Somehow, through various Steam sales and other family members buying them, I've ended up with all the Far Cry games. Which is odd, because I'm not that fussed about the series. It's been alright. More than anything, these days I've just been disappointed with it.
(No screenshots this week, because the internet has gone down the shitter and it would take all day. Sorry I guess, no pretty pictures.)
Far Cry and Far Cry 2 were wildly different games. They both had similar stealth survivalist elements to an extent, but had completely different tones, and shared little on a mechanical level. 3 was definitely an iteration on 2, but the story tone was again completely different, borrowing the first game's colour palette with a story about an unlikable cunt in the middle of nowhere, which I guess was also borrowed from the first game. But they are DIFFERENT unlikable cunts, and there are no mutants, so there's that. It also streamlined a lot of 2's stuff and introduced many of what would become AAA gaming's favourite things right now, from radio towers, to wildlife genocide for purses. Then Blood Dragon happened, a brilliant little side game made with the same principles of 3 but with more nonsense.
And then came Far Cry 4, also known as Far Cry 3, again.
It was disappointing to see a franchise that had previously been willing to change itself a lot between iterations end up like that, and obviously 4 may not be indicative of the franchise's future, but considering Ubisoft have basically turned as many of their properties into Far Cry as possible, I wouldn't put much hope on something new quite so soon. Even Far Cry Primal, while distinctive in it's own ways, manages to feel very familiar even to someone who doesn't play many of these sort of games.
It also feels so incredibly AAA that it's almost comical. well, it already was comical, the joke of Ubisoft making a game about cavemen and selling varieties of club as DLC was a joke for years before they actually did it, even if it was usually Ass Creed people made the joke about. But the actual game born from the joke is basically exactly what people imagined. A game about a caveman voiced by Adam Jensen, who has a grappling hook because conceits, with objective markers and simple upgrade trees based on killing animals and levelling up, and a story that is basically a whole bunch of company favourite Videogame tropes being done by cavepeople in cavepeople speak. They actually have a character out for revenge for his dead family. Really. They did that and they didn't think once "isn't that guy basically in all of out games these days? I thought he was the protagonist of Watch Dogs?"
In all fairness, at it's best Primal is a rather enjoyable caveman sim, but between these moments of wandering around jungles admiring the scenery, or exploring your camps, you get some barebones combat which ranges from dull to downright irritating. All open combat consists of is mashing the attack button until you need to create another weapon, or running around in circles in an endless cycle of heal-and-get-hit while your animal companion attacks the thing. Attacking bonfires and encampments is no better, as it just feels like playing a previous Far Cry game without most of the tools. And the stealth is so lacklustre that attempting it will almost certainly end in open combat, which we have established is shite.
The odd little story it tells is entertaining at times, highlights being the magic hallucination sequences where you learn vague details about the fears of the two tribes while being overpowered to fuck, and the head of the Izilla tribe who is hot. The various characters you encounter are fun, even aforementioned Ubisoft Protagonist Man is quite fun to be around for once in his multi-game career. The various missions once again get very AAA however, with little indication of weather you've left the mission area or not, causing accidentally cancelled missions, and lots of scripted versions of stuff you do in the game anyway.
In general, Primal isn't bad, just kind of dull and average. The fact that it exists is entertainment enough in and of itself, but you'll likely get more enjoyment from buying Far Cry 3 in a steam sale and skipping all the cutscenes. You'll basically be doing the same things but with more fun tools.
Next week, good videogames. I've been playing some Civilisation 5, which has me thinking about Endless Legend again, and I've a lot of stuff to say about that. But likely next week I'll be talking about Souls-Like Salt and Sanctuary. Spoilers: It's quite excellent.
(No screenshots this week, because the internet has gone down the shitter and it would take all day. Sorry I guess, no pretty pictures.)
Far Cry and Far Cry 2 were wildly different games. They both had similar stealth survivalist elements to an extent, but had completely different tones, and shared little on a mechanical level. 3 was definitely an iteration on 2, but the story tone was again completely different, borrowing the first game's colour palette with a story about an unlikable cunt in the middle of nowhere, which I guess was also borrowed from the first game. But they are DIFFERENT unlikable cunts, and there are no mutants, so there's that. It also streamlined a lot of 2's stuff and introduced many of what would become AAA gaming's favourite things right now, from radio towers, to wildlife genocide for purses. Then Blood Dragon happened, a brilliant little side game made with the same principles of 3 but with more nonsense.
And then came Far Cry 4, also known as Far Cry 3, again.
It was disappointing to see a franchise that had previously been willing to change itself a lot between iterations end up like that, and obviously 4 may not be indicative of the franchise's future, but considering Ubisoft have basically turned as many of their properties into Far Cry as possible, I wouldn't put much hope on something new quite so soon. Even Far Cry Primal, while distinctive in it's own ways, manages to feel very familiar even to someone who doesn't play many of these sort of games.
It also feels so incredibly AAA that it's almost comical. well, it already was comical, the joke of Ubisoft making a game about cavemen and selling varieties of club as DLC was a joke for years before they actually did it, even if it was usually Ass Creed people made the joke about. But the actual game born from the joke is basically exactly what people imagined. A game about a caveman voiced by Adam Jensen, who has a grappling hook because conceits, with objective markers and simple upgrade trees based on killing animals and levelling up, and a story that is basically a whole bunch of company favourite Videogame tropes being done by cavepeople in cavepeople speak. They actually have a character out for revenge for his dead family. Really. They did that and they didn't think once "isn't that guy basically in all of out games these days? I thought he was the protagonist of Watch Dogs?"
In all fairness, at it's best Primal is a rather enjoyable caveman sim, but between these moments of wandering around jungles admiring the scenery, or exploring your camps, you get some barebones combat which ranges from dull to downright irritating. All open combat consists of is mashing the attack button until you need to create another weapon, or running around in circles in an endless cycle of heal-and-get-hit while your animal companion attacks the thing. Attacking bonfires and encampments is no better, as it just feels like playing a previous Far Cry game without most of the tools. And the stealth is so lacklustre that attempting it will almost certainly end in open combat, which we have established is shite.
The odd little story it tells is entertaining at times, highlights being the magic hallucination sequences where you learn vague details about the fears of the two tribes while being overpowered to fuck, and the head of the Izilla tribe who is hot. The various characters you encounter are fun, even aforementioned Ubisoft Protagonist Man is quite fun to be around for once in his multi-game career. The various missions once again get very AAA however, with little indication of weather you've left the mission area or not, causing accidentally cancelled missions, and lots of scripted versions of stuff you do in the game anyway.
In general, Primal isn't bad, just kind of dull and average. The fact that it exists is entertainment enough in and of itself, but you'll likely get more enjoyment from buying Far Cry 3 in a steam sale and skipping all the cutscenes. You'll basically be doing the same things but with more fun tools.
Next week, good videogames. I've been playing some Civilisation 5, which has me thinking about Endless Legend again, and I've a lot of stuff to say about that. But likely next week I'll be talking about Souls-Like Salt and Sanctuary. Spoilers: It's quite excellent.
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