Farcry 5: Looking Past the Drama Review - 2/5
So instead of talking about the politics of the game I want to talk about everything else and frankly, there are a lot of problems with this game.
To begin with Farcry 5 seems to have taken some previous suggestions to heart. Instead of climbing radio towers to fill in your map and discover quests the player has to travel the map and discover things personally or through a handful of scattered area maps. Personally I liked the tower-climbing of previous open world games, it provided a reliable structure to discovering areas of the map and marking things to do. However I can admit it was a mechanic that was getting old and tedious and it is probably good that it has gone.
That said Farcry 5 does very little that is new or refreshing other than removing the need to climb towers, and certainly doesn't do anything approaching genre-redefining. The generic custom-made deputy characters get some very minor and rather pointless character customization which won't matter one whit unless you are playing multiplayer, which itself sucks because any players that join your game do not progress through the story content themselves. To play with three friends through the game for everyone would require four separate playthroughs. I have no idea why anyone would think this was a good way to do multiplayer or what purpose this fulfills. Not only do joining players make no story progress but, since weapons are unlocked by that story progress, they cannot improve or upgrade their arsenal or unlock special vehicles and weapons either. If that were not annoying enough the game also incorporates a rather mediocre squad-building mechanic where you can unlock unique companions or recruit three generic bobos to help you out. These extra guns-for-hire can be armed with a variety of weaponry and help you out in some interesting ways, manning mounted guns, repairing your vehicle or just adding their firepower. The unique companions bring along their own unique abilities such as marking all nearby enemies or bringing you a chopper. When playing multiplayer only the host gets to use companions and then only one and like all the other unlocked content joiners cannot recruit, use or unlock any guns or fangs-for-hire while playing in someone else's game.
Punishing players trying to play together is already a considerable problem but Farcry's issues do not end there. While Farcry 5 is not exactly a buggy mess that some triple-A titles have been lately it is also not exactly a paragon of polish. Enemy and vehicle spawn issues were not infrequent, control and loading issues popped up rather often and I even suffered a couple crashes while playing multiplayer.
Now all of these things would not be terrible if the core gameplay and story experience were excellent, but they aren't. Farcry 5 has one of the most insulting, agency-lacking stories I have ever seen in games. To call the story a frustrating linear plot-railroad is an understatement. Whenever the player hits the targeted progression amount in one of the three lieutenant-controlled areas of the map the story comes along to break up the fun. In a woozy display of bliss-infused delirium the player will suddenly be forced into a loading screen, the gameplay hijacked to cast you into an annoying and generally rather dull and uninspired story-mission where you are captured, fight and escape and this happens three times per lieutenant in all three areas. Nine times, nine freaking times this game obliterates the concept of open-world self-directed exploration with an inescapable plot-railroad. By the third or fourth time this happened I was already bored and groaning, forcing myself not to skip the annoying and rambling preaching of the rather dull and cliche characters and just get to the end of these segments so I could get back to hunting bears. The really horrible thing is, these villains are actually among the better things about this game and its plot. Whatever interesting side-characters or mission givers this game provides have almost no screen-time at all, the player is not given anything like enough time to form attachments or grow to like any of these characters, only the villains pop up repeatedly. From the awesome resistance-leading preacher wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a revolver in the hollowed out pages of his bible to the bearded militia commander there are some decent characters sprinkled around. Unfortunately they are barely more than set-dressing that provide a couple missions before fading into the background once more. Unlike Grand Theft Auto V this world just feels empty and lifeless, scattered with random generic allies and enemies and a lot of relatively unrewarding collectibles. There are a few moments of rewarding exploration where the player can discover things about the world and past events in documents and messages scattered around but these are few and far between.
Like before a mediocre story or world might be passable if the gameplay was off the charts but yet again what we have is rather dull and boring. The player is presented a rather slim selection of weapons that basically boils down to a couple of assault rifles, a couple of submachine guns, LMGs, sniper rifles, and shotguns as well as the ever-present bow and a rocket launcher or two. Special variants just offer unique paint jobs but don't, for the most part, do anything different to their standard counterparts. A lack of meaningful weapon variety or customization stands atop very generic and uninspired firefight mechanics, enemies rarely take cover and often run into bullets. Snipers are picked out by blatant laser-sights and the occasional bum-rushing shotguns or wolves are about the only real threat the player will face. A handful of special enemies like LMG wielding armored heavies or psycho-flamer bearers could have offered some challenge but they never seem to work with or coordinate with their fellow enemies and are easily isolated and eliminated. Although this is the fifth installment in the franchise the depth of the combat mechanics and the skill of the enemy AI both feel like something from the early two thousands, not twenty-eighteen.
For the first time the franchise gives the player aircraft in addition to helicopters, which control like flying tubs more than they do sleek and agile airplanes. Dogfights are a horrid mess and I quickly found myself wishing for GTAV's controls over these. I get it, most players would rather not have to put in practice in a flight-simulator to land their seaplane in Farcry, not every game has to be like Arma, but these controls are just a trainwreck. Not to mention I never had a need or reason to take to the skies in anything other than a helicopter unless a specific mission forced me to, and those missions were almost exclusively more annoying than they were fun.
To be fair there were some fun moments in this game, but I still find myself debating whether I got my $60 worth of fun from this title. If I was playing alone I probably wouldn't have but with a friend there was more opportunity for some hi-jinks and fun. All things considered this franchise should be making more of an improvement over previous titles than this, a Tripple-A game from a Tripple-A studio and publisher has a hard time excusing crappy AI and unpolished mechanics even if I can somewhat forbid a terrible plot, as really, a good plot seems exceedingly rare these days.
All things considered I'm rating Farcry 5 as a 2 out of 5. It provides enough hours of mindless content with a mediocre set of mechanics that it is probably worth the asking price if this is your kind of game, with some fun characters and interesting moments popping up from time to time. Game of the year however this is very much not and for the fifth entry in a franchise I find myself unimpressed and rate this entry as slightly below average. If you have sixty bucks and want to feel more patriotic I'd suggest you pick up a bald-eagle T-Shirt, a bucket of fried chicken and some firecrackers instead of this game.
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