nicked on 13/10/2015 at 18:49
I was absolutely in agreement until the last sentence. Far Cry 2 was a far cry from being perfect (baddum tsh), but Far Cry 3 was definitely a step backwards. For example - it has a more character-driven plot? Yep, with entirely unsympathetic characters. The emergent situations of FC2 mean I will always get more attached to my identikit buddies in that than the half-realised douchebag brigade in 3.
Basically everything that was a problem in Far Cry 2 - rather than find good ways to fix those problems while maintaining the depth, they just cut them or sanded them down, gamified everything to the point where you can sleepwalk through FC3 and will have forgotten every little thing about it in a week.
Far Cry 2, for all it's flaws, is one of the few games I've ever played that utterly immersed me in a world. Far Cry 3 is just a competent shooting game.
It's like the difference between hitch-hiking to a restaurant way out of town with a reputation for violent brawls, sitting in tense silence, and then eating the juiciest, most succulent steak of your whole life, and driving five minutes down the road to the McDonalds drive-thru. They'll both get you fed, but the first is an experience.
henke on 4/12/2015 at 11:55
[video=youtube;kM47aBj6f0g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM47aBj6f0g[/video]
Man, now I feel bad for Ancel's new game, Wild. FC:Primal is gonna come out before it and be a much slicker version of basically the same thing.
nicked on 4/12/2015 at 12:53
It has a minimap. Point missed. Interest levels have dropped from 5% to 0%.
henke on 4/12/2015 at 12:57
You'll probably be able to toggle HUD elements like the minimap, just like in FC4.
catbarf on 4/12/2015 at 13:45
Quote Posted by henke
You'll probably be able to toggle HUD elements like the minimap, just like in FC4.
I've always like the open-ness of the Far Cry games but disliked how they've used more and more handholding and really game-y, artificial mechanics with each successive release. So as much as I like the setting and concept for the game, seeing that Primal is about taming feral predators with a button press, dive-bombing with owls, and riding random herd animals the way you casually use vehicles in the other games is a little disappointing. The HUD elements like the minimap are really just one of the symptoms.
demagogue on 4/12/2015 at 14:12
I'd rather a cave man game be a full on open & procedural survival sim than a scripted follow-the-marker game, but it still looks like fun gameplay anyway.
nicked on 4/12/2015 at 15:38
Quote Posted by catbarf
I've always like the open-ness of the Far Cry games but disliked how they've used more and more handholding and really game-y, artificial mechanics with each successive release. So as much as I like the setting and concept for the game, seeing that Primal is about taming feral predators with a button press, dive-bombing with owls, and riding random herd animals the way you casually use vehicles in the other games is a little disappointing. The HUD elements like the minimap are really just one of the symptoms.
Yeah the minimap is just the most obvious sign of the Ubisoft game design disease.
And being able to turn it off is never a defence. If the game has been designed and balanced around having a minimap, then simply toggling it off is not going to help without redesigning the systems from the ground up.
henke on 4/12/2015 at 17:18
There's no pleasing you.
nicked on 4/12/2015 at 18:17
You're right there. :D
It's not so much that I think Ubisoft make bad games - they make really good, well-polished games that appeal to the vast majority of players.
I think for me it's an issue of wasted potential. So many Ubisoft games sound like the best thing since sliced bread if you just read a one sentence synopsis, but then the reality is they end up being slick time-wasters with vast, beautiful but uninteresting open worlds and as much substance and meaning as Angry Birds.
But I don't think that's Ubisoft's fault entirely, they're just making comfortable, risk-averse template games because they sell. It's just a symptom of the state of games today, where you have this massive divide of multi-million dollar AAA titles that have so much money riding on them that they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and tiny Indie games that struggle to even get made, by a team of three guys in a bedroom that by necessity have to have a limited scope or fail horribly.
I wish more game studios would try for that middle ground, of settling for basic graphics, or going for a stylised or minimalist approach to keep costs down, allowing for greater gameplay innovation and more niche appeal. Then you could have an open world caveman game without the dumb stuff, with PS2 graphics, but then spend most of the development time making really advanced and interesting systems and AI. There's got to be some middle ground where this is achievable.
