Far Cry 4 seems very fun, very well made, the characters all seem cool, but it just falls behind its predecessor by trying to imitate it too hard. FC 3 was a great, if not the greatest game in the Far Cry series. Hell, it probably was one of the best games of 2012. With great villains – especially Vaas, amazing open world and tons of side activities it seemed like Far Cry series is going to step up even more with its next game. But… It didn’t.
To call Far Cry 4 a bad game would be wrong, because it truly isn’t. It is a solid addition to the series, but most of the time one would find it underdelivering a lot. Pagan Min (the main villain) tries to be like Vaas, but isn’t as charismatic or as dark or memorable. The main character Ajay Ghale lacks likeability and his motivations really are forgettable. The story is a Far Cry 3 story plopped on a different map which to my mind wasn’t a good choice for such a game. You face mountainous ranges where transportation is very hard and thus you might spend a lot of time exploring and moving laterally and for some it might seem like wasting time. To others it won’t, but comparing it to FC3, where you had gliders, water transport and even fun vehicles – this just doesn’t seem right. What is more, the game’s world isn’t as diverse as it could be, there are snowy mountains and brown gravel roads, but other than that it feels ‘put together’ rather than a real world. To sum up, even the side quests of skinning animals and hunting someone down are straight from Far Cry 3 which doesn’t help too.
Well enough with the critique, FC4 has a lot going for it as well. The graphics are improved, there are some great additions to the game and some might say that the Indian type Shangri-La universe is the greatest thing they’ve experienced in their entire Far Cry gameplay. Other than that, you find yourself in a remote third world nation, fighting on the side of a rebellion, unlocking radio towers, eliminating enemy outposts, crafting syringes, pouches and other items… It all sounds familiar, right? Because this game (besides the different story and a few different vehicles) offers nothing new that FC3 could offer you 2 years before its successor came out. Ubisoft really short-handed with innovation and overdid the formula “If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it”. This game really was the major disappointment for me. Not because gamers (including myself) thought of it as a bad game it just that we wanted and hoped for something a lot more… Pagan Min fell flat, the world wasn’t as immersive and shooting mechanics, driving, running and RPG elements – all stayed the same.
Cool features to mention, you can now control (partially) elephants to order assaults on enemy outposts. They’re fun because elephants take lots of hits to be taken down and in the meantime they would create a reasonable amount of havoc to work on. Later on you can ride them to become a master of chaos, but it tends to get repetitive. Animals in general, play a larger part of Far Cry 4. Whereas its predecessor had animals as an occurrence, an opportunity that you had to take, in FC4 you never know when you’re going to be attacked by a murderous predator. Maybe that is one of the core issues of FC 4. In the previous game you felt more in control, powerful. Here you feel more lost and plopped in the middle of an unknown place…
I still recommend playing it, you are going to have some fun doing it, just don’t expect Far Cry 4 to blow you away.
6.7/10
