23) Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (2013)

In the far off, distant year of 2007, human cybernetics and flagrant abuse of DNA manipulation have completely changed the face of war. When an elite agent, Colonel Sloan, goes rogue, there's only one man who can stop him: Rex "Power" Colt. It's up to Rex to stop Sloan's mad plan to revert the world to a pre-historic state, all while contending with the perverted excuse for wildlife that inhabit the island, including the needlessly perfect killing machines known as the Blood Dragons.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is an absolute fever dream of a game that willfully and blatantly steals everything it can from sci-fi action movies of the 80's. After developing the critically acclaimed Far Cry 3, the team at Ubisoft decided to experiment with a new approach to making DLC, willfully abandoning anything and everything in the base game to appeal to both new and existing players. Thus, using and modifying pre-existing assets, development took around six months, and a lot of systems from the base game were either omitted or streamlined. For example, instead of having a skill tree, Rex instead has a set progression for learning skills as he levels.

Originally, Ubisoft sought to cast Dolph Lundgren in the lead role, but after director Dean Evans met Michael Biehn during a Q&A for The Victim, he decided he'd be perfect for the role. Biehn, who played Kyle Reese in Terminator, proved to be the perfect choice. The team described his portrayed Rex as someone who was old and done, delivering lines with a bored cynicism that proves to be the perfect foil for the admitted stupidity of the script. Joining Biehn, we have the voice talents of Phil Lamar portraying Rex's friend T.T. "Spider" Brown, Grey DeLisle as Dr. Elizabeth Darling, Danny Blanco Hall as Colonel Sloan, and Robin Atkin Downes as Dr. Carlyle. In addition to the stellar voice acting, the Australian synthwave duo Power Glove composed the game's soundtrack.

Blood Dragon is a game that revels in the concept of style over substance. The plot, while as deep as a puddle, works extraordinarily well. It doesn't invite you to think too much, or even at all, and that's fine. The gameplay is fun, giving you an open world that never feels overwhelming while also hiding secrets to find and rewarding exploration. From the outset, you feel suitably overpowered, and even thought the titular Blood Dragons are introduced as a threat, it's not long before you're using them to your advantage or mowing them down with ease. It even does what I feel is an excellent job of side-stepping my biggest qualm with shooters, which is how it handles its final boss.

Blood Dragon is one of the rare instances where I feel the DLC completely outclasses the base game, and thus the decision to release it as a standalone game was an inspired choice that helps it stand on its own. I can concede that if the initial premise of an 80's sci-fi movie doesn't immediately hook you, then very little else in the game will. The jokes range from brilliant commentary to throw away dialogue that struggles to illicit a chuckle. In this way, it takes the shotgun approach to comedy, firing so many jokes at you at once with the hope that one of them sticks. However, if it appeals to you, you will absolutely be hooked for the entirety of the runtime. As I was playing, I found myself not only asking why every Far Cry isn't like this, but indeed why every video game ever isn't. If it hits for you, it hits hard, and you will have an absolute blast from start to finish.