The Quill

I look at Far Cry 4 and i see myself looking back at Far Cry 3, 2 and the original.

So depending on whether you’re feeling nostalgic or not that can be a good or bad thing.

Far Cry 4 is the newest game in the series promising us a new adventure but at the same time it loves to stick to its traditional gameplay format inside its sandbox.

The old saying goes that if it’s not broken don’t fix it, but there’s another saying that equally applies here and its that’s this is deja vu & cliché.

Therefore a part of me wants to give Far Cry 4 one more chance to impress me but another part of me just wants to let it go.

Let’s talk about the game in more detail now a little bit.

Visually Far Cry 4 is quite nice, though nothing stunning stellar. The lightning is good but not on par with many other recent gorgeous games out there and the game’s character models are 50-50.

Technically yes its impressive, its a huge ass sandbox. You can explore an epic country without ever seeing a load screen. Though whether you want to explore or not is another matter.

Story wise its nothing special. Apart from a new locale theme and new characters its the same template as before as you always find yourself stuck in the middle of a conflict between 2 parties fighting over seemingly important things that usually fail to catch your attention. It starts well but quickly becomes tepid. Crysis for instance had its serious flaws but it tried to present an epic story at least. Here there is nothing. ‘Who Cares’ kept playing in my head as i tried to follow the story.

Gameplay wise it’s ok. It is the same old Far Cry mechanics. Get yourself a gun, roam around the island in a car endlessly, shoot the other faction, unlock towers, play support missions, do some crafting, play the campaign missions when they are unlocked ad infinitum. What i did love though here was the first moment i saw an elephant charge and ram an enemy soldier, it was hilarious and unexpected. I also loved the inclusion of a glider for travel.

And its here that i have my second thoughts about Far Cry 4 the most and Far Cry the series in general. I have nothing against sandboxes, but roaming endlessly from one mission to another is not fun in this series. There is nothing to explore worth finding and you always end up doing the same secondary repetitive things, like fighting the bad guys you meet on the road and looting. Grand Theft Auto is an sandbox, so is Skyrim and Fallout 3, but you never get bored exploring those games there is always something new for you discover while you go from mission to mission. In Far Cry there is no such thing.

As for the weapons themselves, they handle average. You never feel you are owning the playing field like in Battlefield or Call of Duty. You are just doing your duty shooting.

And the scripted level events that progress you through the game give you a distinct feeling that you are playing a game from the late 90’s with the unimaginative spawning of the NPCS. They spawn left, right, spawn again, you kill them, run out of ammo, run for ammo, kill them some more again. Its a chore to play it for someone who played dozens of games like this before and played exact duplicates of this game as well in Far Cry 3, 2 & 1.

I’m not saying Far Cry 4 is a bad game and has nothing to offer.

Im saying there are 3 groups of people who will have opinions on this game.

Those from a younger generation who haven’t playing the prequels and still have the stamina to play this and decide whether they like its format.

Those who played the prequels and still feel nostalgic about it they will enjoy the enhancements of this version.

And those who played the prequels and cant force themselves to play the same thing all over again with nothing substantial added to it.

I clearly fall into the third group.

Far Cry 4 does not shine in my eyes nor catch my attention.

It only captures my curiosity long enough for me to check it and then decide its not worth it.