.

Blood Dragon's neon veneer and synth-heavy soundtrack may call to mind B action movies, but this retro aesthetic is slapped on top of the state-of-the-art Far Cry 3 engine. The tight gunplay, open-world exploration, animal hunting, and wealth of side activities all return with slight modifications to fit the totally radical motif.

In case you still do not get it, Blood Dragon is a roller-coaster ride through a magical land filled with high-explosives and anything (and we mean literally anything) that even remotely refers to the action packed, but campy eighties. [May 2013, p.93]

There are some games that are best described with the simple “fun” adjective, and this is definitely one of them. The action is fast and satisfying, the control is solid, the 80s humor is usually spot-on (and makes some of us all sorts of nostalgic), and the combination of the gameplay and totally sweet retro atmosphere makes for the ultimate guilty pleasure.

Even though it runs out of gas near the end, the outrageous weapons, offbeat setting, the intentionally cheesy lines, and fast action make Blood Dragon an enemy of cookie-cutter tyranny everywhere.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is loud, hilarious and injected with tons of thirty year-old testosterone. Such a cocktail demands criticism for it trying to be an easy game that thinks it can score based on popular nostalgia. Against all expectations this game turns its possible faults into strengths, that come into their own when it turns out that there's a very entertaining shooter behind all of the Last Action Hero-violence.

The single player campaign in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon may be fairly short, but it still rivals many retail titles in quality. It throws you back to a time when neon, cyborgs, lasers and synthesizers were the coolest things in the world. You may not play it several times over and over, but you’ll definitely enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has its flaws but overall this 80s-inspired shooter packs more than enough bang for your buck.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon does everything wrong, but not in a bad way. All of the clichés and bad lines actually make it a very funny experience. You can almost call it art.

The attention to detail is what makes Blood Dragon so awesome. From the great explanation of why a bow is futuristic as long as you slap some neon on there, to Rex flipping off enemies, all of it is great. Add to that the length of the game being anywhere from four to twenty hours thanks to extra missions and collectibles, the low price and it hardly taking up any space on your hard drive, and you have no excuse but to play this.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is unashamedly stupid, and it's all the better for it. The standalone download takes the core ideas from Ubisoft's relatively recent tropical thriller, and reassembles them in the form of a nostalgic love-in that's packed with sly references and silly jokes. Its campaign may be short, but the title never overstays its welcome as a result. If you're looking for a laugh, then search no further.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has everything you would expect from a perfect DLC. It's different from the main game for atmosphere, settings and game world, it is durable, the price is fully justified and gameplay doesn't betray the original Far Cry 3 model.

That exaggerated absurdity of the action is what Blood Dragon is all about, though, and is more than entertaining enough to make it a great experience.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon nails the 80's action revival, but besides jokes, lasers, and one liners the gameplay fails to deliver the same depth of Far Cry 3.

I would have preferred it if the narrative arc and the game’s pacing were a little more measured but this isn’t the sort of game that leans too heavily on its storyline. Blood Dragon is all about loud, brash, silly fun and in that respect it achieves its goals easily.

In gameplay terms this is a distinct step down from Far Cry 3 itself – DLC should enhance the core game, not make you pine for it – while from an experiential perspective, the trouble with setting out to make something disposable is that, even when you’ve done your job well, you’re left with exactly that.