Recent reviews by MadDragon

(EDIT) This game is really for suckers. Ubisoft haven't learned a thing. Or changed. 2/10. Maybe. One of the only Far Cry games that has annoyed me so much I've just given up on it. I'm uninstalled the game and put the title into the "these suck" category on my Steam. Because it does. Going to go play a bit of Far Cry 3 now, because even with the stupid freaking quicktime cutscenes and other annoyances, it's not 1% as annoying as Far Cry 6. Games are supposed to get better. Not worse. Ubisoft... has underwhelmed again.

I'll start with the list of things that are just wrong, in no particular order. Of course all of this is just personal preferences. Usual disclaimer: all reviews are just opinions.

- can't "drop" bodies over low railings. At all. Heck, neck-level fences are basically impassable walls in this version, unless you blow then out of the way with explosives or a vehicle. No quiet passing over them though.
- Not a fan of the "gear make the person". Smacks of Borderlands. I like getting better as a character, not just finding better gear.
- Autosave. Again. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't and drops you in the shttr.
- Being allowed to deploy wingsuit or parachute while in the air seems a bit random. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can't. Literally. The "space" for parachute is greyed out, despite being in mid-air and with lots of landing room. Just because they don't want you to do a particular manoeuvre (probably) because they would rather impose arbitrary (and unannounced) limits rather than design levels that don't trick you into thinking you can do certain things.
- The whole "oh, I jumped off a 3m cliff that any decent parkour would just roll from"... and die immediately. Despite wearing full parkour gear. Nope, sorry, not buying that. I expect games to be BETTER than real life, not a shoddy subset of such.
- Close combat is a bit off. They will *always* get the knockdown first. Only way out is to wear the "I don't get knocked down" gear.
- FOV changes only work in "normal" view. If driving a vehicle, or a horse, or anything else, it defaults to the usual WAY TOO LOW value. There's apparently a mod for that. I may have to check it out, because it's really annoying.
- quicktime cutscenes that expect you to press a key within a few microseconds of the "correct" time or die. Discarding all the improvements that whatever weapon you're using might have. (ref: Benitez takedown). That alone rates the game a firm "no" at this point.
- You can't bloody turn off the shtty music coming from the in-game speakers. Speakers are invulnerable, no switches, nothing. It's... just trolling by the devs at this point. Or their sociopathic managers perhaps.
- cinematic cutscenes that have the player do really stupid things and you just have to sit there and watch the devs sht all over your gameplay, just so they can set you up in a specific way.
- single player games that attempt to force me to play multiplayer. If I wanted multiplayer, I would have bought a multiplayer game.
- the complete inability to remap "E" to exit a plane or vehicle. Because sometimes not having a key that's right THERE to do something you can't recover from is a BAD IDEA. Whoever came up with that concept is a freaking troll.


What did I like?
- um... it can be kind of fun when none of the above are bugging me?

Sorta fun. Don't see what the hype was about though, but it has no serious weak points. Which is nice.
I do like the ability to make and use blueprints, so that once we get a setup "just right" we don't have to fiddle with it again.

Still much to learn after 30 hours, so not a good place for a review other than to say "yeah, having fun with it so far".

So you have to go deep into the caves to get some materials. Where you die, because the game's viewing mechanism makes it very hard to see holes in the ground where you fall down to the next level of the caves. Without oxygen.

There's probably a solution. Haven't found it yet. But, it's still sorta fun. Some day I'll find the umpteen backpacks that I've left lying around. Backpacks that will happily fall down a hill or into a hole, but you can't pick them up to carry them back up.

(edit): mostly solved. Drill can make ramps (LeftCtrl). Just need to have small canister to store the soil required.
An enjoyable game so far.

(edit at 71 hours): Have noticed a number of... issues.

1) Camera is janky as heck, especially if you're near *anything*, or trying to pave+drill at the same time, many times you'll not be seeing anything except the back of your own head or vehicle.

1a) The lack of first person view, especially when driving/paving/drilling, makes the game insanely annoying at times. I can totally see people quitting the game over it. But I've put enough hours in that I'll probably work through it and try to "finish" the game.

2) Cannot earn store coin by playing the game, can only purchase with actual money. Not happening, and that they've done this is another point against them.

3) Can't control paver and drill separately on the front of a large rover. All or nothing. Pity. One wag even recommended having them on opposite ends of the rover, which I found to be a hilariously poor mechanic.

But I've spent my money, so will continue through at least one playthrough. I'm not really seeing the potential for a 2nd one, but the game was cheap enough, and generally fun enough (with some exceptions, see above) that I'll still recommend it. Really wish they had a 1-5 scale instead of a yes/no. Game would get a 3.5 or so.

AAAND rage quit. Stuck on edge of core with large rover. Every time I try to move, the gravity shifts around. Even when I carefully aim AWAY from the core, or at a tangentf, the gravity shifts and flips and generally makes the rover useless. BUT, what makes it REALLY annoying and makes me rage is the LACK OF BLOODY FIRST PERSON VIEW. Instead, every time I get flipped around I can't see anything because I'm close to a wall so I basically go blind. Every time I try to move the rover I can't see because it puts the view BEHIND the thing. 90% of the issue could be resolved if I could SEE. But I can't, because they decided not to allow first person even when every other vision is blocked.

Might come back. Might not. I'm not having fun any more. All because devs were too stubborn to put in a much requested feature, even just for driving.

(after a sleep...) And.. back. Solved the issue. Wasn't at enough of a tangent to the core, and was too close to one of the "strands" that merges with the rock and bends gravity around itself. Still the MOST aggravating thing, all because of devs are stubbornly refusing to put in any first person view.

All that said... yeah, I had some fun. Incredibly frustrating at times, yes, but it can be fun too.

It was an interesting 14 hours.
Started OK. Graphics are lovely, story is decent, sort of.

Then the jankiness started. Aiming seems off. Combat is annoyingly poor, although I have to admit they seriously improved on GTA's unarmed combat stuff. Horse riding is variable, with the horse sometimes taking wild detours with minimal input on my part. Of course, there's the usual loop of "wolves spawn, scare horse, who throws me on my back, wolves kill me before I can shoot.". They're even fast enough to interrupt deadeye when used. Over, and over, and over.

Then the game breaking bug that won't let me complete a "must do" mission. Game just gives up.

Maybe I'll go back to it, maybe I won't. Get it on sale if you must. I did, but I still kind of regret it.

Opinions will of course vary. This is just my experience with it so far. Yes, I realize that it might mean I just suck at this game in general. That's fine. I'm good at other games, and have fun with other games, so in comparison I still can't recommend this one. Again, results will vary.

It's not bad. Finding some of the mechanics... confusing, but that might be just me.

and it's not looking good. The dialogue is just bad, parts of the story were phoned in from a frat party, and parts of the storyline just... make zero sense. Not to mention the frequent "let's make a cutscene where we position the main character somewhere that only a total idiot would stand".

Getting near the end and... ruined. The battle against the dragon is pretty much just one long cutscene, including one incredibly frustrating part that's just, well, "devs are trolling again" level of bad. The rest of the game to the end was just... totally underwhelming. They do love their soliloquies in this game! wow.

So no, can't recommend this game. Super grindy, poor writing in parts, and a finale that just leaves a really bad taste. ick.

So far it's been fun, which is my one and only criteria really.

Although the combat system is a bit much for my fumble-fingered self, what with having to quickly switch weapons all the time on a PC using a UI designed for a controller. But that's probably a "me" issue, not a game issue. Still enjoying it though. Nice story.

That said...

Whoever created the grind system for this game should be taken out back, tied to the bottom of a sewage tank, and forced to empty it with a small spoon as it fills up. SO messed up especially for a single player game! The drop rate on *required* components is just too low.

Also, the continuing tendency of devs to create situations where the character is just a stupid idiot and just stands there while bad things happen is getting annoying. No, the paragon of combat would NOT just stand there and gape while someone throws a bomb at her! At least make the traps BELIEVABLE! d*rnit!

Classic stuff. Use mods as required to change things up.

Annoying? Yes, it can be.
Frustrating? Yes, it can be.
Fun? Yes. Eventually.
Does it keep being fun? Sadly, no, it does not.

The start is... rough. Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't for me was rough. Trying to figure things out in general was rough. But once you get the hang of it, even a little bit... yeah, I'm starting to have fun with it. Which is my only criteria for a game really.

THAT SAID...

Once you get more into the game, you realize just how buggy it is. Things... just stop working right. From having to regularly rebuild task lists for squads, to characters just... not appearing where they should.
The game is barely usable without mods, but the mods themselves add huge layer of instability.

So yeah, it was kind of fun for the first 100 hours. After that it was becoming a tedious exercise of trying to figure out why things were breaking, why things weren't working as expected, and eventually having to just give up and start over without having accomplished very much.

So... nah, not that much fun in the end. Seems to be muchly overhyped for what it is.

Well... that was a little disappointing. Sadly, Steam doesn't let me do a "get it on sale" vote, just "yes" or "no". It's at about 45%, so it falls on the "no" side, but barely. I mean, it's still a nice game, just has a few too many drawbacks for me. Opinions of course will vary.

Now, this may not be fair, because it's a COOP game and designed as such, but I play solo. The game isn't very good for solo. If you have friends, the game will probably be much better for you. But solo? Nah, not really.

Keeping this short:
Pro:
- nice graphics,
- gameplay OK, story sort of engaging,
- interesting premise, and
- Sweden! Who doesn't love Sweden!

Cons:
- the story ends... rather abruptly, with nothing actually resolved. Was sort of OK up to that point, if sort of disjointed. But, the ending was definitely very unsatisfying. At least you can keep playing, although doing so solo... would kind of suck really.
- can't swim (seriously? wow.) Although you can still get across some water hazards if you jump far enough, it'll put you on the *closest* shore, not the one you left from).
- Some enemies are just there to troll you (the large flying jet things seem deliberately geared to mask all sounds in the area while being almost impossible to kill. Also, the sound is very annoying.)
- the skills and gear are... well, not all that useful really. 1% to 3% improvement from gear and can't have gear with more than 1 improvement? Skills are... well, there might be a couple, but getting to the levels necessary is lots of work. Which leads to...
- potential *massive* grind to get anything serious done. This is what really brought it down from just over "yes" to just under the "yes" line. Just to level up without cheating would require going around and around to "easier" targets that don't use too much ammo, as resources can be a bit scarce sometimes unless you cheat.
- They obviously intend for people to play this over a much longer period of time, despite the world not being, well, all that interesting. Much re-use of assets, for instance.
- what do you mean I can't jump over anything more than waist high?? I can even do it in real life and I'm really unfit!
- fall damage is way overdone. Even a small fall eats 1/2 my HP. come ON!

Fun. So far. Might be starting to get a bit repetitive and grindy though, unless they come up with some new mechanics soon. Still only at 2nd region - Dead Horse Lake.

Edit: finished game after just a few hours. Grindy, yes. Kind of a fun romp, also yes. Basically the mechanics don't change much for each region, just the flavour. But the voiceover is amusing, the mechanics are kind of cool, the graphics are good, and, well, yeah. I had fun. Wouldn't buy the game at full price, but on sale? Sure!