FarCry 5 is getting fairly postive reviews

[sXeth]

I've been playing the game for about 12 hours and I've been able to buy several ''premium'' weapons and outfits, I don't even know why they put microtransactions in the game when you can easily just play and buy them with the in-game currency. Might be in their contracts like previously mentioned but it still makes no sense to buy skins for a singleplayer game that you can easily get by just playing it normally.

They just melded it into their design philosophy at some point. IIRC, Watch_Dogs 1 was the originating instance for the clothing stuff (which was a bit weird considering other people don't even see your avatar in the multiplayer, you show up as a random NPC).

Ubisoft themselves refers to The Division as their milestone point for adopting "Games as Service" and their open world design template, which probably includes the microtransactions. Of course, an online MMO thing vaguely can (hypothetically) justify such things existing, its when you copy-paste that template into your self-contained games that don't involve running servers and ongoing content creation continuously it starts becoming more questionable.

This is the nature of the design template of course. They'll paste microtransactiosn onto products where they make no sense to exist the same way they pasted truck hijacking missions into Watch_Dogs 2 or AC : Origins. There's abberations in the template occasionally (Both Watch_Dogs for whatever reason completely eschews the regional influence thing), but they'll plop most of it down in the game somehow.

The "Games as Service" model dumped on what should be full package experiences is the other main reason for Ubi's recent spat of games to rot unless one's bored and finds a used copy. They're making platforms consisting of barely-altered copy paste jobs across a map at this point. So they can have people come back every week/month/quarter for some drip feed of possible innovation. What they intend to do with people logging into these games continuously is a bit nebulous. Watch_Dogs 2 they dumped out co-op missions as a DLC pack, and Ghost Recon did the same thing with the PvP mode. So I'd say they're sitll mucking about with models, and probably had to scramble some stuff because of the BF2 scandal (and their own Rainbow Six one).

 

[Paragon Fury]

Massive Spoilers Ahead. Warning!

So the ending to Far Cry 5 is getting a bit of hate, but also a bit of the Mass Effect 3 Indoctrination theory as there is a bunch of in-game evidence, including the in the endings themselves, to indicate the given endings aren't actually real.

Spoiler

So the game has two endings and a joke ending like FC4 did.

Both of the regular endings are disappointing. One is you walking away from arresting Joseph Seed, but then your kill command that got implanted when you were being tortured earlier in the game is triggered and you kill your friends on your way out to get the National Guard.

The other is you trying to arrest Joseph Seed, being forced to fight your drugged up friends in the Resistance in order to do so. After you beat them and try to arrest Seed, the US is attacked in full force by nuclear weapons (IE: the Cold War fears come true) and you desperately try to escape to a nearby survivalist's bunker, only for the rest of your friends to die and Seed to hold you hostage in the bunker as the world burns around you.

Both of these endings kind of suck and negate what you spend the entire game doing in a rather cheap manner. More importantly, both have things noticeably wrong with them - particularly the nuclear ending.

In both endings, your vision has the dust particles that were used to indicate your character hallucinating or attempted MC through drugs earlier in the game.

In the nuclear ending in particular, Joseph hits you with two MASSIVE doses of the MC drug before you fight your friends, and when the bombs start going off your vision has the drug effect still on them. In addition, the timing of the bombs is too perfect. They go off in sync PERFECTLY as Seed is monologuing and singing. And many of the effects of the blasts that should be there either don't occur, or don't occur until a character specifically calls them out. In addition, despite what would be a notable EMP effect from bombs going off so close, cars are still operational and working, as is electricity, burns and fire don't occur logically, and the entire time your vision still has the drug effect.

The drug effect combined with the fact that the game hints several times that the events putting the world on edge might actually be the fault of Joseph Seed and the PEG leave some hope for a better ending to be released/revealed.

 

[sXeth]

So my cousin bought me Far Cry 5 (well he bought himself Far Cry 5, but game sharing).

Microtransactions = Not as ridiculous as hyped up. Still stupid. And yes, the ingame shop you have to use to refill your ammo all the time or spawn a car having a lagtime to open it because its connecting to an online store is irritating.

Onto actual impressions of the game.

Weird lag effects? Bugs? Glitches? There's a myriad of these that I don't know how to typify. I've played FC 3, 4, and Blood Dragon. Fire didn't catch you on fire like you were wearing clothes soaked in gasoline from 7 or 8 feet away before. The health meter (besides being pathetically low-visibility in the UI, also seems to have some weird crap going on with it. Frequently it drops to 0 and you can still take multiple hits after. Other times its "nope bang you're dead" before the medkit prompt for being injured even pops up. The new protagonist also seems drastically more fragile then in prior games, and no longer has the old "first aid" ability where they recovered slower but could still heal themselves. They do instead regenerate health, but only sometimes (out of combat? Dunno, its not explained)


Open world. The open world likes to go nuts. Completely at random. NPC's just screaming at random invisible enemies that don't exist. Spawning in nonsensical places (I was almost decapitated by two rebels spawning in vision of me and coming straight at me on an ATV in the desolate middle of a forest at one point). Hell, you can be shopping at the garage in a friendly outpost only to have the NPCs suddenly decide you're a hostile and start shooting you.


Speaking of random shit impairing the games functionality on a basic level. Besides the screaming at the shadows psychotic breakdowns some of the NPCs have that counts as "in conflict" so you can't talk to them. Someone at Far Cry 5 looked at skyrim's dragons and said "Hold my beer". Fun little cultist planes that shoot at you and drop bombs spawn constantly, and continue to hover around even while chattering on the radio that they can't find you. This has a myriad of neat effects like making any NPC qest nearby unusuable cause they're "in conflict", meaning if you step out at all they call reinforcements to you, and if you get in a vehicle you're basically dead from a one-hit bomb or a machine gun that sets your vehicle on fire (And your gas soaked rag clothing with it, so you die from that even if the bullets don't get you). You can kill these planes, but they seem to be impervious to all but the two most expensive weapons to use (including surviving 3 remote bombs attached to them), which'd almost make sense if they did have you buying ammo with micro-money.


For another general s*** in your open world experience corn flakes, doing stuff triggers you being "marked" by the cult. Whereupon some crazy stuff spawns out of nowhere at you and shoots you with laser-accurate insta-KO bullets so you can go visit their evil-meme spewing villain of the moment for a few minutes of being jabbered at before your invariable escape (hell, half the time they let you or force you to leave).

Also, to pad out the leveling system all the guns have obnoxious bloom (giant circles where your bullets go randomly around the spot you actually aim, for the layman) so you can take perks later to reduce it. Speaking of wasting ammo and artificial money sinks, those little forced captue segments also eat all your ammo, forcing you to rebuy it after.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

I'm thinking about this one. It looks fun enough, and who doesn't like killing cultists? The Inquisitor in me approves. Not a huge fan of season passes, even if some of the DLC campaigns look fun, and super not a big fan of the apparent grind. Enemies drop like $5-8 of in-game currency, and a new gun is like $7000+ to get, unless you spring for microtransactions.

Still, if its on sale in a few months, and they patch in a better economy, I'll probably get this one.

Ridiculous AR-15s and most guns don't cost that much in real America. (Which itself is a pretty big problem)

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Ridiculous AR-15s and most guns don't cost that much in real America. (Which itself is a pretty big problem)

It might seem a bit odd price wise, but as with most things in the game, by the time you're actually allowed to buy it, you can afford it. It is weird though, I'm pretty sure my attack helicopter cost less than my AK.

EDIT: Actually, I'm talking shit. The standard AK was probably about the 3 mark IIRC. Most of the guns are in the $1k to 3K range

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

It might seem a bit odd price wise, but as with most things in the game, by the time you're actually allowed to buy it, you can afford it. It is weird though, I'm pretty sure my attack helicopter cost less than my AK.

It is also only the prestige weapons that cost 7,200 dollars in game. The regular guns come in between 1,200 and 4,800 (for the guided rocket launcher), with assault rifles and sniper rifles between 2-3,000. The prestige weapons are essentially a "I don't want to wait for the unlock and want to pay extra to get the gun right now", as they are not different from the regular gun in any way short of their unique skin and the ability to buy them with silver bars (the premium currency, also found in abundance in the game and as rewards for challenges).

I've got several gripes with Far Cry 5, mostly concerning the way the story gets in the way of the gameplay and how rushed the story feels, but the economy is not one of them. In fact, the in-game economy seems tuned to let the player make meaningful choices early on, while giving you plenty of chances to unlock things just for the sake of trying them out.

Speaking of wasting ammo and artificial money sinks, those little forced captue segments also eat all your ammo, forcing you to rebuy it after.

Buying ammo is almost always pointless, unless you want the special ammo. Pretty much every outpost you liberate and most buildings in the game world have respawning stacks of ammo laying around. If you know where to go, there are also respawning ammo crates easily available. Once you realize that, you'll never buy ammo again for any other reason but that you are lazy and swimming in cash (which I did by the end of the game).

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

It might seem a bit odd price wise, but as with most things in the game, by the time you're actually allowed to buy it, you can afford it. It is weird though, I'm pretty sure my attack helicopter cost less than my AK.

It is also only the prestige weapons that cost 7,200 dollars in game. The regular guns come in between 1,200 and 4,800 (for the guided rocket launcher), with assault rifles and sniper rifles between 2-3,000. The prestige weapons are essentially a "I don't want to wait for the unlock and want to pay extra to get the gun right now", as they are not different from the regular gun in any way short of their unique skin and the ability to buy them with silver bars (the premium currency, also found in abundance in the game and as rewards for challenges).

Now...you see that's what happens when you turn on Farcry 5 to check how much things cost, start to edit your answer and then decide you'll play for just a few more minutes...

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Sooo...Played it a bunch today.

Yeah, it's pretty good. I really do feel like it's one step forward one step back from 3 though.

3 had the exotic locale and running into the jungle felt really risky because you never knew if the puddle you were escaping into might have a hungry croc in there somewhere, and the wacky shaman-ish stuff was pretty cool.

5 loses that...However, it has a hilariously awesome megatruck and honest to god party members who are actually worth a damn, even the randos you can pick up. I also do appreciate actually feeling like I'm being hunted down, even if the end result feels kiiiinda cheesy and I'd kinda prefer to have it happen mid-mission a-la-Farcry-3.

...And apparently it's possible to stick a silencer on a shotgun. I haven't done so just yet, but holy crap I think I wanna give that a shot.

Overall, enjoying it so far, now that I finally have a second primary weapon slot and a silencer for my pistol.

 

[Elijin]

I really wish Farcry games would stop trying to sell us on the idea that we're the everyman, the rookie, the hapless traveller, being thrown into these situations.


It's such a huge disconnect when the game portrays the player character as out of their depth and on the run, only to shift to player control where we proceed to murder everyone and everything without hesitation or problem.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I really wish Farcry games would stop trying to sell us on the idea that we're the everyman, the rookie, the hapless traveller, being thrown into these situations.


It's such a huge disconnect when the game portrays the player character as out of their depth and on the run, only to shift to player control where we proceed to murder everyone and everything without hesitation or problem.

Yeah it is weird. I like to imagine Deputy whatshisorherface is some kind of veteran or extreme gun nut or an FBI plant or something.

Jason Brody.....I got nothin'. I mean, there's a theory that there's a sap on all the jungle plants that makes people insanely violent if you get it on your skin (which explains the highly aggressive animals) and since Brody spends all his time in the bushes... Even so, going from Inexperienced Tourist to Greatest Warrior Alive when the local gun toting yahoos aren't able to hack it was just silly as fuck. XD

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I really wish Farcry games would stop trying to sell us on the idea that we're the everyman, the rookie, the hapless traveller, being thrown into these situations.


It's such a huge disconnect when the game portrays the player character as out of their depth and on the run, only to shift to player control where we proceed to murder everyone and everything without hesitation or problem.

Yeah it is weird. I like to imagine Deputy whatshisorherface is some kind of veteran or extreme gun nut or an FBI plant or something.

Jason Brody.....I got nothin'. I mean, there's a theory that there's a sap on all the jungle plants that makes people insanely violent if you get it on your skin (which explains the highly aggressive animals) and since Brody spends all his time in the bushes... Even so, going from Inexperienced Tourist to Greatest Warrior Alive when the local gun toting yahoos aren't able to hack it was just silly as fuck. XD

At least in FarCry Primal you were a hunter:

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I really wish Farcry games would stop trying to sell us on the idea that we're the everyman, the rookie, the hapless traveller, being thrown into these situations.


It's such a huge disconnect when the game portrays the player character as out of their depth and on the run, only to shift to player control where we proceed to murder everyone and everything without hesitation or problem.

Yeah it is weird. I like to imagine Deputy whatshisorherface is some kind of veteran or extreme gun nut or an FBI plant or something.

Jason Brody.....I got nothin'. I mean, there's a theory that there's a sap on all the jungle plants that makes people insanely violent if you get it on your skin (which explains the highly aggressive animals) and since Brody spends all his time in the bushes... Even so, going from Inexperienced Tourist to Greatest Warrior Alive when the local gun toting yahoos aren't able to hack it was just silly as fuck. XD

At least Jason is presented as having an arc - he's properly scared/horrified/weirded/enthused/dead serious at each stop of his journey, improbable as it may be. Ajay from FC4 on the other hand is presented in the most matter of fact way possible and there's no attempt at characterization.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

I really wish Farcry games would stop trying to sell us on the idea that we're the everyman, the rookie, the hapless traveller, being thrown into these situations.


It's such a huge disconnect when the game portrays the player character as out of their depth and on the run, only to shift to player control where we proceed to murder everyone and everything without hesitation or problem.

It is, but it's still proper if you view it from a cinematic lens.

Me, I looked at FC 3 and 5 like a more gun heavy version of this...

 

[sXeth]

I really wish Farcry games would stop trying to sell us on the idea that we're the everyman, the rookie, the hapless traveller, being thrown into these situations.


It's such a huge disconnect when the game portrays the player character as out of their depth and on the run, only to shift to player control where we proceed to murder everyone and everything without hesitation or problem.

It is, but it's still proper if you view it from a cinematic lens.

Me, I looked at FC 3 and 5 like a more gun heavy version of this...

I will say for Far Cry 5, you're at least a cop (with some level of training) vs a bunch of drugged up random people.

3 and 4 are a bit more off with the random teenager vs army of trained professional mercenaries stuff.

 

[CritialGaming]

I really liked Far Cry 3. I thought the journey of the player character and his plight was a fun baseline to experience the wildness of the game overall. I skipped 4 and Primal as I was suffering open world fatigue at the time.

But the setting and ideas behind Far Cry 5 got my interest and I decided to buy into the game.

What a disappointment. Right out of the gate I knew I was in trouble when I was able to create a male or female character, and as I suspected the player character has no character. It's an avatar and nothing more. There is no dialog, no characterization, no personal journey or story, you are merely a thing going through the motions of the world around you trying to save the day like a mindless, soulless super hero.

Gameplay wise, Far Cry 5 is fine. Fun even. Blowing up cultists, driving different vehicles, uncovering bunker puzzles, etc, it all works and it's all fine.

But the lack of any personal motivation just ruins the game for me. I fine myself not giving a shit about anything. I don't care about the numb NPC's around, and simply do as they ask to move the boss meter forward until I can fight the boss and move on. And that's the biggest bummer about the game.

Ultimately, Far Cry 5 is fun enough, but without player agency you'll most likely find yourself giving up well before the end because there is a lack of driving force pushing you forward.