Far Cry 4 Review

All this equipment will cost you in local cash; however the game is extremely generous with its finances. Coming from the very restrictive AC: Unity, I found Far Cry 4 to be a heaven for buying almost any high-end gun without needing to save up. You can also purchase body armor, improve C4 and grenades, and upgrade your reinforcements (as long as you reached a high enough Karma rank). This new reinforcement feature, available whenever you use your camera to tag enemies, calls in a group of friendly fighters to help you in combat. It also plays into the game's new cooperative mode.

If you've ever wanted to explore Far Cry with another person, now is your chance. Via drop-in/out cooperative play, users can request help from others, who will join the game world and assist with whatever activity you are doing. It should be noted that such activities are limited to free roaming, or taking over outposts or the new fortresses. The latter are designed for two players, so tackling a fortress on your own is a challenging task. Playing cooperatively is fun, and performing perfectly stealthy takeovers is satisfying and thrilling. It's just unfortunate that more activities aren't open to cooperative play, and we also had significant connectivity problems when joining games.

On the other hand, we had no problems connecting and playing the competitive multiplayer. In Battles of Kyrat, the two competing teams represent the Golden Path and the Rakshasa. The former team has access to a few standard weapons, rifles and grenades, while the latter team is more in-tune with nature. The Rakshasa can only use the bow and various arrow tips, but their true power comes from the ability to call upon one of three animals to fight for you. After putting a point or kill streak together, you'll be able to call in either an eagle, then a bear, and finally a tiger. It's an interesting offering, but needed better balancing because unless you and the whole Rakshasa team plays with care, the game usually skews towards the guys with real guns.

Both teams will be able to unlock new weapons and items by earning experience and unlock tokens. Refreshingly, all items in multiplayer, from rifles to attachments, cost the same - one token. After playing just a few matches, we were able to unlock a decent arsenal for both factions. Players also get two skill slots, where you have a choice to equip one of the available passive skills - from faster movement speed to greater resistance against damage.

There are three gameplay modes on offer. Demon Mask is like capture the flag, where both teams race to find a mask within an area and then take it to one of the predetermined locations. Outpost sees The Golden Path players defend a base from Rakshasa, who must stand in the area to capture it. Finally, Propaganda tasks The Golden Path with destroying three objectives on the map, while the other team must defend and defuse the bomb as necessary. This game mode is the least dynamic, as players usually camp whatever objective they are closest to and defend it from incoming foes. On the whole, objectives on all three modes are usually undermined by the fight over the tower. Controlling the tower allows The Golden Path team to see all Rakshasa on the minimap, thus throwing the match even further out of balance. But when we say fight, we don't mean an epic encounter of multiple players. Because the maps are large, and the teams are only 5 players a side, Far Cry 4's competitive modes are mostly dull affairs. It's an okay addition to the overall Far Cry 4 package, but we can't see much staying power in Battles of Kyrat.

Similarly to some of the gameplay aspects, the visual and audio presentation of the game will be familiar to players of Far Cry 3. Many of the animations are almost directly brought over, as are many of the sound effects. It's also easy to see that the game's last-gen versions continue to hold back the experience, from the subdued facial animations and lackluster cloth effects. But the environments can still look striking, thanks to great draw distances and impressive lighting effects during the day/night cycle. The sound design is impressive; hearing growls behind you, the rustling in the bushes, or chirps in the distance really immerses players in the game world. On the other hand, the game seems obsessed with random gunfire, to the point that it becomes very annoying. Sure, it could be a karma event breaking out just around the hill, but most of the time it's unnecessary. It could be from farmers defending themselves from wild animals, or Golden Path simply wasting ammo by shooting into the air in celebration.

Far Cry 4 is a great game, but it isn't vastly different as a sequel. Whilst the past entries of this long running franchise have always made significant leaps forward, FC4 is more like a cautious step sideways. Some players may feel that there aren't enough changes here, despite two years having gone by, to warrant a purchase if they've squeezed every last drop out of Far Cry 3. But for the rest of us, the world of Far Cry 4 is filled with excitement. Exploration is always enticing, the game is packed to the brink with structured content, and interaction with wildlife is always entertaining. So go ahead, ride an elephant while you shoot down an eagle as it was trying to carry away a goat for dinner. Far Cry 4 is a game of moments, and almost all of those moments are fun. And isn't that what video games are all about?