Far Cry 5

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Leisher
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Far Cry 5

Post by Leisher »

Typical Far Cry formula: Bad people taking control of a specific part of the world and you need to run around and do stuff to grow a revolution. Go elsewhere for the details. Hell, just go read my review of Far Cry 4...

The story here is set in Montana and a David Koresh type, Joseph Seed, has taken control of the entire area. He preaches about a coming event that is going to change everything. You are a deputy sent in with your sheriff and a U.S. Marshall to arrest the man. Stuff doesn't go as planned. Now you're out to liberate this area from Joseph, his brothers John and Jacob, and Faith.

The story is what drives a game and this one, while having a couple of strong moments, fails. I saw a pretty left wing reviewer blasting the game for not going completely far right, and I think I agree. I'm not saying I wanted them to go full on mocking of Rs and Trump, but I really wanted the religion stuff played up even more than it was. Religion is one of the primary reasons for death and war. It's not hard to apply it in this scenario. Another big problem is that some of the story is told via radio shows and notes/letters you find while exploring. So if you're not an explorer and/or a completionist, you're going to miss big clues.

Those moments though... I won't tell you which of Joseph's "generals" made me have feels about killing them, but their story is really good IF you find all the clues. The other moment is the endings. There are three in the game. The first one is revealed in the spoiler tag below and is an Easter Egg. It contains no actual spoilers, just how to trigger that ending.

There's a hidden ending as soon as the game begins. Just don't do anything when you're told to handcuff Joseph


The other two endings are great in their own way. I've seen reviewers bashing these endings, but they aren't being honest about why. They're upset they didn't get the ending they think they deserve. You probably are smart enough to realize what that means about the endings, but I assure you that they are good. A ballsy design decision too.

The pacing was a mess though, and I blame the openness of the game. You can go anywhere and do anything as soon as the game starts, which makes it hard to tell a story. There were several characters I know I was supposed to feel more about, but didn't because by the time I got to them I was steam rolling the game. Plus, because things didn't flow as linearly as I assume would have been "ideal", it hurt my ability to be immersed.

The worst part of the story though was being constantly shot with a tranq dart and kidnapped. I think it happened in all three areas of the map and multiple times for each one. This happened to me when I was flying an enclosed helicopter hundreds of feet above the ground. You know how that realistic thing happens... I was by myself, how did I land without crashing and dying? Scotty Evil would be so pissed at me being released every fucking time I was captured. So unbelievably stupid.

That brings up another problem with the Far Cry series, particularly this iteration. You get way too powerful. Sure, you can die at any moment, even when you have everything maxed, but because there is no penalty for death, the game loses all sense of consequences. "Oh, I failed that mission? Let me just respawn with all my weapons and ammo and do it again." "Oops, crashed Lidia's helicopter. I'll respawn it at the helipad." And so on. There has to be a better way. Maybe this changes with the "+" difficulty? A game like this should have a permadeath mode.

Still fun as hell. The firefights are great. The side missions range from boring fetch missions to puzzles to open/get to a stash to daredevil stunts and so on.

It also has co-op, so Cake and I discussed running through it, and I think I'm down for it, IF we can get the difficulty bumped up without completing the game first.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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