I keep trying to like Far Cry 4... and failing.
At first glance this game is epic. The artwork, the landscape, the attention to detail... it's just mind blowing. After watching some videos I was so excited to start playing. After an hour I wasn't so sure. After a day I was pissed. After a week I was just sad and disappointed.
The first hurdle of course are all the technical problems that require extensive googling and a willingness to do some PC housecleaning and editing of both the GamerProfile.xml and the launch properties within Steam... cos UPlay stopped supporting them. You know, so the game will actually do things like START and SAVE. Then there's the video setup and the non-stop stuttering, despite the fact that I have a brand new Haswell i5 running at 4.5ghz and a pair of 2gb Radeon 7870's. Whoops, forgot, FC4 is not Crossfire compatible. So make that 1 2gb Radeon 7870. So, I've made some accommodations in order to play the game, cos it's gonna be absolutely EPIC, right?
Yeah, not so much. I mean, as stated above, the artwork is just unreal. These guys deserve some serious props cos this game LOOKS incredible. The landscape is so rich and so beautiful that it puts Skyrim to shame by comparison. It's just gorgeous. Unfortunately, it's kinda downhill from there. The first thing you notice is that the world is populated by MORONS. Seriously, I find myself wondering if the guys working on the Far Cry games do it on purpose. I mean, just watch the drivers. These idiots routinely, constantly run their FRIENDS over! Then, of course, the civilians are constantly throwing themselves under my wheels or elephant. I mean I actually tried to avoid them. I couldn't do it. They kept running in front of me! Then of course there's the wildlife. Most of it makes sense. The elephants are just the bomb. They're wonderful. But... all the wildlife is over the top aggressive. It's absurd. You can't go anywhere without seeing civilians getting mauled by dogs or leopards... or eagles?! Since when do eagles attack people? Add to that the constant "karma events" where the good guys and bad guys are shooting at each other... all the damn time... and instead of this wide open, epic adventure... you have something tiresome. Seriously, it's a drag to play this game. After an hour or so I don't want to play anymore. I want to go read a book or something.
For a while I got mad. I was upset about the ridiculous on-screen situational prompts that told me the developers think I'm incapable of remembering which keys my controls are bound to. Apparently they think I need an ON SCREEN reminder to press E to get in or out of a vehicle... which is really handy when I'm flying a buzzer... several hundred feet off the deck. This same logic shows up whenever I'm flying a hang glider or have a fire or explosive arrow equipped. One of my personal favorites is the on-screen tutorial telling you how to use your sniping scope. Yes, despite the fact that every PC game since Unreal has used the exact same default control schematic for a sniper rifle Ubisoft thought we needed an ON SCREEN tutorial that cannot be disabled.
Even better, the bin file that has all the necessary values to tweak to actually render this game playable is both COMPRESSED and ENCRYPTED; meaning Ubisoft is actively opposed to the game being modded. In other words we have to live with it.
I can't believe I actually paid $90 for this game. On the bright side I do know one thing for certain: I will never purchase another Ubisoft game without having played it FIRST. Good Job, Ubisoft!