Games added: Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Last week: Finished Far Cry 5
This week: I've been playing some Elder Scrolls Online w/ Tam & DG, and waiting for GoW on Friday.
So Far Cry 5 was really good overall, but I did have some issues with it...and not the ones I thought I might have going on. The mechanic that keeps you on track with the main story works well - you complete so many missions, rescues, etc. in a region, your "resistance meter" for that area builds up so far, and you trigger the next story mission for that area. You can do what you want in whatever order, but whatever you do will have you working towards the next story beat. A cool idea that I expect to see others copy, and like I said, it works well. The problem for me was what those story missions actually were. The best area in the game IMO is the Southwestern region. It had what I considered to be the most interesting scenery and probably overall the most interesting side missions (not that the other areas didn't have some great ones as well). But it was mainly my favorite area because the story missions were varied and interesting.
The same could not be said for the other 2 areas. The Northern area's story missions were nothing more than timed shooting galleries that you run through. Or should I say, shooting GALLERY, because it's the exact same one that you go through every time, just with more strict time limits every time. And every time you fail it (run out of time, die, whatever) you start over at the beginning. So by the time you're done with that area, I guarantee you'll be sick of it. And I'm not sure if this is better or worse than the story mission in the Eastern area, where you do...basically nothing. You get drugged, watch a trippy scene (in which you may or may not be required to press forward on the controller a little) and then you wake up. Wow. And sadly, these "minibosses" as they were have very bland, one-dimensional personalities. Not the fun bad guys of other Far Cry games, just very predictable and one-note.
The main bad guy is the only one that has any real personality or development (they hint at some development with the girl in her final mission, but it's way too little too late). But that brings me to my last issue with the game...the ending. I'm not going to spoil anything here, obviously. But I was shocked that the game doesn't have a single "good" ending. And I mean, the endings you get to choose from go from dark to DARK.
After I beat it I looked up the others on YouTube and...yeah, not a single one of them approaches satisfying.
None of these issues kill the game, mind you - it's still a lot of fun overall with some great minute-to-minute gameplay. But they do hurt it, and it definitely doesn't hit the highs of the other open-world games I mentioned last week as a result.
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed
if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I
became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the
desire to be very grown up.” ― C.S. Lewis
