Well, I just finished Far Cry 3. It was pretty good. The story was terrible, though. Citra’s going to be pissed when she realizes that all those drugs Jason took made him sterile. Anyway, of all the game’s flaws, the one people complain about most is killing off that ugly mug above this paragraph. People love Vaas. And I have to admit, he was a great antagonist in terms of personality and design. That said, I’m going to open myself up to a little bit of hate here. Vaas is a dumbass. There, I said it. I’m about to talk about the first half of the game, so if you somehow haven’t finished it, you’ve been warned. Far Cry 3 put you in control of Jason Brody, a rich white American who thinks that “pardon my French” is the epitome of all witty remarks. You have to rescue your friends after you’ve all been captured as part of an international slave trade. Despite being the former leader of a warrior tribe and commanding an army of pirates, you evade Vaas up until you finally kill him. And why is that? It’s because Vaas is just really bad at killing people.

Let’s take a look at Jason’s encounters with Vaas, shall we? In the beginning of the game, Vaas blasts Jason’s older brother’s brains out while they’re trying to sneak away. Since he’s a sporting man, Vaas gives our hero a head start before he sends his guards and the hounds with the bees in their mouths. Maybe this wasn’t the best thing to do, but I wouldn’t say this was too dumb. Vaas expected that if his men didn’t catch Jason, he’d just get pecked to death by a or something. Fine, okay. At this point Jason is a marshmallow with a popped collar, after all. The next time they meet, Jason is trying to rescue his girlfriend when Vaas appears and knocks him out, ties him to a chair and sets him on fire. Sure, Jason escaped, but who could have predicted that? What happens next? Well, Jason tries to rescue some warriors only to realize that it was a trap set by Vaas (a plot point that is never addressed again). Instead of shooting Jason, Vaas decides that the cinder block ankle bracelet he just gave Jason needs to be washed in the river. And even after Jason miraculously makes it out alive, Vaas foils the escape with a well-placed rocket. Okay, Jason has survived three of Vaas’ attempts to kill him. Certainly Vaas will put a bullet in Jason’s head and end it, right?

Nope. Vaas shoots him in the chest and Jason is saved by a zippo lighter in his pocket. Yes, it was already stupid to give a headshot to the man who repeatedly defied death, but it gets worse. You see, the bullet was completely flattened by the lighter, which means that it didn’t penetrate Jason’s body. This lets us know that Vaas didn’t stick around long enough to notice that Jason didn’t have a bullet wound. But wait, there’s more. In the next mission, Jason infiltrates Vaas’ quarters only to stumble into an elaborate trap, revealing that Vaas knew that Jason wasn’t dead.

So what, was Vaas driving back to his camp when he realizes that he goofed up by not making sure Jason was dead? And what’s with this elaborate trap with the TVs that probably took the A/V pirate hours to put together? If he was so sure that Jason would break in that he would burn his own home, why not just station a couple of pirates with shotguns pointed at the door (which was unlocked, by the way)?

For the fifth time, Jason evades Vaas’ attempt to kill him. But then Vaas pops out, delivers the best line in the game (“Peekaboo, motherfucker”) and stabs Jason in the chest. Then Vaas is killed because even though Jason is having some unexplained drug trip, he decides to run around and play hide and seek instead of shooting the wounded Jason.

Does anyone else see the pattern here? Vaas gets the drop on Jason every single time but doesn’t kill him because he’s just an all-around screw-up. No matter how strong Jason gets, he keeps throwing himself into situations where there is no good reason why Vaas shouldn’t be able to kill him like he’s nothing. It’s not like Vaas is a supervillain giving a speech, either. Vaas tries, he really does. He’s just such an idiot that he can’t get any of these attempted murders right. And of course, that got him killed.

Remember how Vaas kept going on about Einstein’s definition of insanity? Well I’m starting to think that it was a joke by the writers to poke fun of how completely incompetent their baby was. You see, every time Vaas sees Jason, he tries to murder him in a way that leaves huge margin for error when he could easily shoot him in the head. That, my friends, is the definition of insanity.

 

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