I need to make this clear right off the bat before I get to deep into this review. The story and characters in Far Cry 4 are absolutely terrible. I’m not talking regular old bad here, I’m talking characters on the level of Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.” After spending hours with the game I just can’t understand the praise that is being leveled at this game from other outlets. Seriously, it’s like saying a movie is great because it has a lot of pretty explosions, but ignoring the plot and actors. Far Cry 4 isn’t terrible by any means, but reviewers seem to be placing far too much weight on how cool a game is instead of how good a game is.
I’m reviewing the last generation version of the game so that may have a lot to do with my review, but in all honesty why would a publisher release a game on last generation systems in the first place? Beyond the fact that they want to nickel and dime consumers for every possible cent I see no reason for this game existing. I would have loved to review the PC version of the game, but at the time of launch that version was completely broken on all accounts, so here I am grabbing a last generation version to see how it holds up. Not well is the answer you’re all looking for.
Far Cry 4 has some of the worst writing and pacing that I have ever seen in a game, period. In fact, I don’t think anyone behind the game had any real clear idea of what sort of game they were trying to make. Everything feels like it was brainstormed in some corporate boardroom and the developers were just along for the ride.
Here’s the deal: I really do love a good action film. I love any classic ’80s action schlock no matter how bad and will gladly kick back whenever one is on, heck, Miami Connection is one of my favorite films and that thing is a steaming pile. Why am I bring up terrible ’80s movies during this video game review? Well, because think of the worst acted, worst directed, worst paced action film, and then dumb it down a little more and you are left with Far Cry 4. The retro inspired Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon had a better story and plot than this game and that was a standalone DLC game.
Before you can even ask what’s going on, you are going to find yourself shooting, animal skinning, and stealth killing all manner of creatures and enemies like you’re some grizzled special forces operator and not Joe Schmo that rents surfboards to all the bros trying to impress their ladies. I’m not joking when I say that after the brief opening cinematic that sees you returning your fathers ashes back home upon his wishes, you’ll be playing action hero and joining the rebels in saving their people. I’m not kidding in saying that within five minutes of gameplay I had brutally killed multiple enemies (as far as I was aware), needlessly killed three animals and skinned them (because that’s a thing I know how to do apparently), and was taking missions and whole heatedly part of some resistance without so far as my character asking what’s going. Oh, and we aren’t playing some silent protagonist here, our hero talks just fine, but sounds more like some bro on quaaludes than any sane human being I’ve ever met, which would make sense I suppose. For a random guy I sure turned into Nathan Drake with the grappling hook from Just Cause in quite a hurry. Far Cry 4 just makes no sense from a story telling perspective.
Graphically the game isn’t anything to write home about on last generation systems like the PS3. Characters look like zombie mannequins with little to no expressions when they speak. Everyone looks at you with this a cold, blank, plastic like stare and will speak dialogue no matter if you are around them or not or even if you want to hear it. Hell, there were even times where I had no idea who was talking because of the stilted faces of the characters around me.
Another odd thing that I saw a lot of was that it looked like every dead NPC that has been placed by the developers looked as if they just grabbed the stock model, in full Jesus pose, and laid them flat on the ground with their eyes wide open. I can’t begin to express how utterly fake everything looks. This isn’t some accident that happens deep into the game mind you. I experienced these things during the first mission, the very first take you are asked to complete for your new BFFs.
A major gameplay feature on hand is the ability to kill animals and use the meat to lure predators to take care of enemies and to collect the pelts to use for trading, or in crafting upgrades for yourself. Hunting animals is nice, but I didn’t pick up Far Cry 4 thinking it was the next Cabelas on accident. Nice features that don’t really benefit gameplay aren’t all that impressive to me especially when they were already done much better back on the PS2 with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. A lot of this just feels like Far Cry 3 with a shiny coat of paint.
Skinning animals could have been used as a very cool concept that had you going out of your americanized normality and comfort zone to wrestle with the idea of taking a life and using all the parts that nature gave you, but unfortunately you don’t actually skin anything. When you are tasked with skinning pelts for someone (or to earn pelts to upgrade your cool fanny pack) all that happens is that you get the exact same animation for killing an animal and removing their organ (I’m guessing heart) like in the last game. It’s a pretty lame implementation of something that could have been really authentic and visceral, but instead comes off as just a quick way to extend the gameplay by diving into the recycle bin.
The bait system is also a neat idea, but I can’t help from feeling like some insane wild man carrying around a half-dozen (probably still beating) animal hearts in my laptop bag. Throwing some meat and getting a bear to generate out of nowhere is really fun to watch, but one wonders how said bear and friends not see, or smell, the man covered in blood with a bag full of entrails running through the wilderness.
I also ran intro a number of Mission zones while on certain quests from whoever any of these people are. Mission zones that pull the Battlefield warning telling you to essentially return to the combat zone. I wasn’t aware that Far Cry 4 had turned its single player campaign into Battlefield 4. Heck, I can go as far back as Far Cry 2 to see a truly open-world game where I can see and do what I want when I want. I shouldn’t have to deal with a mission ending (one that has no time limit) just because I decided to get to my target, or job, by a different route. Again, this just tells me that Ubisoft didn’t really know what it wanted Far Cry 4 to be and instead it just ended up being average at pretty much everything.
I would have loved to give the multiplayer a real go and have the pleasure of hearing people call me every racial epitaph in the book while making sure to mention how gay I am, all the while asking me to be their proverbial bitch and to place my mouth on their genitals. But unfortunately for me the online system was down most of the morning (west coast time) so I couldn’t give it a fair shake. Why didn’t I just wait a few hours until things got smoothed out you scream at me? Well, to that I say, “Fuck you.” I play the game in the time window I have for a review and if your touted features aren’t working I’m not going to play journalistic kiss ass and wait until they are. I play like a regular consumer, and any regular consumer would be rightfully pissed that a major feature just didn’t work or that you find a corruption error when loading.
But hey, the game isn’t all that bad. Gameplay wise everything works pretty well and the basic shooting mechanics are decent enough, even if the hit boxes do seem a bit off for my taste. Aside from a few annoying mission zones the game does offer a huge and lush area to explore to your heart’s content. Strangely enough this makes the game seem more of an easy-going vacation, with the occasional stop to pop off a few enemies. While Far Cry 3 may have been set in a paradise like setting, Far Cry 4 at times actually feels that way with nothing really stopping you, or forcing you to get things done in a certain manner and that’s a lot of fun. The auto drive function that every vehicle gets is also a real treat to have and makes getting where you need to a much easier task as driving can still be a nightmare. You can also hunt elephants using C4 if that’s your cup of tea as well.
What you get is just a better version of Far Cry 3 that has much better looking graphics on the PC and current generation systems, but lacks any substantial punch on last generation systems. The fact that these big companies are still releasing these huge titles on old hardware when the new stuff has been out now for two years boggles the mind. Either the adoption rate isn’t what publishers expected, or people they are just looking to make a quick buck.
Maybe on a the PS4, Xbox One, and PC Far Cry 4 stands out from the crowd, but when you strip away the pretty graphics on these last generation systems you aren’t left with that much of an improvement over Far Cry 3. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game as you are still running around liberating outposts and upgrading your stuff and abilities along the way. As for the games length, if you are just knocking out the single player portion and don’t mess about with all the side quests, you can expect a good 12-15 hours of content which is nice. The side quests do make for a much longer experience and give to incentive to go back and try to complete them all.
When you deal with the multiplayer aspect of the game, things get a little wobbly. You can engage in these five on five matches with other players, but these matches completely alter the entire point of the what makes Far Cry 4 cool in the first place. Your world suddenly becomes a whole lot smaller and cramped when dealing with these matches and feels more Call of Duty lite than anything else. It’s one of the reasons tacking on needless multiplayer hurts these kind of games. The time invested on creating a poor mans knock off multiplayer could really have been used to tighten up the game as a whole.
On the other hand the co-op functionality is pretty awesome. If you are like me and enjoy doing thing together, as opposed to doing things against each other, then the Far Cry 4 co-op is a step in the right direction. Being able to jump in the game of another player with all your current stats intact is pretty cool. It’s a blast to be able to communicate together to take over outposts and really opens the game up, giving it some a great deal of longevity. This is of course if the online portion of the game works at all, which by the time of this review should be stable, unless you are on a PC, which if you are I wish you god speed.
If you had a great time playing Far Cry 3 and you just want more of the same then you are going to enjoy Far Cry 4. If on the other hand you are looking for a deep and interesting story with characters that draw you in, then you are better off looking elsewhere. At the end of the day Far Cry 4 ends up doing just enough to not make it a bad game by any means, but not enough to make it anything really special from what came before. If you really want to pick it up then do yourself a favor and don’t grab a last generation version like I did. You’ll have a lot more fun with the current gen version of the game.
About Author
