Video Game / Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

"Michael Biehn is Sergeant Rex 'Power' Colt in this year's most thrilling, action-packed cyber adventure!"

— The Narrator

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a 2013 First-Person Shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released for digital download on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. It is a stand-alone expansion of Far Cry 3; you don't have to own Far Cry 3 to play Blood Dragon, but having played Far Cry 3 may help you get used to Blood Dragon's controls.

The expansion game serves up a love letter to '80s action movies (and video games of roughly the same era) — it takes place on a bizarre, neon-colored island crawling with killer robot soldiers and robot animals, and it features a musical score filled with cheesy synthesizer music.

In the grim future of 2007, American cyber-soldier Sergeant Rex "Power" Colt (voiced by Michael "Kyle Reese" Biehn) travels to a remote island to destroy a rogue robot army led by his former mentor, Sloan. Armed with a wide array of weapons and accompanied by fellow soldier Spider (and scientist Dr. Darling later on), Rex has to get the girl, kill the bad guys, and save the world from the apocalypse's apocalypse.

Trials of the Blood Dragon, a spin-off starring Rex and Darling's kids was later released on June 14, 2016. Developed by Redlynx, the developers of Trials, the game is a physics-based vehicle game.

An Updated Re-release for consoles^note PC users will simply receive a free copy of the PC version was revealed during Ubisoft Forward 2021, as part of Far Cry 6's season pass.

An animated series partially inspired by the game, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, premiered on Netflix on October 19, 2023.

Due to an excess of examples, you can find any Shout Outs over on their own subpage.

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Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon contains examples of the following tropes:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: As a means to parody 20 Minutes into the Future. The games takes place in the war-torn, far off future of 2007.
• Actionized Sequel: Compared to Far Cry 3 (and other Far Cry games in general), since Rex is a cyborg commando rather than a Badass Normal Action Survivor. You can have a grand total of 16 health bars (compared to Jason Brody's max of 6), have infinite sprint and run 25% faster than Jason does (over 25 mph), don't take fall damage even if jumping off a mountain, and swim at motorboat speeds while never needing air. The guns can also be made deliberately overpowered with enough upgrades.
• Affectionate Parody: Of 1980s sci-fi action movies. The expansion pack's cast even includes Michael Biehn (of Aliens and The Terminator fame)!
• After the End: This expansion pack takes place after a nuclear war wipes out most of humanity.
  The Narrator: ...The apocalypse has had an apocalypse.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Varies.
  • Rex's "HUD" AI tends to be helpful, just annoying. When he's not telling it to shut up, Rex will command HUD to set objective markers. It takes after the usual Robot Buddy proclivities, albeit with a somewhat sarcastic and homicidal bent.
  • The female-sounding AI operating Sloan's bases tends to be incompetent to the point of being dangerous to base personnel; all of the advice it gives is either useless or nonsensical and at one point, it apologizes for accidentally setting off everyone's grenades, then proceeds to set off more grenades. It also kills Dr. Carlyle for insulting it one too many times.
  • The ADVERT AI managing the Blood Dragon nursery and research center is cheerful and supportive - no matter what you do.
    AI: Blood Dragons! Unique and majestic killing machines that dominate the top rung of evolution's food chain! Press the button to kill it!
    AI: Congratulations! You have asserted your God-given right as a cyber-man by showing that endangered species who's boss!
• Alien Blood: Everything bleeds blue.
  Sloan: You and I have the same blue blood, Colt.
  Rex: Wrong! My blood is red, white, and blue!
• Amazing Technicolor World & Wildlife: Everything is neon! Or chrome! Or both!
• Ambiguous Robots: The Blood Dragons might be a case of Mechanical Lifeforms... maybe. Their blood supercharges cybernetics, their bodies are covered in glowing Tron Lines, they shoot Eye Beams, and explode when they die, leaving no trace of a body. Almost every other animal in the game is some weird robo-animal hybrid too. Trials Of The Blood Dragon deconfirms the "Robots" part by revealing that they're actually alien Kaiju.
• American Robot: Sergeant Rex 'Power' Colt may be eighty percent robotic, but he is one-hundred percent American!
• Animals Hate Him: Similar to Far Cry 3, but now almost all of the animals are cyborgs, robots or mutants.
• Anti-Frustration Features: To add to the setting, the game's color scheme and overall visual design relies heavily on dark colors. To compensate for this, enemies are surrounded by a faint glow to make spotting (and fighting) them easier against the dark backgrounds.
• April Fools' Day: The game was originally announced on April 1, 2013, leading players to believe it was a joke. It was no joke.
• Asshole Victim: Reading Dr. Carlyle's notes scattered around the island reveal that he was once infatuated with Dr. Darling as well as an all-around Smug Snake and Narcissist. After being rejected, he consumed dragon blood mixed with nanites, hoping they'd act like Super Serum as they did for Sloan. They instead decayed a large portion of his organic body parts, with his genitals falling off last. All this then led to his status as...
• A Taste of Power: For the first mission of the game, you get an arsenal of modestly-upgraded weapons - for example, the assault rifle shoots lasers, and the sniper rifle has a zoom scope. You're relieved of that stuff after the mission, of course.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Blood dragons are weak on their glowing sternums. Since they are always stooping low, though, good luck hitting them.
• Author Filibuster: Taken to the point of parody when Dr. Darling suddenly launches into an irrelevant rant about the popular media's portrayal and criticism of video games and gamers.
• Badass Bookworm: Whilst unarmed scientists are hostage-type entities, freed hostages act like the allied faction of Far Cry 3, and are capable of holding their own in a gunfight.
  • However, it doesn't stop them from sounding like a team of terrified nerds thrown headlong into a gunfight.
• Badass Normal: An odd example. Every wild animal in the animal is as cyber-something or mutant-whatever... except boars, which are normal, non-enhanced wild boars. And yet they can kick Rex's ass as much as any other animal.
• Big Bad: Sloan.
• Black Dude Dies First: Spider is killed by Sloan after the first mission.
• Bond One-Liner: The scriptwriters gave Colt lots of hammy one-liners when he kills a mook to add to the game's '80s parody atmosphere. There are even specific ones for whatever weapon Colt used.
  • "I picked his brain."
  • "I headed him off."
  • "What's wrong? Knife got your tongue?"
  • "You got something in your throat... me!"
  • "He was dead weight anyway."
  • "Send for a medic, so I can kill him, too!"
  • Also Played for Laughs:
  [The Engineer explains how he will cut the power]
  Rex: Then it's lights out for Sloan.
  Engineer: You, uh, already said that one.
  Rex: Oh. Then I guess it's lights out... forever.
• Boom, Headshot!: Rex says these exact words sometimes when sniping enemies in the head.
• Boring, but Practical: The bow doesn't cause any big explosions, nor does it have any cool attachments you can purchase for it. However, it's the safest and most efficient weapon for killing mooks silently.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The titular Blood Dragons. Lots of health, heavy damage attacks, very fast movement, and a weak spot that's hard to hit. They're also the only enemies that come with a Life Meter.
• Came Back Wrong and Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Rex states that he has very few memories from before he was rebuilt and Sloan says that the Mark IV commandos were influenced to be more violent. The Mark V commandos that serve Sloan have even less free will, and this was an intentional "improvement" over the stronger but more independent IVs.
  • Restraining Bolt: In something of a Shout-Out to RoboCop (1987), the above tropes reach their logical conclusion when Rex finds out the hard way that cyber commandos can't harm the soldier upon whose experience their combat subroutines are based. Of course, this person is revealed to be Sloan. Fortunately, Rex overcomes this through sheer Heroic Willpower.
• Captain Obvious: Sergeant Rex's assistant AI, "HUD", when in tutorial mode. "Jump if you wish to jump."
  • Also some of the loading screen hints, which include tips such as "Enemies within range can be shot", "Grenades explode,", "If you don't have ammo, you can't shoot," and "If you are losing health, stop getting shot". Fortunately, the AI is a little less obstructive after the initial mission.
• Cast from Hit Points: The Killstar. However by the time you get it Rex will likely have over a dozen health bars so it isn't much of a problem.
• Cutscene Boss: Sloan goes down in a very cheesy cutscene as Rex punches the Killstar right through his chest, although to be fair, it'd be hard to top the preceding romp with the Battle Dragon. It seems that Ubisoft took a cue from the criticism on Far Cry 3 and left no room for falling action.
• Cutting the Knot: How does Rex stop the missile? He punches it!
• Cyberpunk: Blood Dragon borrows heavily from (1980s) movies in this genre, with cyborg and AI technology existing even After the End of a nuclear holocaust. It is one long Affectionate Parody of Eighties cyberpunk and action movies with Sergeant Rex Power Colt being a Hollywood Cyborg played by Michael Biehn. He is hunting down an army of evil cyborgs led by his fromer commanding officer in a neon Tron-like covered jungle island with robotic T-Rexes. See also its soundtrack under music.
  • Bio Punk: The game delves into a bit of this as well, with the blood of the eponymous dragons causing mutations when consumed by organic life. The blood acted as a Super Serum for Sloan and also fueled Dr. Carlyle's experiments on reanimating scientist corpses.
  • Transhuman: This is apparent in Rex, Spider, and Sloan, who all possess Artificial Limbs as well as bodies that, as Rex claims, are "85% synthetic". This also applies to Carlyle himself, whose consumption of dragon blood has almost completely destroyed his physical body, but allowed his consciousness to survive without it.
  • Dungeonpunk Cyberpunk dragons, 'nuff said.
• Cyberpunk Is Techno: The game has an original score heavily influenced by the techno soundtracks of the 1980's sci-fi action movies it pays homage to.
• Death Ray: The Killstar, which you unlock late in the game, can kill most mooks on contact and take out stronger enemies like dragons quickly. Only downside is that it's Cast from Hit Points but it takes so long to get through even one bar (which instantly recovers on its own) and by the time you get it you'll have health to spare.
• Deliberate VHS Quality: The loading screens have tracking lines and a tracking adjustment bar, and are displayed in 4:3 resolution.
• Disc-One Nuke: Some of the most powerful upgrades, such as laser rounds for the Fazertron or explosive rounds for the Kobracon, can be unlocked within the first 15-20 minutes after the prologue, by killing enough different species of animals.
• Double Entendre: In keeping with the 80's parody, plenty of the one-liners employ this, along with the normal dialogue, and the interface.
  HUD: Mission objective: Penetrate the Rear Entrance.
• Double Unlock: To gain new gun attachments, first you need to complete side quests or find a certain number collectables, then you have to buy them.
  Rex: So, I collect shit to unlock shit, then I get shit. Got it.
• Elite Mooks: Omega Force Elites have about twice as much health as the regular troops, and can be recognized by their yellow armor. However, they're extremely rare, only appearing in a couple buildings and one or two assassination missions. They only appear in large numbers in the final mission, by which time your possession of the Killstar pretty much makes them obsolete.
• The '80s: Because Blood Dragon serves up an Affectionate Parody of movies made during this era, numerous tropes present in that era apply to Blood Dragon as well.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: The Killstar you get at the end of the game, which fires a massive continuous energy beam of death. Also, at the very end of the game you get to ride a cybernetic dragon and completely wreck what's left of Sloan's forces.
• Enemy Chatter: Stealthily approach the Omega Force troops and you'll hear them say things like "At least the pay is good," and "Only three weeks to retirement."
• Energy Weapon: Par for the course, considering the subject matter. You can upgrade Rex's Fazertron to fire these, giving it a huge damage boost and turning it from your typical assault rifle to a blaster. Strangely, both the enemy cyborg army and the friendly scientists use the laser-firing version by default. And then, of course, the Blood Dragons shoot these from their eyes.
• Excuse Plot: Every single sidequest. The main quest is very slightly less silly, but take a gander at the "Story" section of the user-manual for just how seriously you're expected to take it. (Protip: not particularly.)
• Expo Speak Gag: The scientists on occasion.
  Scientist: Look out! An exothermal chemical reaction! ^note He means "Fire!"
• Eye Beams: The titular blood dragons have a particularly explosive flavor of this as their main source of ranged attack. It's also apparently the reason they have bad eyesight.
• Face–Heel Turn: Sloan was once an American military hero, before he "went rogue".
• Flipping the Bird: If you press the melee button and no one is in range, Rex will do this. Do it quickly enough and he'll flip the bird with alternating hands.
• Forced Tutorial: The game lampshades this by having Spider decide to mess with Rex (and, thus, the player) by inflicting a horrible tutorial right at the start of the game, much to the annoyance of Rex (and, thus, the player).
• Fun with Acronyms: "Battle Armored Dragon Assault Strike System", the "Amphibian Shark-Squid Hybrid Attack Titan", and "Fails to Understand our Capacity for Kindness".
• Game-Breaking Bug: Due to what Ubisoft claims is a problem with some Steam keys, the PC version is prone to crashing every five minutes on some computers.
• Great Offscreen War: Rex is a veteran of many wars in across the globe, serving under Commander Ike Sloan in Omega Force. Of particular note is Rex's time fighting in Vietnam War II, where he was killed a rebuilt as a Cyber Commando.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Every single achievement in the game is Bronze. Even the more particularly difficult ones like killing a Blood Dragon with an arrow or kill 25 of them.
• Heal Thyself: Parodied. He still has the Far Cry 3 "poking out a bullet" animation for his flesh arm, but others include pulling a welding torch out of nowhere to weld his arm, plugging a loose wire back in to keep his hand from flopping around, and using a hand-squeezer exercise spring in his normal hand, really fast.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Dr. Darling is the only named non-AI female in the entire game, and as soon as Rex comes along, she quickly reveals to the PC that she leads a faction of renegade scientists. Naturally, this develops into a Token Romance between her and Rex.
• Hollywood Cyborg: Rex Power Colt is a superhuman with superspeed, extra forms of sight, super-strength, super healing, and other abilities that allows him to go toe-to-toe with Sloane's army.
• Hollywood Hacking: Spider and his deliberately absurd Techno Babble.
  "Hacking the ROM drives."
  "I'm through the RAM port!"
  "I'm reversing the code polarity!"
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Occassionally, you'll find a "Braincaged" Blood Dragon, the Braincage device of which you have to shoot the top of it to release them from the control of the Omega Force. It's not hard to lure it into a base, and watch it completely let loose on its captors.
• Hypocritical Humor: After cursing up a storm constantly, Rex gets offended when Dr. Darling drops an F-bomb. Turns out it's an acronym.
  Dr. Darling: Frankly, anyone who thinks games are bad for you is a fucking idiot.
  Rex: [surprised] Whoa, whoa, Doc!
• Ignorant of the Call: Parodied:
  Dr. Darling: Rex, that was amazing!
  Rex: No. Paintings of sad clowns and dogs playing poker are amazing. This is just the job.
• Ink-Suit Actor: The protagonist looks pretty much like Michael Biehn with a cyber-eye.
• Insane Troll Logic: On occasion:
  Female AI: A reminder to all personnel to wash their hands after using the bathroom. When you shake hands with someone, it's like they're shaking hands with everyone you've ever known. Including your mother. And you wouldn't want anyone touching your mother, would you? Please wash your hands.
• Interface Screw: During the dam mission, an engineer has to alter an electromagnet, which messes with Colt's AI and HUD.
  Female AI: [static] Please don't park in the brown zone.
• Jive Turkey: Everything Spider says, mothafucka!
• Jumping the Shark: Invoked. One mission ends with an awesome escape from a self-destructing base, during which Dr. Darling notes Colt has to jump a shark-octopus monster to escape; cue Colt's AI noting his objective is to "Jump The Shark".
• Justified Tutorial: Colt already knows how to be a badass cyber soldier; he still has to do a tutorial at the beginning of the game, because Spider hacks his cybernetics to force him to complete "Military Navigation for Idiots" as a prank. Colt complains the whole way through.
• Kick the Dog: Sloan cements his Big Bad status by brutally killing Spider.
• Konami Code: The game's official website has "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A" scribbled in the upper right corner. Using it and hitting Enter will then make anything you click on explode in a cheesy gif fireball.
• Lampshade Hanging: All over the place:
  • After hitting the call button for a very slow cargo elevator while trapped in a room with a Blood Dragon:
    Rex: Why is this elevator so fucking slow?
    HUD: Dramatic tension?
• Lighter and Softer/Denser and Wackier: As parody of cheesy 80s sci-fi films, the game is a lot more light-hearted than the main game. Which makes you realize an apocalyptic world filled with cyborg animals is an improvement over the Rook Isles.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: He also grabs his crotch.
• Magikarp Power:
  • The Galleria 1991 starts out hampered by its slow reload time and horrid accuracy. It can be upgraded to shoot semi-automatic, fire multiple shots at once, and load incendiary rounds, turning it into a One-Hit Kill on just about anything at close range, and one of the more efficient ways of killing blood dragons.
  • The Kobracon starts out as a niche weapon for long range gunfights that can often be easily circumvented through stealth. By upgrading its ammo capacity and fire rate, it can double as a medium range marksman's weapon. When loaded with explosive ammo, it can be used to annihilate entire groups of soldiers in one shot or kill heavy troopers in one or two hits. It is easily the most versatile weapon in the game.
  • The Fazertron starts out as a three round burst only kinetic weapon. Fullt upgrading it gives it full auto capability, laser rounds, and a ludicrously large magazine.
• Mêlée à Trois: Omega Force, friendly scientists, the blood dragons, the running dead, and various cyber-wildlife are all running around the island fighting each other.
• Metafiction: The cutscenes feature low resolution pixel art cutscenes as seen in videogames of the game's source period of inspiration.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: It can be played without Far Cry 3, but uses the same engine, interface, map, and enemies. Its additions are some 5 to 7 hours worth of missions and cutscenes, some new weapons and mods, a couple new enemies, and Underground Monkey variants of most of the enemies in the base game.
• Mooks, but no Bosses: At no point in the game are there any unique boss enemies; all the villains are dispatched either off-screen or in cutscenes. The closest is a mandatory fight against 2 Blood Dragons inside an enclosed space at the end of one of the missions.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Sloan's reaction to Spider and Rex being sent after him? "Now that, right there, is the definition of insanity."
    • The description for the Galleria 1991 shotgun: "You don't have to be some 20-something douche looking to go from zero to hero to save his grody friends."
    • One of the Predator's Path quests has you hunting a Cyber-Shark named "Brody." Also doubles as a Shout-Out to Martin Brody from Jaws.
    • Being part of an 80s video game, Rex firmly believes that "Winners don't do drugs," whereas Jason Brody spent a large proportion of Far Cry 3 out of his gourd on psychotropic chemicals.
    • Line from one of the scientists: "I was hoping there would be some women here. Maybe one with some tribal tattoos who's attracted to someone with the white savior complex."
  • The morally grey ex-Navy SEAL Rex infiltrating an island warzone filled with angry mutants, non-human enemies, and pissed-off mercenaries under a madman's control mirrors the setup of the original Far Cry.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The animated trailer shows Rex and Sloan in a fist fight duel, ready to square off. In game, Rex (and Spider) cannot so much as raise a finger against Sloan due to their programming. Somewhat justified in that the clash of (robotic) fists is actually a shout out to a Rocky IV trailer.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Spider is a black cyborg ninja computer hacker straight out of a blaxploitation movie.
• No-Gear Level: You have to sneak your way out of a group of Blood Dragons without any weapons whatsoever.
• Obligatory Swearing: Another aspect of the action movie parody. While Far Cry 3 was hardly family-friendly, Rex alone swears more than its entire cast put together and uses less serious but also less printable curses.
• Offscreen Teleportation: During the "Turtle Killer" side quest, the turtle in the cage inexplicably appears on the platform above it to surprise you with an explosive barrel when you enter the vent to reach it.
• Older Is Better: This is defied by Sloan regarding the cyber commandos made in his image; he claims the Mark IV line, of which Rex and Spider are a part, are inferior to the Mark Vs subservient to him. As gameplay shows however, this is played straight, as the more independent Mark IV commandos are also better fighters, with Rex and Spider cutting down many enemies by themselves.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: For reasons never explained, only the worthy may wield the Killstar.
  • Actually explained in Trials of the Blood Dragon, where it turns out no one man is meant to possess it for too long. It eventually drives Rex insane and evil.
• Our Dragons Are Different: These dragons shoot fusion lasers out of their eyes. Their blood also causes mutations in whoever ingests it.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The "Running Dead" are a result of Dr. Carlyle's experiments involving the introduction of dragon blood to unwilling scientists.
• Overly Long Gag: The ending of the tutorial involves a long sequence of forced pop-ups, not all of which are necessarily gameplay-related. In addition, the descriptions of ubiquitous player actions like "look around", "move", "run", "crouch", "jump" and even "press button" get really really detailed to the point of naming specific muscle groups.
  • The tutorial even lampshades it, commenting in one box "Press X if you find this annoying".
• Permanently Missable Content: Want to get all achievements for the game? Well, you better make sure to headshot every enemy before beating the main campaign, because a couple enemy classes only appear in the final missions of the game, meaning that if you want to get the "One True Stopper" achievement, you have to start the whole game over.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Rex does this in a cutscene.
• Pun: A whole lot of them in a mission that requires Colt to destroy some dragon eggs with a flamethrower. Cue egg related puns...
  "Eggcellent."
  "I'm truly eggceptional."
  "Are these eggxtra-terrestrial?"
• Punch-Clock Villain: Many of the mooks can't wait until their tour of duty ends. Too bad for them.
• Purposely Overpowered: Most of the game's weapons, barring the AJM-9 and the bow, are this when fully upgraded. Many of them will chew through opponents in short order. The non-upgradeable weapons are this too; the flamethrower continues Far Cry's tradition of being ridiculously destructive, the Terror 4000 is basically everything you'd expect from an oversized bullethose and the Killstar is a Sword of Plot Advancement needed to take down Sloan. The trope also applies to Rex himself, as he levels up automatically, levels up ridiculously quickly, can sprint and breathe underwater indefinitely, and can gain ridiculous resistances to fire and explosive damage. Justified in that Rex is an eighties style Action Hero.
• Rated M for Manly: In that cheesy, over-the-top 80s sci-fi kind of way. Everything bleeds neon, lessening the impact, but gore is still copious. To truly absurd levels.
• Refuge in Audacity: The game runs on this. The fact that shooting someone in the back with a quad-barrelled incendiary shotgun can count as a stealth kill is only the tip of the iceberg.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: The running dead have high damage resistance against body shots, so you need to destroy their heads if you want to kill them efficiently.
• Retraux: The game is crafted to look and feel like an 80s scifi action film. This goes all the way down to its official trailer as well. The game's artists were directed to use old Sega Genesis game box art for inspiration, particularly with games like ESwat and Cyborg Justice. Also notable are the cutscenes which copy the cutscene style of DOS-era games with Limited Animation and limited color palette.
• Revealing Hug: During the explosive finale, as Rex and Dr. Darling embrace while looking into the horizon, she turns to the audience and reveals a pair of glowing purple irises, not unlike those on Rex and Sloan's Electronic Eyes. Arguably a Shout-Out to Thriller.
• RPG Elements: Instead of Far Cry 3's skill tree, Blood Dragon has set skills automatically unlock as you level up.
• Rule of Cool: The entire game pretty much runs on this trope, but particular note goes to the fact that Rule of Cool is the reason given in-universe for the bow-and-arrow having neon lighting on it - it's just to make it look futuristic.
• Shaped Like Itself: "Heal yourself with the ancient art of healing yourself."
• Shotguns Are Just Better: A fully upgraded Galleria 1991, thanks to its four barrels and incendiary rounds, will chew up anything at close range, Blood Dragons included.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shouting Shooter: Rex does this often when firing the Terror 4000.
• Sniper Scope Sway: The Kobracon does this unless holding your breath, as in Far Cry 3. Subverted with the aim stabiliser upgrade, which makes the breath holding mechanic redundant.
• Social Darwinist: Sloan in a nutshell. He believes that the world should be recreated via turning humanity into aggressive primitives with a dragon blood based bioweapon so that the strong can rule the weak.
• Stylistic Suck: The developers deliberately went for a So Bad, It's Good feeling, intentionally writing a trite script filled with cheesy one-liners, and having the art director put restrictions on character art to look like all the NPCs were wearing costumes made for film extras on an eighties-era $150 per-costume budget.
  • Hell, the trailer promotes the non-gameplay segments with Limited Animation done in the style of eighties-era G.I. Joe.
  • And the Russian fandub of the above trailer is made in style of 80s-90s bootleg Voiceover Translation, as if it was dubbed by Gavrilov/Volodarskiy themselves.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: All the cyborg mooks have synth voices similar to the Cylon voices (from the old Galactica series). Your robotic helicopter also has the synth voice commonly referred to as "American Male Number 1" of Stephen Hawking and Strawberry Clock fame.
• Take That!:
  • When hunting for collectibles around Sloan's island, Rex will usually complain about how his abilities aren't being put to good use. One such quip goes "I hope I don't have to find any fucking feathers," (or flags) referencing the collectibles from another of Ubisoft's hits.
  • Dr. Darling has some pretty strong opinions concerning critics of video games.
    "Frankly, anyone who thinks games are bad for you is a fucking idiot."
• Technobabble: One of the many tropes parodied, including Spider "re-coding the CPU sockets" and the classic "reversing the polarity" when hacking during the first mission.
• Technology Marches On: The game's menu and visuals are not unlike that of a movie from a VHS cassette.
  • Also used for in-universe jokes. VHS tapes and old television sets are lying around as collectibles in 2007. Asbestos armor is Rex's final upgrade, named after the widely used fireproofing substance that was later discovered to cause an exciting variety of lung-mutilating problems, including degenerative scarring and cancer.
• Theme Music Power-Up: When the final mission starts, which is the first moment you get to play with the powerful weapon you found in the previous mission, the music that played during the late title card backs the scene.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: In her first appearance, Dr. Darling rebuffs Sloan's calling her "Darlin'" by insisting on the title.
• Training Montage: What homage to the 80s would be complete without one?
• Token Black Friend: Spider, the African-American cyborg commando who is the Caucasian Rex's friend and partner. He is offed fairly early, adding to the tokenism.
• Troperiffic: Wallowing in action movie and cheap sci-fi tropes, most of the game's humor comes from Rex lampshading them.
• Tron Lines: Used to make weapons, NPCs, and explosive barrels more visible against the background, and also features prominently on the cover and title screen. In fact, pretty much the entire game is "black stuff with glowing lines on it."
• The Vietnam War: Sergeant Rex is a veteran of the Vietnam War Two. There's also a sequence in which he gets to be the door gunner of a chopper while 60's music plays, just like old times.
• The Unfought:
  • Dr. Carlyle repeatly mentions a "Man-Kraken" monster that he's trying to send to kill you, but which is repeatedly delayed and sidetracked by various screw-ups. Ultimately, Carlyle gives up on the Man-Kraken and just sends two Blood Dragons to kill you.
  • Dr. Carlyle gets killed by the AI controlling his laboratory for insulting it one time too many, before you even reach him.
  • Sloan, the final boss himself, could technically count. His fight starts and ends in one single Cutscene Power to the Max, for both parties.
• Unorthodox Reload/Unorthodox Holstering: Pretty much every single weapon-based animation involves a little showing off. Rex likes to spin and twirl guns and cartridges, and he reloads the shotgun by literally tossing more shells through the air and into it.
• Viewers Are Morons: Parodied in the tutorial, which was specifically built to piss people off by treating them as dumb. For example, the very first message reads "Press A/X/Enter to demonstrate your ability to read".
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Parodied with Rex's inbuilt AI. It's named "HUD" and he's more or less constantly bitching it out for stating the obvious.
• We Can Rebuild Him: The intro cutscene shows Sergeant Rex being rebuilt. All the Mark IVs fall under the trope, in fact. It turns out Rex was almost completely rebuilt, according to Sloan.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Sloan drank the blood of the island's Blood Dragons, which had the effect of supercharging his cybernetics, but also turning him completely insane (and also apparently completely messing up the cybernetic side of his body). Rex implies that he had to have been pretty nuts to begin with to start drinking dragon blood in the first place for no particular reason.
• World of Ham: Rex even hams up taking a breath after surfacing from water, despite being able to breathe underwater because he's a cyborg.
• Worst Aid: Fitting with the game's jokey nature, it's parodied. When critically injured Rex will fix his robot arm with a blow torch, rapidly squeeze a grip strength bar, or just pop a loose wire back into place. The one time it's played straight is when he fingers the bullet wound to try and get it out.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: After attempting to bomb Sloan's dam (the C4000 was a dud) Rex is briefly but noticeably upset to learn that there were innocent scientists inside, and relieved that the bombs didn't go off.
• Zeerust: 80s/90s technology and fashion with masses of LEDs and neon lights stuck on, and solid columns of overbright lasers everywhere in the fictional year 2007.
• Zerg Rush: Rex has to survive one by the Running Dead in the temple in order to prove he's worthy to wield the Killstar.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Since Sloan's gas missiles will turn everyone in the world not part of Sloan's plan into the Running Dead, his plan essentially amounts to this.