Far Cry New Dawn

[DANGERMAN]

This hasn't reviewed amazingly, and while I loved Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon, I couldn't muster to energy to do the same stuff again in far Cry 4 and 5. In fact I booted up Far Cry 4 towards the end of last year because I wanted a nonsense fps to play, and I still couldn't. I ended up doing the pacifist ending, then booted it back up and ran about it bit, then realised I just couldn't be arsed

 

For whatever reason the more I've seen of Far Cry New Dawn the more I've been interested in it. I think knowing that it's shorter is a big part of it, like I said I loved 3 but the amount of time I spent with it, doing the same routine over and over did start to drag by the final island, although at the time I put that down to me doing everything before moving the story on.

 

New Dawn looks amazing, maybe a bit too amazing. I'm playing it on high settings (it can go to ultra) on a GTX 1080 at 1080p, and I still get framerate drops to 50 every now and then. It's less when there's lots of combat, more when I'm in dense woodland with lots of mist and fog. Which I mention because it is ridiculously dense, so dense I've been bitten by snakes I couldn't see, and have to rely on watching when and where my A.I. teammate starts screaming and where she's shooting at. I'm impressed with how it looks though, I had this pegged as a bit half-arsed, and granted it could be I didn't play 5, but the colour and the environments look great

 

Gameplay wise it's kind of just Far Cry. It's not as reliant on taking back encampments as the old games, although there are still some, and there's no radio towers. You're still randomly getting attacked by animals, and there's still a skill tree, you're still playing good guys vs bad guys. Enemies take more damage before they go down than I remember, with some enemies having a 2nd health bar, possibly a 3rd but I've not seen that yet. You're kind of dumped out in to the open world pretty early, you have a story mission but it's far enough across the map that you can't help but do other things along the way. A lot of the side stuff involves you stopping trucks, be it for all important ethanol or less important humans, chasing them down isn't fun, being in the right place to stand in the road and shotgun the driver in the face is fun, that said I've not managed to get an ethanol truck yet. Beyond that, I've just been rescuing people by killing bad guys

 

I'm really enjoying it though, played for hours tonight and I've still not got halfway to the first proper story mission. Before I go there I've got some treasure to find, an ally to recruit, then a bunch of buildings to kill everyone in, then I'll do the thing I've been asked to do

[Nag]

Of all the people on here you'd probably be one of the last I'd expect to start a Far Cry thread...?

 

I've gone the complete opposite on this game, I enjoyed my time with 5 but I'm not in any rush to return to that setting at the minute... and that more than likely means I never actually will.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve got this on my rental list. I’ve seen a few reviews say they’re burned out on the franchise,and with it being out so soon after FC5, that doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t committed to an FC game for ages,so this would be quite fresh to me. And I like the concept of it.

[DisturbedSwan]

I’m burned out on FC myself, played 5 and the DLC last year and whilst I enjoyed the main game I didn’t love it and the mostly shitty DLC left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

I’ll be back for 6.

 

[DANGERMAN]

I was under the impression this was a short Far Cry, and it may well be given how Ubisoft's games can be enormous, but it is not the short truncated thing I was expecting.

 

The story missions are places way across the map, I thought this was a mix of a cynical attempt at making a handful of missions last longer, but also a way to get you in to the map, engaging with the side quests. Both might be true, but some of the quests are fairly drawn out in and of themselves, some of them make you trek back and forth too. There's one I've done that has a bit of a Heart of darkness/Apocalypse Now boat ride down river, that whole section takes an hour I'd say (not just the boat ride)

 

The thing that's a bit grating, and why it's not the short punchy game I was hoping, is the home base. You have a home base, you can upgrade it, this needs to be done as one of the first story missions, again to show you the mechanics. Upgrading the home base means recruiting specialists through side quests, and upgrading facilities. Upgrading the facilities means things like another health bar, another health bar for your teammates, access to better guns, cars, health packs being more effective, access to more detailed maps etc. Some are really useful, some not so much. Upgrading this stuff requires ethanol, you get ethanol from liberating outposts, from supply drops, from hijacking the not that common ethanol deliveries

 

The issue is, if you're getting 75 ethanol from an outpost, that's enough to improve one facility, some of them anyway. The second tier jumps from 75/100 to 500, the 3rd tier 700. Ethanol is fairly rare and to progress the next story mission I need a lot of it. Fortunately I've done most of the  side stuff, and with a bit of grinding yesterday I was only one upgrade away from being able to do the mission, and that upgrade will likely be one I don't really want just because it's cheapest, unless I want to piss around for another hour or so, scrapping and re-liberating outposts just to earn enough

 

So yeah, this could have been a punchy 15 hour experience if you mainlined it, maybe less. Because of you're forced to do stuff that seemed optional it's really starting to drag. I'm still enjoying it, but I can only imagine how bored I'd be if I'd played through 4 and 5

[mmmark]

That’s mostly true of all ubi games. Play each one and you’ll fall asleep. Leave a good 2 or 3 game gap and you’ll be fine. 

[Maf]

I played a few hours of this tonight for the first time and I haven’t got far enough to really run up against any ethanol shortages like @DANGERMAN was referencing in earlier posts, simply because as I did the the thing where as soon as the game put me in the open world to go do the very first story mission I did anything but. I done a treasure map, recruited side characters, completed some various challenges for perks, etc. So I haven’t had any shit gated to me for that reason but only because I have not got there yet.

 

Also my enjoyment of the game and context for it is very similar to Dangeman’s as well where I haven’t played a Farcry game since 3 back on the 360 so I expected to come in to this feeling very fresh and rejuvenated for a Farcry game. 

 

However I can’t say that has really held true. I’ve played a shit tonne of Assassin’s Creed games in that space so even though this game asks the player to do different types of tasks and obviously has shooter mechanics instead, it still asks to be played in a very typical Ubisoft fashion. Just in the way that you know that there is no time sensitivity, every Ubi open world game is tackled by doing the side stuff first and the main stuff last, I’ve played it for nearly 3 hours and already I know what all the icons mean, I know they will never lie to me and have already adjusted my expectations of what this game is going to be for however long it goes on for. 

 

It’s not that the things you do in this game map to AC exactly but it’s just their approach to design. On the plus side it makes it very easy to get in to the game and understand it but on the negative side even for a series I haven’t played in 7 years or something it’s like I never left. 

 

It is is well designed. The first 3 side mission I played were all unique from each other. The writing tries a bit too hard but has some very slight funny lines and moments. Gunplay is good (Though following on from Apex I still can’t aim for shit), audio is good. Playing on the Xbox One X and wow it’s very pretty. Not only technically, but it’s amazing what a nice splash of pink can do to liven up the screen. There are parts of the world where you would think they had some Splatoon artists come in and have a crack at it. 

 

Overall it’s a very well made one of these games, but it’s still very much one of these games. Probably surprising nobody to hear that. 

[Bob]

I played this. I really liked it, a lot more than Far Cry 5. I also didn't have any issues with ethanol shortage throughout the game. I don't think that has anything to do with Ben's potato gamer skills or anything though. I wouldn't say that. Never. 

 

However, I do think this was designed very differently to previous Ubi games and that change started with AC Origins. Previously you could pretty much get whatever you wanted in Ubi games, like they lacked the confidence to tell the player no, you need to work for it! That was definitely the case here and I think it was a really bad idea for them to have such aggressive MTX because more than any other Ubi game, this one made you feel like you were missing out without them, because it does take a long time to unlock upgrades and weapons but for me that felt like I actually had something to aim for during the entire game. Whereas usually by the time I get half way through an Ubi game I'm just waiting for it to end because I've seen everything and have everything. 

 

I don't think they commited enough with the aesthetic though, it felt like as a concept, that came into development much later and then they kind of went back through the game and added it where they could. I said the same about Rage 2 as well though so I'm either difficult to please or this latest trend was dreamt up entirely in the marketing department which is the most punk pop thing ever. 

[DANGERMAN]

I should probably clarify, I was only ever short of progressing the main story once and I didn't redo any of the out posts, if I had then I'd have easily had enough. I was more thinking out loud I guess, if I'd been main-lining it I think I'd have ran in to issues.

 

It's the games way of forcing you to interact with the missions and mechanics, the ethanol is just the thing there isn't an abundance of just by trudging around 

[Bob]

That's fair, you get an absurd tonne of ethanol from redoing the outposts. Well worth doing as well since each new difficulty is a lot of fun, although it is gear locked which kinda sucks. 

[Maf]

Does anyone have this on Xbox and looking for/can help get the co-op achievement? If so, let me know. I think it could be knocked out in about 15 minutes.

 

GT is mafw1 if you want to add me

[regemond]

I picked this up in an Ubi sale a couple of weeks ago, and I'm having a lot of fun with it right now. Haven't got a clue what's going on, mainly because I've only been playing when drinking with one of my mates, but it's just awesome fun to run around in the world.

 

I absolutely love the aesthetic - bold pops of neon pink everywhere, gorgeous shades of orange and yellow. For a post-apocalyptic world, it's just so vibrant. This is contrasted in little random happenings though. I was swimming across a lake, and hopped onto a little island half way over. There was a skeleton there, surrounded by beer bottles. He must have drank himself to death. Very Fallouty.

[mmmark]

Downloaded this as it’s on gamepass. I kind of forgotten what it was and where it sat in the timeline of FC releases. A friend of mine said they’d started playing and had played for half an hour so I thought I’d get to where you can co op and surprise him. Turns out he hasn’t even got the first achievement which is only 15 minutes in ffs 🤦🏻‍♂️ 

 

So all I can talk about is the opening and how surprised I am at how gorgeous it looks compared to the other titles. It’s like a mad trippy fever dream it’s so colourful. I assume it was updated for current gen. Most Ubi games were tbf to them. 
 

So yeah if he ever gets 20 minutes in I’ll play some co op. Not really interested in doing it alone. 

[Metroid66]

That's a great game. If you go on YouTube you get people complaining about the baddies in this, but I thought they were scary as fuck to be honest. It's only the legendary Vaas that's sticks in my mind more from the series. And of course the guy from 6, but he's just famous in general.