 Dangerous territory, beautiful results. Ajay comes home to Kyrat, a nation nestled inside the Himalayan Mountains, and finds that the country is being run by an insane dictator named Pagan Min. Ajay, finding himself swept up in the rebellion, must almost single-handedly defeat Pagan Min's forces and reclaim Kyrat for its people.
1. Gameplay
Far Cry 4 is an amazing game. There’s no way around it. With few exceptions, I enjoyed this game far more than I enjoyed Far Cry 3 (and that’s saying a lot, I really liked Far Cry 3). There is plenty to do, the game gives you choices and actually anticipates your desired choices fairly well, the characters are all memorable (especially Pagan Min, who is downright hilarious sometimes), and from start to finish the entire experience felt smooth and well designed.  Absolutely gorgeous. It’s hard to find many flaws with this game at all. The landscape is gorgeous, both in Kyrat and in Shangri-La. The animals are smart but predictably unpredictable, meaning I knew what they would do if I got too close but as long as I kept my distance I could usually avoid confrontations. The enemies were plentiful enough that I always had to stay on my toes but sparse enough that I wasn’t always in dull, grindy combat. And the stealth system actually worked! (Which is a huge deal for any first person shooter). I can usually judge a game based on how well I remember the characters’ names. I’m pretty horrible with names, so if a game can get me to actually remember what to call a character it’s definitely done its job. And I remember almost every character’s name in this game. Yogi and Reggie are a couple of pot smoking freeloaders who just need someone for some narcotics-based experiments, Amita and Sabal are essentially your mother and father, Pagan Min is simultaneously the most logical and most insane person in Kyrat, etc.  Pagan, before I let you finish, can you please take the fork out of that guy's back? There were a few small issues that sometimes detracted from my experience. For example, the wingsuit felt unreliable at best (something I discuss in detail in the Frustration Factor section below). Some of the characters were less than interesting (Hurk, ugh), but that might just be personal preference. And after clearing the entire southern half of the playable space, entering into the north and not being able to fast travel anywhere hurt. Once I spent the time to clear outposts and capture bell towers it was much easier, but it took time to get to that point. This is a great way to start the year. If you haven’t picked this game up yet, get it. It’s well worth the price.
It took me just about 30 hours to complete this game. I finished nearly every mission and sidequest, collected every collectible, and even took the time to play one of the alternate endings. This game has a lot of things to do and a great amount of replay value. Even after completing all of the quests, there was still a decent amount to do and I definitely wanted to keep going. I hope that the future DLCs include more story missions because everything still has a great amount of life to it. The multiplayer isn’t the best I have ever played, but it’s unique enough that it warrants a peek. I didn’t hold my attention for long and there weren’t enough people playing to give it life beyond a few more months. The coop adds tremendous replayability to the game, but only if you’re playing with someone you know and using a microphone.
For the most part the game is straightforward and relatively simple. The number of predators in the region takes away from the novelty very quickly, especially when every five seconds you hear a character yell “EAGLE!” Eventually I got used to the idea that a predator could spawn behind me at the worst possible moment, so I kept my ear out for the telltale animal sounds, but it always felt like overkill.  Sam the Eagle is a real jerk sometimes. The other major issue I had with the game, and one that at times was far more frustrating than the wildlife, was the wingsuit. In theory, it’s a quick and easy way to get down off the side of a mountain. In practice it was a dangerous, unintuitive, and unforgiving system that I hardly used. For some reason it was tied to the sprint key, which means that when I’m sprinting even the smallest jumps or falls could result in spreading my wings and flying straight into a wall or tree. This was especially true whenever I tried to jump down onto an enemy. Often I would miss the enemy completely, instead flying into a nearby wall. The wingsuit killed me far more than anything else in this game. 2. Parental Notices
Violence in this game, like a number of other factors, stays relatively constant for the vast majority of gameplay but has odd spikes here and there. Hits on enemies will result in some blood which can sometimes splash on the ground. This is most noticeable in the snowy environments, since the grass evidently hides the blood fairly well, and when the player uses a low damage, high rate of fire weapon (like an SMG).  Blood on the sand. Or grass, I guess. However, my playthrough lacked significant blood because I approached each situation in as stealthy a manner as possible. The game actually encourages the player to remain as stealthy as possible. This almost always requires the player to use either the bow and arrow or a silenced sniper rifle. In either case, the amount of blood emitted from these weapons is negligible.  This was how most of my kills looked. The above types of violence will account for 90% of the combat-related gameplay. 9% of the remainder includes takedowns and certain specific healing animations. If a player gets close to an enemy that isn’t looking directly at him, he can rush that enemy and plunge his blade into the opponent. This is a very personal and violent event, but is quickly finished. It can be chained so that the player can knife multiple enemies in a very short time. While I learned to use this somewhat commonly in later, large battles, I still definitely preferred to use the bow or sniper rifle.  Victory is mine. The player can also light enemies on fire by either using molotovs or the flamethrower. While I used molotovs occasionally in the game, I tried to stay as far away from the flamethrower as possible, since the fire would often damage me more than my enemy. In either case, enemies on fire will run around, screaming, engulfed in flames until they die. After they die, their bodies will remain on the ground without any visible sign that they were burnt.  Stop, drop, and roll, you fools! If the player is damaged but doesn’t have any healing syringes, he can still heal himself. In order to do this, Ajay (the main character) will do some sort of action related to how he has been damaged. For example, if he has been shot, Ajay may use a stick to remove the bullet from his wound.  That doesn't seem sanitary. If he was hit by an arrow, he might remove the broken arrow from his arm. This type of action was especially common in Shangri-La (since Shangri-La doesn’t allow you to have any healing syringes), but extremely uncommon during normal gameplay.  Be careful not to break the head off in your shoulder. Speaking of Shangri-La, it is the only place that included any visible elements of gore. There were certain specific sections where Kyrati warriors could be found frozen at their point of death. While most of these human time capsules would include blood, one or two of them were also having a limb or their head severed. This wasn’t especially graphic (it was actually somewhat difficult to notice), and it’s the only example I could find of content like this in the entire game.  His inside neck is... skin? Explosions did not cause any blood or gore.  [Insert action movie one-liner here]. Certain cutscenes can include noticeable blood (this is most obvious in the introductory cutscene), but I didn’t consider this an increase from the takedowns the player can perform in normal gameplay (and it was certainly less frequent).  You've got something on your face...
While sexuality doesn’t play much of a factor in this game, nudity is slightly more prominent. It doesn’t come up much over the course of the campaign, but there is one area where it is impossible to miss. In one campaign mission Ajay is drugged and taken to an arena. The women who move the prisoners into position for the arena battles are, despite their body paint, quite obviously topless.  This is either going to end really well or really, really poorly. Ajay hasn’t just been stripped of his weapons, he’s also been stripped of all of his clothes. However, for some reason the lighting did not allow me to see any of the lower body nudity. Other videos I have seen show the players lower male member, so I’m not sure if what I encountered was a bug, bad timing, or something else entirely.  Does he wax his legs? One of these women will always be outside of the arena, acting as an agent for any challenges the player wishes to attempt. However, she crosses her arms so most of the nudity isn’t visible.  Doesn't this get cold? Certain characters and texts in the game do discuss sexuality, sometimes in surprising detail. I found that listening to the Golden Path’s radio station was a relatively infrequent event, but one of the conversations involves the DJ talking about the types of sexual positions he prefers. The DJ tended to be a source of awkward conversations on the rare occasions that he did talk. There was also an awkward journal entry in which Ajay’s father accuses Ajay’s mother of adultery. It gets a bit graphic.  Wow. Harsh.
Excluding some specific missions, substances aren’t a major factor in this game. There are a few characters that can be seen drinking or smoking, but the player doesn’t drink or smoke anything (with the exceptions mentioned below).  I can't judge her for smoking, the honey badgers will probably kill her in a few hours anyway. The player can buy or create syringes with different effects. The most common one by far is the healing syringe, which I used constantly throughout my gameplay. If my health was running low, my character would inject himself with the healing syringe and instantly be fighting fit.  Can you inject these anywhere? I thought they only go in the leg. There were other syringes that the player could craft with a variety of effects, but I didn’t have much reason to use any of them. For example, one would allow Ajay to hold his breath underwater for a significantly longer period of time, but there were very few reasons to stay underwater for very long. And once I unlocked the perk that doubled my underwater breathing time, this syringe became completely useless. The only syringe I considered using on occasion was one which allowed me to instantly see any people and animals in a large radius around me. This was especially helpful in cramped interiors where I knew enemies would be waiting for me to come around a blind corner. There were only a few specific times when I used this substance.  Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. But, as with a number of things in this game, the substance use (or lack thereof) comes with a caveat. Yogi and Reggie, two characters in the game, are basically pot smoking freeloaders who experiment with drugs. They end up forcibly enlisting the player to test out some of their drugs (which are a means of introducing the player to the different syringes mentioned above). If the player continues to go back and complete missions for Yogi and Reggie, Ajay will smoke different substances (most of which seem to have no effect at all) until Ajay is injected with some sort of kicker drug (which has an instant, visible effect).  That's not a cigarette. Overall the experience is presented like Ajay is actively choosing to take the drugs but it doesn’t present Yogi and Reggie, nor their drugs, in a positive light. The drugs themselves have almost no effect until Ajay is injected with the kicker, then Yogi and Reggie drop Ajay off in some extremely dangerous situations with no weapons to defend himself. This includes the time when they dropped him deep in a bear’s cave and forced him to sneak out.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factors
While there are community-made maps released, they seem to be regulated by the developers. These maps only change the layout of the map, they don’t actually modify or add any new content. As a result, mods are not a factor in this game.
Religion is a major factor in many different aspects of this game. Much of the religion in the game seems to center on some sort of Buddhism. It prominently features Shangri-La, discusses certain people that were either born as or become gods, and has multiple locations where people pray to shrines of various size.  This really made me want to visit Nepal. Shangri-La also includes depictions of reincarnation. While other parts of the game discuss the idea of reincarnation, Shangri-La is the only place where anything (in this case, a white tiger and an elephant) is actually reincarnated. The tiger becomes the player’s companion in Shangri-La and, if it is every heavily damaged, dies and is reborn shortly afterward.  Is that... blood? Multiple missions and conversations will involve religion or spirituality. While the religion isn’t as organized and structured as something like Christianity or Judaism, it still features a lot of the same elements and frequently shows people praying or writing prayers. Much of the artwork also features religious symbols or characters.  I couldn't even begin to tell you who this is. The player eventually even goes to Shangri-La. After looking at pieces of a tapestry, Ajay goes into a trance and wakes up as a warrior trying to free Shangri-La from an evil that grips the land.  It tells a nice story. One of the characters, named Longinus, was an African warlord but was reborn into Christianity. He frequently quotes scriptures to Ajay. However, when he does this, he twists the scriptures in a way that promotes his agendas. It isn’t necessarily malicious, he’s an arms dealer and a devout Christian. It’s a difficult combination to grasp, but it shows that Longinus is trying to atone for his (many) past sins.  High five!
This game takes place during the midst of what is essentially a civil war. There aren’t any traditional members of “law enforcement”, since the enforcement of rules has been centralized into the hands of the military. While the player will be constantly acting to undermine the authority of King Min, it’s less of a terrorist organization and more of a legitimate power struggle (especially toward the end of the game).
The online community is about what one would expect from this type of game, which is always a bit unfortunate because a small portion of people can make or break the experience for everyone else. There weren’t too many people playing, but there were enough to get a few multiplayer matches down and give every mode at least one try. Almost no one used a microphone (typical on the PC), and that has its ups and downs. But despite playing with a couple dozen decent teammates and enemies, there were a few bad apples that hurt the overall experience. For example, just as one match was about to end a player quit. Unfortunately, he was the match host, and the game didn’t migrate properly. So all of the experience points and statistics for all of the other players didn’t take, wasting an entire match of leveling and upgrades. It was quite an infuriating event. The cooperative gameplay went much more smoothly, but overall it desperately needs to be done with people you know and when using a microphone. Otherwise things are far less interesting than they should be.
Unlike most games where I almost have to explain exactly how the content fits into extreme sports (I’m looking at you, Assassin’s Creed), this game actually includes activities that qualify as extreme sports. From hang gliders to grappling hooks, the player will constantly be partaking in activities that are both dangerous and physically strenuous (at best).  And ziplines! I can't forget the ziplines! An ultralight helicopter called the “buzzer” is by far the fastest and easiest way to get around the worldspace. It seems like a pretty dangerous little vehicle, especially when the player is being shot at, but its openness allows the player to return fire fairly easily.  Ah, freedom. The other quick way to fly across the map is using the wingsuit. The player has a flying squirrel-like wingsuit that allows him to glide along the air. Add to this the seemingly unlimited number of parachutes he has and, while unrealistic, it is a method of transportation I used a number of times.  Sup-Sup-Sup-Superman! The only other major form of extreme sports is the freediving the player will occasionally do. The player can dive well over twenty feet into the water without any diving apparatus. If it weren’t for the demon fish, towards the end of the game I could have stayed underwater for a few minutes without needing air (or so it seemed).  Which way is up?
I seriously debated whether or not magic was included in this game. Many of the images in Shangri-La certainly would qualify as magical. However, the player is only able to visit Shangri-La in a trance-like state. Therefore, since neither Shangri-La nor the events that happen within that worldspace technically qualify as real (according to what the game indicated, at least), I put the events in this world under “religion” and not magic.
Torture There is one enemy character who basically just tortures people. Sometimes it isn’t even for information. He just seems to really enjoy torture. The character was only in the game for a brief period of time, but you do get a very good indication of his sadism.  Not the good kind of dungeon. Language Language is a minor factor in this game. While for the most part foul language was completely absent, there were a few times that made me take notice. For example, the Mohan Ghale journal where he admonishes his wife for her infidelity. But I think the most surprising bit of language came when an enemy called me a “sister f*cker”. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that insult. Prostitution Prostitution plays a surprisingly large role in a number of the side missions. While the player will never actually see or partake in prostitution in any form, many of the kidnapped civilians discuss being sold into prostitution. Even more surprisingly, the royal guards are “equal opportunity employers” with their prostitutes, taking on men, women, and children without a second thought.  This is not how I imagined a brothel would look. But the fact that prostitution is the driving motivation behind almost all of the kidnappings in Kyrat makes this a prominent factor and seems a bit suspicious. Especially since there are very few brothels, and those that I did find were just caves with some bedding and rugs. Execution Execution is a minor factor that comes up a number of times in the game, but the only time when it's ever really visible is at the very end of the game. There is a scene where the player can watch as Sabal, one of the characters, executes the followers of Amita, his former partner.  I might have made the wrong choice...
2 Comments
Ben Palmer
6/6/2015 12:43:21 am
Nice review. I like the reviews but could you bring out the ps4 one because it says coming soon but the ps4 has been out for 2 years now.
Carmine
6/6/2015 07:01:11 am
Definitely. Once I get through E3 I'll work on a decent review / summation for that and the X1. It's about time that I finished those, haha. Leave a Reply. |
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