PAX Prime 2014: Getting intimate with Far Cry 4

hen Far Cry 3 first hit the scene, it was the sequel that few were excited for, and the surprise experience that no one ever expected when it eventually became a sleeper hit. Ubisoft Montreal was quick to chase the lucky break of possibly striking lightning twice, by ostensibly amplifying the all too familiar ingredients of its predecessor to a level that further pushes technical limits, and any remaining suspension of disbelief left in the brand to boot.

As I propped up for my go at the Open-world of Nepal, Far Cry 4 isn’t a sequel that tries to reinvent the wheel—it’s just one that throw a shit ton of horsepower and upgrades on an established foundation that’s proven to have a lot of mileage left in it after all.

Soon after the foliage and environment around me rendered on screen, I was given a selection of infiltration options for one of the trademark objectives within the series; overtaking a fort.

Hitting the terrain with the most conventional of the three, I made my approach on foot, and couldn’t help but get lost within the ambience of it all on the way there. Far Cry 4’s graphics spare no expense in bringing a vibrant life into the nature and associated elements within the wilds of Nepal.

The swaying of brush against the detailed soil of the minerals and dirt composing the ground and hills of the direct vicinity, it wasn’t hard to get wrapped up in the voyeur process of my time in build. But returning back to the task at hand, I continued back to my approach into the enemy stronghold through the rear, and tried to embrace the art of stealth at all cost.

Needless to say, after one glance of an explosive barrel came into sight, that stealthy shit totally didn’t last for long.

Controlling and shooting is handled through the same engine, for the most part anyway, the moving and alias maneuvering were mostly improved—as far as sensitivity and intuitive response was concerned anyway. The default firearm was an automatic crossbow, which contrary to its more quietly focused tactical utilities on the battlefield, it particularly made firing from the hip more of a breeze that most concussive guns ever did, even at close range.

Which is handy, because, as I had mentioned before, everything is escalated to a ludicrous degree. Despite having a fairly rounded arsenal up my sleeve, the aggression and perseverance of the AI quickly my devil-may-care shit to bed when the advantage of numbers were against me.

Considering the present build didn’t explore scaling or upgrading of any kind with the usual skill-tree building and leveling of the series, it wasn’t long before everything would come crashing down around me, so I moved on to one of the new, boasted features of the sequel; a one-man gyrocopter assault onto the targeted stronghold.

Piloting the craft was a bit of the challenge at first, with ease that could only be comparable to a refrigerator on roller-skates; but taking some time with it, I soon became a terror within the skies. Ascending and descending is handled through jumping and crouching, facilitating a natural sense of guile and experimenting with various serpentine maneuvers within your flight path makes gyrocoptering not only one of most stylish ways to travel, but one of the most strategic for most combat situations as well.

If equipped with the right kind of artillery (like guns choose boom booms instead of articulate aiming through zoom zooms) any player can fly to various vantage points in range, and unleash some of the best crowd control fire ever offer in a first-person shooter yet.

Far Cry 4 didn’t exactly offer anything beyond that, like Pagan Min, and narrative cohesion over dissonance within the main story campaign, but it certainly got one point across; Far Cry 4 is on the right path to achieve what it’s aiming for—expanding on everything that Far Cry 3 did right, and improving everything else it didn’t.