Finished Far Cry 5 the other day. Despite the scale of the game and its various story / side missions, to me it seemed to go really quick. Not to mention, I dropped extra $$$ on the “Gold” edition which entitles me to two DLC’s, a handful of weapons with marginal benefits, and a free copy of Far Cry 3 Classic when it arrives for Xbox One in “September 2018.”
Was the extra cost worth it? After I play the DLC’s and whatnot, I’ll chime in. That said, one of my biggest complaints of Far Cry 3 and 4 (forget Primal, that shit bored me) – is that the games felt TOO long. Too much to do, so much so that actually beating the game felt like a chore. Not this time around, I got to the end, finished the story, finished the sides, and kept asking “is this it?” not realizing that I actually spent 65 hours on it. Comparatively speaking, I spent 30 hours on Far Cry 3 and 58 on Far Cry 4. 5 didn’t feel nearly as drawn out as either of those.
Ubisoft’s Far Cry series has become extremely predictable at this point, the only thing that changes with each iteration are the weapons and story – besides that just fill in the blanks and go. Is predictable really bad though? Definitely feels like they’re working to strike a balance between “LETS DO ALL THE THINGS” and “Why did they stop playing so soon?
As far as complaints? My only real complaints involve the weapons and vehicles. The vehicles have a few major classes, beyond the class (sports car, off roader, big truck, etc…) the individual options are all functionally identical. Off roaders are always faster and better handling than cars. Care to fly? Helicopters have significant visual variety, but performance is identical, same for planes (which can be landed in 20 feet on any road). The main difference being some have guns, some have guns and rockets, and others have neither. Guns? Again you have classes, pistol, shotgun, SMG (never actually used one), rifle, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, etc… Outside of each class? Visual differences, no real functional differences. Once you unlock an HMG with a silencer and a scope – 83% of the remaining weapons become pointless.
They’re doing it right. I saw a complaint from a major online video game reviewer that they couldn’t take the story seriously, that was their biggest complaint. I laughed. These are the same people who looked at a guy named Mario tossing fireballs at turtles with wings and tossed the controller aside because nothing like that existed in nature. While Far Cry is predictable, it is as challenging as you want it to be, and most importantly – fun.
