Far Cry 4 Review
Developer Ubisoft
Publisher Ubisoft
Platform PC & Gen 4
Release Date Out Now
When I think about Far Cry I don’t immediately think of the massive open world, the crafting, the hunting or the melding of human and animal instincts into a singular killing machine. I think about the villains, the utter insanity that goes into creating some of the best villains any series has seen. Far Cry 4 is no different and Pagan Min is a wonderfully ludicrous nemesis and from the first moment he is introduced in game I just wanted more.Unfortunately for the player he is pushed into the background for a huge portion of the game and you are left to interact with the far less interesting characters in the world.
After finishing Far Cry 3 I felt I had taken part in a massive story with large free roaming elements, this time it feels the other way around. The story is no way near as enjoyable and feels like it was added as background, a reason to explain all this free roaming. Something to cobble it together rather than being the driving force.
I think the key to this was the development of the main character, in Far Cry 3 you played a hapless tourist who spends the first portion of the game running scarred and hiding (as any of us would do) until he slowly learns to adapt and develop the skills required to fight. However in Far Cry 4 the game pretty much skips all this and decides you are already the next great warrior from the get go and throws you head first into the action. While I enjoy the power fantasy this brings, it has lost some of the magic FC3 had.
In the story you are travelling to Kyrat to fulfill your mothers dying wish to have her ashes scattered over the Himalayan mountains. The bus you are travelling is intercepted, everyone is killed and you are whisked off to Pagan Min’s opulent retreat. After escaping from here you meet with the freedom fighters and learn that your parents were hero’s to these freedom fighters and you apparently are the great warrior returning to lead them, so with little more explaining than that you need to go slaughter hundreds of NPCs for reasons not very clear but I guess they are the bad guys so lets not ask too many questions.
This was the biggest disappointment of an otherwise brilliant game, the story just doesn’t grab you. You will still want to play through the campaign, discover every tower, locate every treasure and hunt every animal but the story should be the driving force which it fails to do.
The world is beautiful, as you would expect from any Ubisoft game it looks amazing. This is up there with the best looking games I’ve played on any next Gen machine, the scenery is spectacular, the wildlife and all that goes with it is enough to have you stop and stare on more than one occasion. You are free to pretty much roam wherever you like and explore this landscape picking up new missions, meeting new people and finding new locations. It is Ubisoft so yes you find a tower, unlock it to reveal that section’s new hidden outings (you know the score just like in Far Cry 3 and every Assassin’s Creed title).
A major new addition, and one that does makes the campaign much more enjoyable is the co-op mode. After completing the initial section this option opens up. Any of your friends can invite you or you can invite them to join each other’s game. This makes the random exploring far more enjoyable. A few new vehicles most notably the gyro-copter allows you to travel great distances, old favorites like the hand glider and wing suit make a return too.
As you might expect the game is full of animals, some to hunt some to help. Elephants can be used to attack enemies by riding on their backs and is one of the most destructive features in the game. These beasts are huge and it really is massively enjoyable to sit on the back of one as he smashes everything around him. However in most cases animals are there for help craft items and you are collecting skins to craft new holsters, pouches or backpacks. This as always brings equal parts enjoyment and sorrow as you get to expand your items but you have to kill the poor animals minding their own business. Expect those Badgers they are nasty little pricks hell bent on attacking you so shoot them in the head right away.
Overall: Far Cry 4 is a really good game, it is just not as good as Far Cry 3. I was surprised to see this release so soon after FC3 and it does seem to be a game built on the tech not the narrative. It is still polished and a lot of fun and overall pretty enjoyable. Personally for me I prefer the evolution of being a scarred witless suburbanite into a jungle killer we got from FC3 but the power fantasy still does tick enough of the correct boxes to make this a solid shooter.
SCORE 4/5
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