If Far Cry 3's grim tale of survival was a poor fit for the game's exotic, often preposterous antics, there are no such fears for its seemingly disconnected spin-off. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is nothing short of ridiculous, and deliberately so. Ubisoft's standalone shooter celebrates the endearingly excessive sci-fi action of a bygone era in entertainment, when men wore cyber-armor over cyber-arms and when eyes glowed red.

A animated opening transports us to the post-apocalyptic near future... of 2007. Our new cyborg hero is sent to an island to take out a rogue terrorist group - full of evil cyborgs. In case there's any doubt what Blood Dragon is going for in an intro with music so pungent of Terminator 2 that I half expect it to tell me it'll be back, the first 10 or so minutes are filled with references to sci-fi and action movies from in and around the 1980s. Blood Dragon pays homage to an era full of sci-fi missteps and overblown heroes exuding machismo.