There I am, crouching through the bushes, watching my step as I slowly make my way to my target. A deer, whose skin I require to make my wallet bigger. I zoom into my sniper rifle and slowly take aim at the deer-looking creature. What a beautiful, majestic creature, yet it’s sacrifice is necessary so I may carry up to a million rupees. As my index fingers closes in on the trigger I receive a notification which alerts me there is a hostage situation nearby. I lose my focus and the deer runs away. I turn my attention towards the marker on my map and zero in on the kidnappers head with my scope. I hear a growl. A tiger leaps out of the bushes and starts attacking both the victim and the kidnapper. I frantically try to shoot the Bengal tiger but it is no use. They are both dead before I even hit it once. I burst out laughing on my couch, and I think “wow, this is the only game that could have ever happened in.”
It’s hard to describe far cry 4. It is an action game, a first person shooter, a racing game, a hunting game. Overall it is a hilarious game that can not be missed by anyone who loves open world games. The game is beautiful beyond compare, during the opening scenes my jaw was on the ground as I stared at the beautifully rendered water, grass and rocks which populate the landscape. It’s the little things, like when you hide in a bush you see the little branches in your screen and they get in your way if you try to aim with a gun, making you reposition yourself within the bush to take the shot. Much like GTA V it’s the little things you grow to appreciate in a game as vast as this one. That’s not to say the game is perfect, there are some glitches that completely take you out of the experience, but those are far and few in between. You may encounter a small glitch but you’ve been having so much fun you’ll quickly overlook it and move on with your life. The one thing that makes this game exceptional is its fundamentals, it’s gameplay and design.
Far Cry 4’s gameplay is exceptional. Your character has a definite weight to him. The way in which you switch between your arsenal is also both interesting to watch and adds a certain level of strategy whenever you find yourself in a firefight. The way in which you crouch and take cover not only works but makes action sequences exhilarating as it is all very convincing. The driving adds another level of intensity as it is sort of arcadey but at the same time you feel the weight of your vehicle as you take each turn along the many dirt roads this game has to offer. The design of the map may seem easy to learn, however the more of it you traverse on foot the more you realize that is hidden out of sight. You may be traveling and spot a couple of treasure chest icons but you can’t seem to find them, that means they may be in an underground cave which may take some effort to find. I simply enjoyed walking along looking for my next big hunt, knowing there are so many little things hidden within the environment. The gun-play is very loud and in your face. There are more than enough weapons, the coolest of which have to be unlocked, to satisfy anyone who has played a modern-day shooter.
This game does a lot of things right, yet there are a few flaws that made me scratch my head as to why they weren’t fixed before the game was shipped. First of all is the lack of lip synchronization from Pagan Min. I’m not sure whether it was just my copy but there was one very important scene where his lips were completely out of sync with the voice-over and it really bothered me. There were a few other times when I got stuck in some geometry, and small glitches like my shots not registering when I shot my gun and somehow missed. The final thing that hindered my experience with this game would be the enemy AI, specifically the human AI. I understand that it must be extremely difficult to be able to create realistically responding enemies, but these enemies were either at times too dumb or way too smart. Either I had a really easy time picking them off one by one, or I had a hard time killing them because every single shot directed at me made contact. I found myself hiding and constantly healing because they were ridiculously good shots. It got to the point where instead of putting myself in that frustrating situation, I just sniped every enemy from a far. The game is very liberal about letting you do things your own way, however there were way too many times when it was way too easy to just use a silencer and take every enemy out from afar. Perhaps certain missions should have limited your options a bit in order to make you use the excellent sneaking mechanics the game has to offer.
Far Cry 4 is a pretty consistent experience. The pace is whatever you want it to be. If you follow the story missions alone you will find yourself doing a wide variety of tasks and visiting a wide variety of locations. If you get distracted and decide to pursue one of the many, many side quests you will also be pleasantly surprised at the amount of variety you may encounter. Of course you always carry your gun, first-person shooter style and sure you always have to find something and kill it; but it’s not about obtaining your goal that’s satisfying, it’s about the journey there that’s exciting. Even with it’s disappointing, non-climactic ending (not counting the obvious firefight), this game has a ton of replayability that will have you going, Pagan Who? You will not care about the struggle for the country or whatever bull the story is trying to shove in your face and you will have a blast blowing things up, hunting animals, saving hostages and just running/flying around in the magnificent world the creators of Far Cry 4 have given us to play in. If you love video games, this is a game that you can not miss.
I give this game a
9/10
Thanks for reading!
Reviewed by: Edwin R.R.
Ed Reviews All 