REVIEW: Far Cry 4

Far Cry 4
Action Adventure, First Person Shooter
Single player, Multiplayer
PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Last generations Far Cry 3 was one of my favorite games of all time. Far Cry 4 takes everything that was amazing on FC3 and adds to it to give the series a boost now that it is on the new generation of consoles.

This time you play Ajay Ghale the prodigal son returning to his place of birth,Kyrat, to deliver his mother's ashes only to be taken captive by the insane leader of the country, Pagan Min, a sinister individual that deals in opium to keep the country afloat. The opening scene has the opposition, the Golden Path, rescue Ajay and sets up the story of winning back his birthplace by waging war against Pagan Min and his vast military.

As with the last installment, Far Cry 4 has a very large open map that contains collectibles, side missions and random events. As you liberate bases and check points from Min's army, you unlock other events such as hunts, hostage rescues and other missions that will add to your karma meter and experience. As the karma meter, various missions and towers unlock you gain access to new items and weapons. The hunt missions allow you to skin rare animals to increase the amount of ammo, money and items you can carry. In Far Cry 3, as with Assassin's Creed, there were some people who didn't care for the hunting aspect of the game and I can see why they would have an issue with it as I wasn't fond of hunting some endangered animals. However, it is a video game and it isn't likely that I am going to go on safari to hunt anything endangered so I just enjoyed it for what it is. While the animals were a pain from time to time in the previous game, in Far Cry 4 the animals are a real pain in the arse. You will quickly learn that eagles are jerks. The animals have been ramped up to 11 as they are all very aggressive. Just when you line up that perfect shot in your reticle, a clouded leopard will come out of no where and attack you. You have to think quick to dispatch the animal while keeping it quiet in order to not alert your original target.



Far Cry 4 adds a new wrinkle in the game by giving you the opportunity to play with a friend. I took full advantage of that and played nearly every side mission with my good friend. One player hosts the game and what you do in the game is saved for you but not for the invited friend, which means that you will need to take turns hosting the game and repeating missions in order for both players to complete everything. The one thing that we both didn't care for was that the campaign was not playable. You can do the side missions and capture radio towers, checkpoints, and fortresses together but you can't play the main campaign, which would have been great to do with a buddy.

The campaign starts out with you in the south and once you have done about 3 hours worth of missions takes you up to northern Kyrat for about another 3 hours or so. However, for the completist there are hours of discovering locations, grabbing every chest, hidden masks, and much, much more.

Far Cry 4 doesn't disappoint in the latest edition to the series and while the game occasionally has a glitch here and there it usually isn't anything that detracts from the game. I encountered an eagle that was stationary and yet flapping it's wings right on the ground. I shot it with an arrow and tried to hop on it's back but nothing I did affected it. I racked it up to one of the oddities of the game as it didn't crash the game or ruin my gameplay. It was just one of those strange hiccups that happens as you play. While many of the big releases have had their issues, Far Cry's minor problems don't do much to ruin your experience.

Overall 8.5/10