Far Cry 4 is a great ride - a fascinating story that mirrors experiences under dictatorships of today and created awesome fun raiding outposts and taking down the evil Pagan Min, one soldier and one outpost at a time.

I enjoyed the story from arriving at Kyrat to joining the rebellion, and I especially liked the idea of 'balance of power' missions (Amita all the way). An exciting add-on that differs it from other Far Cry games.

There were some annoying features of the game that were difficult to overcome. Like Far Cry 5, I thought the dialogue of the in-game characters was extremely repetitive to the point of being ridiculous (especially the dialogue of the Kyrati army soldiers). I thought that the feature of throwing rocks to get the attention of Kyrati soldiers was also unrealistic...although it made it fun when taking down outposts. I also thought Yogi & Reggie were particularly annoying.

What was most disappointing about the game was the fact that you, one American-Kyrati man, were effectively tasked with taking down all of Pagan Min's empire alone. Yes, people were there to help you but I got the feeling that the game was pressing the idea: "the native Kyratis cannot do it alone. They need the one white man to lead them". The familiar 'White Man's Burden' theme/White Man Savior narrative we see in modern entertainment (Avatar, the Last of the Mohicans, The Great Wall, District 9, etc.).

I am aware that the producers of Far Cry 4 tried to steer away from Far Cry 3's criticism of the white savior (https://gamerant.com/far-cry-4-lessons-learned/). But I don't think they did the best job - yes, Ajay Ghale is a native-born Kyrati but his American accent, American attitude, American upbringing, etc. is really obvious. It's hard to avoid the 'white savior' feel especially considering you never see Ajay's face and just hear his deep, American-sounding voice.

Despite that, I enjoy the traditional Far Cry style of open-world. I enjoyed raiding the map, looking for things sprawled throughout the environment, helping friends along the way fight off animals and Kyrati solders, taking down Kyrati military vehicles and performing 'Karma' missions.

A real fun game overall.

Far Cry 3 was a fantastic game. Sure it had its problems, namely the kind of disgusting story, but it was one of the best open world games I had ever played. It was graphically incredible, the gameplay felt pretty good, it actually decently pulled off 1st person stealth, and the side content was in most cases actually worth doing. The hunting/crafting system from FC3 is one of the rare cases of really effectively incentivizing the player to deviate from the main content. I enjoyed Far Cry 3 so much that I was even willing to tolerate the stinking cesspool that is uPlay in order to pick up and play Far Cry 4. I can not overstate how much I hate uPlay, it's goddamn terrible. THAT'S how much I wanted to play Far Cry 4.

Far Cry 4 takes a lot of the concepts of Far Cry 3 and runs with them. Well, not runs, more like slowly inches forward with them. There are some definite improvements to basic gameplay concepts in this game. Many of them are relatively minor, but offer a lot in the way of conveniences. For example, there are a lot of grapple points on cliffs and mountains, making it a lot easier to traverse the landscape. Also, and this is a really small thing, when you kill an animal a small "X" appears on the map where their corpse is. I can't count how many times I killed an animal with a long range arrow in FC3 only to lose the body in the long grass once I got up there. It's small stuff like this that's easy to take for granted, but makes a nice difference in moment to moment gameplay.

"Now where did that Dingo go? Oh, THERE he is!"

The hunting/crafting system is still here, and I'm still a fan of it. Giving players tangible and measurable rewards is the perfect incentive to engage in side activity. This is also true to a lesser extent of climbing towers and liberating outposts. Completing these gift you the odd free gun, and there's actually a pretty good amount of fun and variety in completing these tasks. If they had split up side content into hunting, towers, outposts, and a few collectibles I'd be happy. Unfortunately, they piled on WAY more side content than that, and quite frankly it's really overwhelming. The map is more littered with waypoints than a Google Maps search for Starbucks in Seattle. The amount of content falls a little bit on the "too much" side of things.

Also, while we're at it, I have a major bone to pick with Ubisoft about finishing side content. There are some pretty nice guns in Far Cry 4 called signature guns. These are unlocked by finishing set amounts of side content. One that caught my eye was a really nice sniper rifle. In my first few hours of playing I saw that and thought "Well, I use snipers a lot in these games. I'm going to go unlock this right away". Unfortunately unlocking this weapon meant liberating all 24(ish) outposts in the whole game. This was going to take several hours, but I was okay with that.

After liberating about 15 outposts I was flying a glider to the next one and I hit an invisible wall in the sky. The message appeared on the screen "Complete more story missions to unlock Northern Kyrat". FFFFFUUUUCCCCKKKK that! I had just spent HOURS knocking down all the outposts for the express purpose of getting this sniper rifle early in my playthrough, and now the game's telling me I need to finish like 3/4 of the main story before I can finish unlocking it. I was pissed! AC: Black Flag did this too. I went out of my way to unlock a set of armor in that game, only to find out that the last step in the unlocking process was on an island you can't get to until the last eighth of the game. I HATE this. At least tell me up front that this will be the case before I waste a bunch of my time.

Somewhere beyond that mountain is all my patience and tolerance for this shit.

Sigh...with that frustration set in, it was time to stop flying around doing needless side content grinding and get to the main story. I've pretty universally heard that the story in FC4 is much more palatable than in FC3. Let me be the first person to say I disagree completely. The main villain, Pagan Minn, is pretty decent, but he just doesn't have much of a presence through most of the game. The main character has zero personality, and his motivations are never really clear. For example, why the hell does he keep getting drugged and dumped in the woods by two stoners, yet he keeps voluntarily coming back to do it again? The whole thing is just pretty by the numbers and dull, but that pales in comparison to my main issue with the story.

Throughout the campaign there are main quests where you must align with one of the two rebellion leaders, Sabal or Amita. Sabal is deeply rooted in the culture and history of Kyrat and wants traditions upheld. Amita has a vision for the future of Kyrat and wants to enact change. They're both unbelievably petty assholes, and wholly unlikable. Whichever one you don't side with turns into anything from a pouty child to accusing you of negligent homicide. Oh and the one you actually DO side with seems much more interested in telling the other one to suck it than being happy about the progress you've made for the rebellion. They're both horrible people, and I was curious how it was going to end. It ends by one of them telling you to straight up murder the other. Holy shit guys, chill!

I hate the villain significantly less than my two "allies"

Say what you want about the FC3 story, but at least it had some really cool moments (burning the pot farm, anyone?), an unbelievably awesome villain in Vaas, and characters who, albeit kinda shitty people, mostly were just understandably scared and wanted to go home. Even the protagonist had a steak of likability to him. Every once in a while he got a little too caught up in the action and you could tell he was giddy with excitement at blowing up a tank or jumping off a cliff. The FC4 protagonist can be entirely summed up by his response to most people "I don't like or trust you, but I'll blindly do what you're asking me anyway".

Is Far Cry 4 a good game? Absolutely. From a gameplay standpoint it's a more polished FC3, and Far Cry 3 was incredible. FC4 isn't incredible though. The story, amazingly, took a step backwards and the changes to gameplay, while certainly welcome, are little more than tweaking of the original formula. If you're willing to brave to shitpile that is uPlay, give Far Cry 4 a try, just don't expect any more or less than a slightly improved and slightly less interesting Far Cry 3.

When i had penned this review initially, at first it was just a screed because even looking at the name 'far cry 4' causes me to descend into fits of foamy mouthed dramatics, the idea that ubisoft had yet again gotten my hopes up only to spinny kick those hopes into oblivion drilling so far down into my bones that i could practically FEEL the phantom drill bit grinding me into DUST.

Anyway, I love this game, but my relationship with it is complicated.

For starters, i never really liked far cry 3, its...i dont know, that's a whole other pile to sift through. What I like about FC4 is Kyrat. I like this rural, indigenous culture so stricken by poverty that many only had radios as their sole form of entertainment, yet life goes on. The lush forests that surround the mountains tearing into the sky, teeming with life, the Golden Path Soldiers who keep firing their guns into the air after killing a single dhole, or watching as one absolutely demolishes 4 of them. There's lots of goofy shit to love about this game.

I'll be honest, a lot of times, especially with AAA games, bugs that others claim breaks their immersion really make me laugh. Seeing a corpse flying into the air at breakneck speeds after id looted it was probably one of the funniest things that ever happened to me and every time i visit Kyrat again, i genuinely feel happy.

My problem is with this game's narrative. No, its not the white savior shit or the other tropes people think are bad whenever they talk about stories, as if you can ever tell any story without any tropes whatsoever. No, no, my problem is that the writers expended so much effort into calling your actions into question. At every possible turn, the antagonists (who are awful, btw, let's not get that confused) point out that what you're doing is a little bit...ludicrous! You might even say WACKY.

The game really takes this in stride. There's a lot of fantastical shit Ajay can be put through, but the further into the story you get, the more imagery is employed to instill doubt in the players mind, wondering if they are doing the right thing. There's even a brilliant callback to the first major scene of the game when you meet Pagan Min sprinkled in there. In the end, you get what you wanted, and you're left on your father's estate to wonder if any of this was even worth it.

It'd be an amazing ending, honestly.

But nooooo. That wasn't good enough for these absolute clowns. No! The audacity that they had to make all the powerful imagery in their game...god im actually getting tilted by it just now.

I'm so tired of this idea that everything needs a concrete explanation and Ubi ruined the narrative of an incredible game by making embarrassingly literal swipes at air that i am apparently supposed to take as truth given to me by the heavens.

Why would you do this to me ubisoft???? do you want me to cry??????????

Far Cry 4 took everything great from Far Cry 3 and tuned it up to 11. It improved upon many aspects of the well-working formula to create an open-world masterpiece. Traversal became easier, animals can be baited to attack enemies, there are more weapons and a new drive-by shooting mechanism, enemy fortresses, a whole new enemy class (the Hunters), even more badly maintained radio towers and a whole new place to tear apart.

The future of Kyrat is in your hands, as you decide which rebel leader you want to support to overthrow the murderous psychopath, King Pagan Min. But as you go further down the road, you realize, that there is no right decision, no good or bad leader, because everything is gray, not black or white.

Hunting and crafting are still important mechanisms, so you have to find and take on the fiercest predators to expand your arsenal. You can also take part in Arena fights where man and beast fight each other to satisfy the bloodthirst of the audience. You also have a bunch of side missions where you help the Golden Path and the locals, collectibles and dangerous places to explore and even the mystery of a serial killer lurking in the shadows. You can even relive the past as the legendary warrior Kalinag, who visits the mystical Shangri-La and fights of hordes of demons with his sidekick white tiger or visit the Himalayas where you liquidate elite soldiers, collect diamonds while trying not to run out of air.

Far Cry 4 is huge and offers a vast amount of content, and enjoyable gameplay formula perfected from Far Cry 3 and a story where your decisions shape the future of Kyrat. So hop on your elephant and smash the gates of Pagan's Fortress or sneak around and throws knives at people like an assassin, the options are limitless.

I didn't think I’d be doing a review for Far Cry 4 as there is not much to say but I bet this ends up being a long one. Also I would have given this game .5 starts out of 5 if I could.

There’s no point in talking about how good the graphics are etc as it’s a Far Cry game, they’re beautiful but nothing to write home about. I started this game a few years after completing Far Cry 3. Like the previous games I enjoyed scouting out all the bases and planning each attack. It’s always so satisfying to perfectly capture a base. This carries over to Far Cry 4 with other features like hunting etc.

By no means am I a completionist but I found myself chasing down all the collectables as they were easy to find and easy to pick up. After spending a whole day one Sunday picking up loads of the collectables I took a step back and thought, “what have I achieved today really? Nothing.” If anyone is reading this who has still not played Far Cry 4 and is thinking about it then my advice is: Check the unlockables and what it takes to unlock each item and ONLY go for that amount. After realising that collecting all the posters, masks, letters etc that all you get is extra XP. 68% of the game completed and I had already maxed out my skills so what the fuck would I want extra XP for? I likened Far Cry to doing a jigsaw but every time you find a piece someone congratulates you and rewards you every so often. You spend days/weeks completing the jigsaw then finally finishing it, taking a step back and looking at all the work you have achieved and what a wonderful picture it has made only to fling it back into the box. A few years later you buy a new jigsaw.

It takes me back to the first Assassin's Creed game where I think you could collect scrolls or something. I looked up what you got for collecting them all, an achievement. Hours and hours of searching for virtual items and all you get is a pat on the back. Fuck that.

It’s true what people say about the wild animals in this game, they’re a pain in the fucking arse. Randomly being attacked while trying to achieve something is very frustrating. That also goes for all the world events, rather than world events happening now and again, just enough to keep you going. They all seem to happen at once. Trying to find a mask? How about a karma event, a wild rhino chasing you, enemies turning up in their truck, a fucking eagle attack and a kill the courier mission all at once. It was often all too much. The drug fuelled/trippy missions are absolutely shite and pointless. I’m glad that it sounds like Ubisoft dropped them in future Far Cry releases.

I don’t know about other people but I played Far Cry 4 for the gameplay, not the story. I know the story is one that’s not strong or memorable by any means so why bother. For this approach to the game, unskippable cutscenes were unforgivable. However, I did catch one cutscene where you have the choice to shoot a character or not and if you do, her reaction is to pick up a folder and papers and start shuffling them. This reaction of disbelief where someone’s brain doesn’t want to believe they have just been shot so they just start doing normal things as if everything is ok hits me really hard. So that’s one cutscene I was really engrossed by.

Overall it’s great fun to play, but for me and probably many people it’s a one and done kinda game. A great thrill while it lasts and if you don’t take the piss with the collectables it can be done in 17 hours. My in-game clock ended up just under 24 hours after credits rolled for a 69% completion.

This was the first game in the Far Cry series that I actually took the time to play for more than a few days, and as soon as I turned it on, I was hooked. I was immediately met with some of the beautiful environmental graphics that I've seen since the first time I played Skyrim. But not only was the environment amazing to look it, there is literally stuff to do everywhere. In fact, the list of things that you CAN'T do in this game is probably a few pages shorter than the list of things you can. Wandering around the vast landscape of Kyrat, you'll not only be fighting the local militia, you'll be fighting the local animal inhabitants -- within the first 30 minutes I was attacked by a snow leopard and an eagle, at the same time -- as well as the urge to jump off a cliff and use your squirrel suit (so much fun). There's helicopters, hovercrafts, ATV/off-road races, mountain climbing, and SO. MUCH. MORE.

The sheer number of things you can do in this game is worth at least picking it up. If the main storyline doesn't catch your fancy, there's so many other things you can fill your time with, and as you go you will unlock a large selection of different weapons, and level up your character's abilities with skill points.

Again, if you have yet to play a game in the Far Cry series, this is a good one to start with before Primal comes out next year.