Far Cry 3 Gameplay Dr Earnhardt

When we first discovered Far Cry 3's shroom-bloomin Dr. Earnhardt during our preview with Ubisoft Montreal in February, there were no hallucinations as to who one our favorite characters in the game was going to be. It's not that we here at Game Rant encourage the use or abuse of illegal substances, but you have to love such a maniacal malpractitioner with the ability to prescribe an Inception pill for any juncture of the game.

Tremorring fiends that we had become, it's about time we got our hands on another dose of Far Cry 3 footage depicting Earnhardt and his unconventional line of work. The latest trailer from Ubisoft Montreal is more than we bargained for. Not only does it scope out over two minutes of the first-person shooter's island-roaming gameplay, but we see how Earnhardt is firmly acquainted with the feral antagonist Vaas - and how his psychedelic vision of the world could be a key to Jason Brody's survival.

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When an early gameplay video for Far Cry 3 surfaced last month, the mission where Brody was dispatched to a derelict cargo ship to collect "special" ingredients for Earnhardt was interesting, to say the least, but we didn't know how prevalent such wild departures  on the core mercenary-hunting gunplay would be. (After all, the mission leading up that escapade showed off a frantic, but finely tuned shooter with more than a few familiar weapons and FPS fundamentals.)

Earnhardt's comments and the rock shifting, house shrinking scenes from the trailer seem to suggest that it might be very prevalent, however. Far Cry 3's environments seem rife with puzzling, arcane, and downright terrifying set pieces, and the "insanity" loosely referenced by Vaas seems increasingly in reference to the island and it's secrets. Perhaps it's even a direct product of Earnhardt and his work; Earnhardt might end up being the guy running the show -- like a scrutinous doctor overseeing a careful surgical procedure.

That all remains to be seen, but maybe we should have seen Far Cry's twisted direction coming a while back. We asked the game's producer, Dan Hay, in February how he would classify Far Cry 3's genre - and here's what he had to say:

“It’s tough to describe it. Like, we’re absolutely a shooter first. We know that. But yeah, we want a little bit of action-adventure in there, and by a little bit, I mean a lot. It’ll be interesting to see how you guys qualify us. We’re looking for that moment of discovery, so for me, shooter with action-adventure, a little bit of RPG, sure. We’ll take ‘em all.”

Have we finally reached this "moment of discovery" that Hay was talking about? We'll let you decide. After all, to echo the good doctor, we don't want to spoil it.

Far Cry 3 releases September 4, 2012, for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

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