Recently, a few games have played with removing one of the five senses from players. Players controlled a blind protagonist in “Perception” and a deaf protagonist in “The Quiet Man”. Now, what if instead of removing a single sense, actually removes four of the five? That’s exactly what the new game from NEXT Studios “Unheard” does.
“Unheard” tasks the players with solving mysteries with just sound and limited visuals. The game presents the areas in which the mysteries take place in a blueprint like area where the player can move about and listen to different conversations. The player has complete control of the playback. It acts almost exactly like a YouTube video. Players can scrub through the video to find particular moments, fast-forward, and control the volume, all the usual stuff from a typical video player. The game gets progressively more complex every case. More characters to keep track of and misdirects for example. Every case needs players to answer a series of questions about the case along with naming every character in the case correctly. For instance, one case tasks players with finding a missing painting. The rub is that the painting was stolen more than once, so the player not only needs to find who has the painting in the end but who stole it first. There is a great deal of complexity in “Unheard”, so much so that the game provides a note function. This allows the player to make notes that will appear at certain times on the playback, but a physical notebook for the player to take notes in their personal style works just as well if not better. There is a story to “Unheard”, but it is paper thin and at the end is a little on the confusing side. It acts as a way to link the player from case to case. Multiple outlets have noted that the performances in the game, especially the cases, are overacted to say the least. They also bring up the fact that in a game where sound is the only way to distinguish characters from one another that the overacting is a way to assist the player. It is never egregious, but at times the performances are a bit over the top. “Unheard” is a game that proves that you don’t need all the bells and whistles for a game to be good. For such a small game, there is a ton of polish here. It is a simple game with a simple concept, but is delivered with such finesse that the only thing lacking here is more game. Score: 9/10 This might be one of the best games I have played this year. It’s super simple, but with such brilliant execution that I only wish there were more cases to experience. After gaining a little buzz with its unique premise, “The Quiet Man” releases as a disappointing mess of a game.
Square Enix debuted “The Quiet Man” earlier this year at E3. Featuring live action cut scenes and a silent world, players control deaf protagonist Dane. “The Quiet Man”, at least on the first play through, is a silent game. There is little to no sound, save for mild impact sounds and indiscernible dialogue. It is as if the player is watching everything occur through a pane of glass or underwater. Players must complete the game once before having a chance to play the game with sound. On the silent play through, players are supposed to experience the world as Dane would. The first time through players can interoperate the events of the game based on what little context clues are given. Sadly, there are not many. “The Quiet Man” has no subtitles. Players are left in the dark unless they can read lips, a skill Dane has. There are times that Dane responds to characters after being spoken or signed to. These moments should have had some sort of subtitle to give the player the information that Dane is receiving, or at least subtitles for what Dane himself is saying. Things are not fixed when sound returns on the second time through. This time players know what is being said, but the story itself is subpar at best. It tries to be this twisty-turny mystery narrative, that gets lost within itself. There are plot holes and things that make sense throughout the entire game. It was as if Square was just trying to throw as many twists into the game as they could, and it ends up ruining any semblance of coherent narrative. A poor narrative could be excused if the gameplay was any good, but “The Quiet Man” fails in this aspect as well. “The Quiet Man” is an unremarkable brawler. The player goes from area to area, fighting the same three guys over and over. This sometimes works, but “The Quiet Man” can be completed by pressing the attack button repeatedly with zero strategy. There is no satisfaction or sense of accomplishment for fighting in this game, with some sequences dragging on for tens of minutes for no particular reason. There is no tutorial or explanation of mechanics, it just drops the player into the game expecting them to figure it out. “The Quiet Man” is a bad game that tried to get by on its unique premise. There was potential here, but the game fails to impress on every level. It is a short cheap experience that is not even worth its low monetary cost. Score: 4/10 Relying on its unique premise, “The Quiet Man” had a chance to deliver an amazing experience. Instead, what ended up being released was a confusing and mediocre action game.
“The Quiet Man” takes place over one night in New York. Players control Dane, a deaf man who is an expert street fighter. What sets this game apart from the crowd is the deaf protagonist. Early on, sound is almost completely removed from the game. There is no music and no subtitles, instead there is only slight sounds from impacts of strikes and indiscernible sounds when other characters are speaking. It’s like watching the game through a foot of glass. With such an interesting premise, I was excited going in. The idea of game without sound and making the player interpret the events of the game based on what they can see is unique. What ends up happening though is that the story is incomprehensible. There are things that can be inferred, but the exact narrative and the twists and turns the story takes are completely lost. There is so little visual information on what is happening that discerning the story is nigh impossible. There are times that Dane speaks with other characters through sign language or lip reading. Even in these moments the player is not let in on what is happening. If Dane is getting information, then the player should as well. It just adds to the confusion. It is almost as if the player is trying to piece things together with pieces from different puzzles. The game just drops the player into action, it never explains the systems or buttons. “The Quiet Man” is a basic brawler. There is a punch, kick and dodge command. There is also a sort of focus or rush mode where Dane can attack an enemy without them blocking or dodging, and the combo ends in a cinematic take down. The action sequences, if they can be called that, are so simplistic that they can be completed in one’s sleep. There are no strategies or complex button commands, just mash the attack button until all the enemies fall down. There are a few boss fights, but even they can be won by just constantly attacking. With the lack of explanation there might be a few hidden combat maneuvers that the player would have no way of knowing how to execute. “The Quiet Man” switches between live action cinematics and rendered scenes. The switches are fluid and pretty, but it is impossible to judge character performances without the sound in the game. The biggest technical issue came at the end where the fixed camera angle made fighting near impossible and ruined what could have been a cool moment. The fixed camera angle also took away from combat take downs. The camera would be blocked by enemies or Dane himself. “The Quiet Man” has a neat premise that surrounds a mediocre game. Even with sound, the game would be a forgettable brawler. There was so much potential surrounding this title that it is sad that the end product was so disappointing. Score: 4/10 There will be an update sometime this week. This update will add sound and subtitles back to the game. I will update this review after the update to the game. The recent reboot of the “Tomb Raider” franchise by Crystal Dynamics has found success with their last two games. They have broken away from the traditional action/puzzle solving type games of old, and opting for more survival based metroidvania style. Sadly, the most recent iteration “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” has dropped the ball as the conclusion of the trilogy.
In her quest to dismantle Trinity, an Illuminati-esque organization, Lara Croft travels to Mexico on the heels of the leader of Trinity’s high council Pedro Dominguez. Lara rushes to get ahead of Dominguez and inadvertently triggers the apocalypse. Lara chases Dominguez to the lost city of Paititi and becomes embroiled in a revolution where the fate of the city, and the world, hang in the balance. After steadily developing Lara’s character for two games, “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” is a jumbled mass of clichés. It shows Lara being hot headed and brash in the beginning, and becoming understanding of how her actions affect others in the end. Everywhere in between, Lara is on either side and nowhere in the middle. There is no steady development, instead there are moments where Lara is filled with self-doubt and those short moments serve as a transition between her optimism and cynicism. Lara comes across as two dimensional and boring, despite a phenomenal performance by Camilla Luddington. “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” has similar issues with its narrative in that it is a jumbled mass of events. The plot develops so quickly that it becomes hard to find your footing. The player fights to settle into scenes while the game rushes them through. It felt lazy, like an attempt to justify larger action sequences that never came. The action sequences were fun, but were so far and few between. Gunplay is enjoyable, but shallow. There are many similar games that nail third-person shooting, and in this game it felt like an afterthought. Stealth is where things shine, but with so few chances to use it, one of the best features of “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” gets buried in mediocrity. With the lack of action sequences the game relies on its platforming for gameplay. Platforming is fun, but it’s nothing new. The one true standout in this game is the challenge tombs and puzzles. Puzzles have been a big part of “Tomb Raider” since the series inception. This game continues the tradition in wonderful fashion. The puzzles are that perfect mix of challenge and reward. Puzzles are accomplishable, but not easy. It’s a razor thin line to walk, and despite this game’s issues, it does this well. This game does offer an interesting approach to difficulty. It’s a dynamic system in which combat, platforming and puzzle difficulty are handled separately. When at higher difficulties the game removes hints to players for puzzles and removes visual ques that games typically give players regarding to what can be climbed. It is a unique idea that will probably seen again in the future. In the lead up to the game, focus was put on exploration and the game world. The sad thing is that the world is boring. The city of Paititi is dull and lifeless, and I never felt the need or want to explore the “wilderness”. The jungle, similar to Paititi, is bland. The game looks beautiful, but it’s wasted on this game. “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” falls into the typical trap of sequels. Too much was changed and the game got away from what made it so special. “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” is a mediocre game that gets lost in the shuffle when compared to the amazing releases of 2018. Score: 6/10 Before their collapse, Telltale was able to launch the second episode of “The Walking Dead: The Final Season”
Episode 2: Suffer the Children begins where the first episode leaves off. AJ had just shot Marlon after he revealed that he had been giving members of the community to another group for protection. Despite Marlon’s actions the rest of the kids at the school fear AJ for his actions. In the end they decide to exile Clementine and AJ. Shortly after being brought beyond the safe zone, AJ and Clem run are attacked by members of the group Marlon was giving people to. One of the people of this group winds up being Lily, a character from the first season of the game. In their escape AJ ends up being shot. Clem returns to the school, seeking aid for AJ and warning them of an impending raid. That point marks the end of the first act of the episode. It’s a good start that sets up the action for the rest for the episode. Where things fall apart is in the second act. In this act Clem teams up with a few other kids from the school to get barbed wire from the greenhouse. The greenhouse had been overrun previously by walkers, so this would not be as simple a task as it sounds. The problem with this arc is that it is a simplistic approach to show how Clem mends fences after Marlon’s death. One of the people going with Clem to the greenhouse was Mitch. He was one of the kids who hated Clem the most. It gets the job done, but is superficial and could have used more time. The act ends right before a two week time skip and only last around a half an hour. The skip is used as a way to avoid the healing process between the group and Clem. It might have been better to skip this 30 minutes of content and just go straight to the time skip. The second act just slows things down with non-crucial info. It almost seemed as a way to kill time. This chunk could also have been improved by including Louis. Throughout the first half of the episode, Louis seems to be unable to decide how he feels about AJ or Clem. He will go from being kind to hating them all in the same sentence. Maybe giving him more screen time, instead of relegating him as a side character this episode would have been able this out instead of leaving it looking like bad writing. The end of the episode with the siege of the school is the standout of the episode. It fuels the further conflict between the group of raider and the kids and the action is pretty good. The episode ends with a few of the students being kidnapped, setting up the next episode. Episode 2 is the typical middle episode for one of these games. It acts as more of a transition point for a broader narrative. It is enjoyable enough and has its issues, but does its job. Now it is up to Skybound to take this game past the finish line. Score: 7/10 Insomniac Games has been an industry staple for a while now, with franchises like “Spyro the Dragon” and “Ratchet and Clank”. Insomniac is back not with an original game, but one based off of one of the most recognizable comic book series: “Spider-Man”.
In this interpretation of “Spider-Man”, Peter Parker is in his mid-20s and has been Spider-Man for eight years. Forgoing the typical origin story, “Spider-Man” drops players straight into the action. The game opens on Peter waking up, donning his suit and assisting the police in a raid on Wilson Fisk. This opening sequence serves as a tutorial for the various basic skills of spider man: web swinging, fighting etc. Once Fisk has been brought down, he claims that he was the only thing keeping the city in check. Without him, the cities various criminal organizations will tear the city apart in a fight for dominance. Shortly after Fisk’s arrest a new criminal power emerges. These men wearing demon masks begin to raid Fisk properties seeking resources for a coming war. These Demons set in motion a chain of events that will bring the city to its knees and force Peter to make the most difficult choices that any person will ever have to make. “Spider-Man” delivers one of the most fluid narrative experience in memory. The main story line flows together so perfectly that it is almost difficult to see when certain story arcs end and others begin. There is no fat to be cut out in this story. Either it is giving players character moments that give them a look into how the events of the game are affecting the cast, or scenes that push the narrative forward and it all pieces together so seamlessly. The writers at Insomniac have delivered on one of the best Spider-Man scripts ever. Each character written in a way that stays true to their roots, but still feel unique to this game. This is all aided by a cast of voice talent that each deliver a stunning performance. Even more minor characters are written and performed at top quality. There are sequences in the story that felt off. During these moments players leave Spider-Man and take control of Mary Jane Watson or Miles Morales. These are stealth sequences that show what Spider-Man’s allies are doing to aid him in his objectives. Wholesale, these segments are unnecessary. They are interesting and give players a new type of gameplay, but they are short and could have been removed without impacting the game. These sequences are interesting and well done, they just slow down the experience. On other side of the coin from narrative is gameplay. Like a mirror of the narrative, the gameplay in “Spider-Man” is nearly flawless. Despite a few quirks, Insomniac managed to keep combat and web swinging down to as few buttons as possible and still manages to keep a fair amount of complexity. Combat, for example, is streamed down to the square, triangle, circle and top two shoulder buttons. Combat flows extremely easily and racking up combos becomes second nature. There is a time that everything clicks and players master the systems. Keeping it to a smaller number of buttons actually make it easier to master. Web swinging is similar. Everything related to swinging and running are relegated down to the R2 button. Like combat, it is all about retaining momentum. A lot of Spider-Man games have players slam into walls and various other occurrences that break the flow and makes swinging a chore. This game keeps the player in motion. By holding down the R2 button when players hit a wall they don’t stop, they run up the wall and keep moving. Players have a great amount of control when in the air and it make swinging as natural as breathing. This is the first game to make player truly feel like Spider-Man. Outside of the main story, there are plenty of other activities to engage with. Sadly, most of these activities have the depth of a puddle. There are four different side activities that entail to fighting waves of enemies. Combat is fun and each of the activities involve a different faction of enemies, but there really is not much difference between them. Even though the enemies are of different factions, the enemy types are basically the same barring a few subtle differences, but the basic strategies are the same. Peter can collect backpacks that he has left around the city and take pictures of landmarks. There is a simplistic joy in completing these, but at their core are just collection missions. There are other activities that play off of other characters from Spider-Man lore that are never seen. These activities become busy work with a loose narrative explanation. For a game consisting of interesting villains, “Spider-Man” is full of unsatisfying boss fights. With the diversity in villains that inhabit the world of “Spider-Man”, it would make sense that each fight would unique with different strategies. In reality the boss fights all boil down stun/web up the enemy, then punch them until they fall down. It steals away all sense of accomplishment. There are fights with normal, street level enemies that are more challenging than these boss fights. These were chances to do something over the top and Insomniac decided to put these bland fights in there instead. “Spider-Man” is a phenomenal game with a few small flaws that should be a part of any PlayStation owner’s library. Score: 9/10 The minor flaws hold this game back from having that perfect score. Despite that, this game is amazing and one of the most fun experiences this year. Developer DONTNOD drew eyes back in 2015 with most notable title “Life is Strange”. Late last week, DONTNOD launched the first episode of the long awaited sequel “Life is Strange 2”.
Set in the same universe, “Life is Strange 2” begins in a Seattle suburb. 16-year-old Sean Diaz gets off the bus and is talking about a party later that night with a friend. It’s normal teenage stuff. Players are tasked with fetching provisions for the party: money, snacks and etc. Sean walks around the Diaz home interacting with his father and little brother while completing his tasks. At the end of the first hour, Sean’s little brother Daniel spills fake blood for his Halloween costume on a neighbor and Sean steps in to break up the fight. Sean ends up shoving the neighbor to the ground as a police officer arrives at the scene. The officer orders the brothers to get on the ground and when the father comes out to see what is going on end up being shot dead. Some kind of blast destroys the area and upon regaining consciousness Sean grabs his brother and goes on the run. Within the first hour of the game it’s clear that “Life is Strange 2” takes a much darker tone than the original. The first game had problems deciding its genre and took to many episodes to really decide on what the game was about. It took multiple running storylines and it was never clear exactly how they all tied together. The sequel, on the other hand, knows exactly what kind of story it’s telling. It’s a story of loss and brothers trying to stick together in extreme circumstances. The game is not set in one town, so it opens up the possibility for many different environments for the game to take place. This episode alone takes place in the woods, at a gas station along the highway and a roadside motel. Everything flows perfectly with the only issue being the lack of characters. This makes when the entire second hour takes place in the woods with both of the brothers. It’s a scene that drives home the point that these two are alone now and need to rely on each other. In the coming episodes there needs to be more lasting character interactions, as opposed to just these two brothers. These games exist on a small recurring cast and their relationships to the main character that is affected by player choice. Granted the ways that players’ choices affect the way Daniel acts is fairly unique, but if this continues going forward the game will start to feel sparse. From a gameplay perspective “Life is Strange 2” is extremely thin. Beyond occasionally walking around in certain areas and making dialogue options, there is very little here. Some games add quick time events or puzzles, “Life is Strange 2” only adds money management. This is interesting, trying live within what Sean has on his person or result to stealing. Sadly, this is not enough to propel this game through five episodes. The previous game had a main character with the ability to rewind time and remake important choice and the prequel had a mechanic in which the main character would argue with people putting players through a word puzzle. “Life is Strange 2” as a stand-alone four hour experience is great, but to continue on for another four episodes there needs to be more gameplay. The biggest flaw of “Life is Strange 2” is how it handles the issue of racism. Politics in video games is a hot button issue right. Multiple games and developers have handled this and political/social issues in varying ways. DONTNOD’s decision was to handle it in the most ham fisted way possible. They create a character to interact with Sean that is a caricature that even Rockstar Games wouldn’t put in one of their games. Rockstar being famous for their “Grand Theft Auto” series that is a satirization of American culture. Is one of the most cartoonishly racist and even at one point mentions building the wall to really beat a dead horse. This isn’t satire or a joke, this is blatant political messaging within a piece of entertainment. It drags the player out of the stakes of the moment, which without this particular character is a great scene. Despite its issues, “Life is Strange 2” takes steps forward from its predecessors. Better writing, delivery and the music is on point. This is a good opening to a larger story. It’s up to DONTNOD to continue to build off of this strong foundation and deliver a truly unique experience. Score 8/10 “Life is Strange 2” is a good start, but multiple games of this style have fallen apart after a strong first episode. From the studio that brought us the time-bending slice of life teen drama that was “Life is Strange”, DONTNOD Entertainment has returned with the bleak and dreary “Vampyr”.
Taking players all the way back to 1918 London, “Vampyr” tells the story of Dr. Jonathan Reid. Reid, a famous doctor, and veteran return to his city only to awake in a mass of bodies a vampire. Stumbling from the mass grave Reid submits to his newfound hunger and kills his sister Mary. After the death of his sister, Reid is confronted by the Guard of Priwen, an order with the sole goal of protecting society by eradicating all vampires. Reid finds refuge at the Pembroke Hospital. This is where players are given their first moral choice of the game. Upon arriving at the hospital, Reid comes across a ruffian who had just killed another man. Reid discovers his ability to manipulate the human mind as well as rediscovering his need to feed. Players hold the life of this man, along with the rest of the city, in his hands. Reid can either drain the man in an act of primal hedonism or spare the man. London is a breathing city in “Vampyr”. Actions have consequences is the term so often used in the industry. As Jonathan Reid, players can explore DONTNOD’s version of the London meeting and help/eating its citizens. Every citizen is marked on an interface within the game. From here players can track the person’s health, see the information that Reid has gathered on them and most importantly their blood quality. Speaking to others is how players increase the character’s blood quality. The higher the blood quality, the more experienced players receive after “embracing” the character. Players can level up whenever they take a rest in the game. Before Reid lies down for a nap, players can allocate experience points to pick up skills or increases to Reid’s stats. “Vampyr” does not feature the widest variety of skills, but there is plenty of variety for players to establish their own playstyle. When combined with different weapons players can focus on attacking quickly and conserve stamina, attack like a wild beast and slash through enemies, stand back and eliminate enemies from a distance with the different blood powers (spears, claws, etc.) or even combine all these aspects for a well-rounded approach to deal with any opposition. Picking the proper skills is an extra layer that appears in no-kill playthroughs of the game. When avoiding embracing the citizens of London, players will find themselves under leveled for many engagements. Intelligent distribution of experience can be the difference between victory and defeat. Embracing the citizens of London is the easiest way to level up Reid and make him a formidable vampire, but things are never that easy. Players who walk the streets and indiscriminately embrace the citizens will get stronger, but in doing so it kills the character. Meaning that players not only miss out on the chance to get to know the character but also miss out on any mission that the character would have provided further on in the game. This gives each NPC character weight and is easily the most interesting addition to this game. The health of the citizens is something else to take into consideration. Not only does it affect blood quality, each of the game’s four districts has an overall health that needs to be maintained. This is simple enough to do. All players need to do is craft medicine for the specified illness plaguing the citizens. It becomes extremely tedious, however, when it comes to administering the medicine. Players need to navigate the spaces between safe zones that are littered with enemies to then run through a few lines of dialogue with the characters to administer the medicine. The map while not labyrinthine is narrow and clogged with enemies that are easier to fight than avoid, and when mixed the time spent speaking with the citizens, the process of dolling out mediation takes more time than some would be willing to give. Combat is a feature of “Vampyr” that has been of some dispute. Many found the combat segments clunky, and they are not completely wrong. “Vampyr” features an action combat system that has similarities to the “Dark Souls” franchise. Players need to manage a stamina, health, and blood (mana used for vampire abilities) bar while in combat. As mentioned combat can be clunky, but there is a rhythm to it. When players get into the flow of combat, like in boss fights, for instance, combat can actually stand out as one of the better parts of the game despite its quirks. “Vampyr” fails significantly in two key areas: Its lore and presentation. Vampire lore has a deep history that the game borrows from while adding its own bits and pieces too. The problem is that “Vampyr” gets lost within its lore and creates contradictions within the wider narrative. Things end up half-explained and make no sense in the end or are never clearly laid out leaving the player with questions and little answers. This confusion will leave a funny after taste when the game is done. The game’s narrative structure does not do much to relieve these problems. “Vampyr” concludes its main conflict in two to two and a half acts, leaving everything else to be concluded in its excessively drawn out epilogue. The game fails to keep its place all the way through and can be rather jarring at times. “Vampyr” is also plagued with technical problems. Stiff characters models, massive textural pop and extremely low draw distance. This all compounds with bugs and other general glitches. “Vampyr” has plenty of solid ideas that it executes on with varying levels of success. Sadly, this inconsistency and the sad state of the game’s overall narrative structure drags down what would otherwise be a game. Score: 6/10 “Vampyr” has plenty of potentials that it fails to live up to. It seems to have big budget ideas that were constrained by a small budget. After the franchise being set in the tropical, pirate infested Rook Islands and the mountainous, civil war ridden Kyrat, the Far Cry franchise had only one logical place to go: rural Montana.
Finally coming stateside, Ubisoft’s “Far Cry 5” is set in the fictitious Hope County, Montana. There are plenty of Far Cry like activities to take part in including climbing mountains, hunting animals and gunning down an unlimited supply of deranged doomsday cultists. “Far Cry 5” is set during the occupation of Hope County by the Eden’s Gate cult led by their enigmatic leader Joseph Seed and his brothers John, Jacob and adoptive sister Faith. The game starts with the players controlling the faceless silent protagonist, referred to only as the Deputy or Rook by his/her fellow sheriffs. After attempting to serve a warrant on Joseph Seed, an event the cult believes to set off a doomsday scenario they call The Collapse, the Deputy is separated from the rest of their partners as the cult takes over Hope County and killing anyone who refuses to join them. After escaping death at the cult’s hands the Deputy is rescued by Dutch, who lets the Deputy rest up in his bunker before aiding the Deputy in a plan to free the county from the Seeds influence. It’s at this point the player meets the game’s greatest character, Hope County itself. It’s a cliché, I know, but the world is full of life. Be it the animals or people that inhabit Hope County, there is always something going on and to be done, be it a mission, hunting or rescuing civilians. The world it’s set in is where the game stops being great and starts being mediocre. The weight dragging this title is its story and Ubisoft decided to structure its narrative. “Far Cry 5” disposed of the franchise’s past format of having linear progression so the player completes missions in a set order to tell the story, for a style similar to that of other Ubisoft title “Ghost Recon: Wildlands”. Hope County is divided into three regions, each controlled by one of the Seeds; John, Jacob and Faith. The player can complete activities in each of the regions to fill the resistance meter. At certain points the player is forced to complete story missions that will lead to killing the Seeds and freeing one of the player’s fellow sheriffs. This structure worked for “Wildlands”, and while being repetitive, there were over 20 regions and plenty of gameplay. The individual targets were not strong characters on their own, but their role in the cartel made sense and it was clear how eliminating them would lead the player to their leader. Now, with their only being three Seeds it would make sense that they would be deeper characters and players would spend hours in their individual regions dissecting their characters and understanding their role in the cult. Sadly each region can be completed quickly if the player focuses on filling the resistance meter and even then the handful of actual story missions are not much of a reward. They are short, and carry no weight. They feel the same as any other mission in the game, with nothing to set them apart. What’s worse is how these missions are set up. When the meter reaches set points, the Seed that controls the region will abduct the player to initiate the mission and each time the player miraculously escapes only to be caught one or two more times. For example, in Jacob’s region, the player is shot in the leg with an arrow and brought to him to be brainwashed. This happens every time and absolutely breaks immersion. Dividing the game world in this manner creates a big problem, and this is prevalent in many games that do this. Each region is self-contained in terms of characters and story. This means that the game tells three separate stories. Granted they are related to each other, but it feels like the game does not have one big story that all the pieces come together to create. It is just three separate chunks that could exist on their own. The groups of characters in each region suffer for similar reasons. They barely get any screen time and never really develop. They exist to give the player errands to run and then get left on the side of the road after that. The biggest stumbling block for the game is its silent protagonist. Some will like it for the same reasons the developers put it in the game. It’s to make it so the player is the main character and not some pre-made character, but it’s not without its drawbacks. The biggest being that instead of the player being the main character, the main character in the game becomes a mindless husk who serves no purpose beyond being told what to do. They have no actual interaction with other characters or the world beyond shooting. It’s a step backwards for a series that has built success on characters and stories. There is an online component in “Far Cry 5” entitled Far Cry Arcade. Here player can participate in multiplayer matches or complete additional outposts that were not in the main game. The multiplayer is fairly standard and enjoyable for those who like those kinds of things. The biggest draw is the ability to create multiplayer maps and outposts for other players to play in. There are some interesting creations that will keep the online component fresh for as long as players are willing to create new content. “Far Cry 5” falls into the same trap that many games fall into nowadays. It has a great premise and great ideas, but certain aspects hold it back from being amazing and a Game of the Year contender. Score: 8/10 If it was just up to gameplay and the world itself, I’d score “Far Cry 5” a 9. Sadly the story was a massive disappointment to me and as a whole I have to score “Far Cry 5” at an above average 8 out of 10. |
AuthorI am A.J. Goelz. I'm a gamer first and a writer second. I hope you enjoy the content on this page and check out the rest of my content on YouTube. Archives
April 2019
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