I'm a sucker for Far Cry's charismatic bad guys. Since Far Cry 3, Ubisoft has obviously been aiming to write villians that thrill and terrify in equal measure, but with the stone-age Far Cry Primal they weren't as concerned about handsome, hypnotic lunatics, or superforeigners that were here to save the day via a never-ending stream of bullets.
To my eyes, at least, they wanted to stick Far Cry's survival of the fittest hunting and gathering in a game where it made sense.
]]>It's looking like the next Far Cry is going to be set after the end of the world. Teasing a full announcement for The Game Awards tomorrow night (which Alice Prime will be burning the midnight oil to cover), the trailer below gives us a little taste of the things to come. Ubisoft manage to hold back from declaring that 'war never changes', but that pneumatic saw-crossbow sure looks Mad Max-ish to me. Ubisoft call it "a new Far Cry game" but it's not yet clear whether it will be a direct sequel, a spin-off, or what.
]]>I have very much enjoyed the Far Cry series, most often despite itself. Far Cries 3, 4 and Primal (why is everyone forgetting poor old Primal?) have all occupied me for countless hours, provided enormous amounts of entertainment in their kleptomania-inducing maps, and always done so despite everything it thinks is so compelling about itself. Far Cry's self-belief in its own abysmal stories is always so grossly apparent, like a strutting buffoon bursting into the bar and looking around, confused, when every man, woman and animal doesn't immediately throw themselves at his feet. So then he starts loudly demanding people throw themselves at his feet. And when they don't, runs around putting his feet as near to people as he can and declares to the room that this counts. Oh Far Cry.
Unfortunately, this time out things have gotten a lot worse. Far Cry 5 - to run with the previous analogy - barges up to you, grabs you by the collar, and throws you down onto the ground by its shoes, screaming "MY FEET! WORSHIP MY BLOODY FEET!" Which is to say, engaging with its godawful cutscenes has become less optional. Far Cry 5 has the most egregiously bad imposition of its story.
]]>Poor Ubisoft. They crafted this enormous open-world icon-riddled niche of their own, trod it into the ground while flogging it to death, and then other people came along, borrowed their ideas, and built superior games with them. In the last year, despite decent showings from Far Cry Primal, The Division, Watch Dogs 2, and Wildlands, players and critics were beginning to weary of yet another open map of odd jobs. None was particularly at fault, but we were experiencing perhaps the sense of diminishing returns, and certainly the weariness of fatigue. And then this year we got Zelda: Breath Of The Wild from Nintendo and Horizon Zero Dawn from Sony. Pow. Two platform-pushing monoliths that schooled Ubisoft at their own games.
In the wake of being so astoundingly outshone, what can Far Cry 5 [official site] do to reclaim the crown?
]]>Aside from starting a new tradition of unusually-named Steam Awards, Valve have also pulled out their worn and adored bargain bucket and have begun to fill it with games you’ll enthusiastically buy and probably never play. Yes, it's their Autumn Sale. In the streets, the apocalyptic jockeying for TVs and blenders has started. The moon has turned blood red. And I looked and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Black Friday, and sales followed with him.
]]>My calendar tells me we're now over halfway through April. The Met Office tells me astronomical spring in the northern hemisphere started on March 20. Yet the weatherman told me yesterday that I can expect highs of a whopping nine degrees centigrade here in Glasgow this weekend. I'd swear it was still winter had the annual Uplay Spring Sale not kicked off this week, with big discounts on the likes of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege and Far Cry 4, among others. Which others, you say? Find out after the drop.
]]>Hot on the heels of Fallout 4's Survival Mode, which brings exhaustion and dehydration back to the world of post-apocalyptic entertainment, Ubisoft have announced that Far Cry Primal [official site] will be getting the survivalist treatment.
The keystone of that survival mode is the change in the exploration, crafting, and difficulty of the game to make it even more realistic. After that, there are options the player can activate to go further.
Survival mode will arrive as part of a free patch on April 12th. We called this earlier in the month, of course, when we made Robert Zak play the game wearing nowt but a loincloth. More details below.
]]>Yup, I'm trying to make this a regular thing again. I know you're very excited about that. Bit late this week as I wasn't around for the first two days of it, but there is still MUCH TO LEARN from the top-ten best-sellers on Steam last week.
It's a strong mix of independent and mega-gazillion blockbuster; though the overall shape of the chart isn't hugely surprising, the number one winnah perhaps is.
]]>When Far Cry Primal [official site] was unveiled, I shrugged with semi-feigned disinterest, aware that the series has hit milking point, but unable to dismiss the inner teenager tugging at my inner sleeve saying "But it's got cavemen and tribes and woolly mammoths and you can ride them, and throw spears and stuff!" Yes, the prehistoric era taps into a primal fantasy in me, but when that's overlaid with an advanced radar, an owl endowed with the abilities of a military drone, and heat-vision that conveniently colour-codes every object, footprint and smell, the fantasy kind of tapers off.
By shutting off as many aids and HUD elements as possible, I intended to reclaim the fantasy.
]]>A run-down of the previous week's top-selling Steam titles is something I used to do regularly, but a combination of it tending to be fairly unchanging week-to-week and being a feckless human being who can't stand to do the same thing for long meant I fell out the habit. These are changed times, though: with indiepocalypses here and flash sales there, the Steam charts are now wildly changeable, so I like to look in from time to time, like an old aunt raising a withered eyebrow at reports of what her nephews are up to at university. This week: a whole lot of Ubisoft, not a lot of XCOM and an unofficial Hunger Games (or an unofficial Running Man, if you prefer the awful classics).
]]>Far Cry Primal [official site] has now unlocked on Steam and Uplay, but, as has been the case since prehistory, you're going to spend a lot of time staring at developer and publisher logos when you play. I've been fiddling with graphics settings, which occasionally necessitates a swift reload of the game, and in doing so have seen the cave-painted Ubi logo so many times that I never want to see it again. Thankfully, I don't have to. Pushing a button won't skip those logos but disabling them is simple enough. Instructions below.
]]>A week later than consoles, because apparently Ubisoft have abandoned that promise already, Far Cry Primal [official site] is out on PC tomorrow. I've donned my wolf-skin coat, daubed random lines of paint on my face, and killed some local wildlife (sorry Mrs Primms about Fluffy) in preparation to tell you Wot I Think:
]]>We’re a month and a half into 2016 and it’s already been a vintage year. Firewatch, American Truck Simulator, The Witness and XCOM 2 are a varied and delightful quartet, and we’ve also seen the rebirth of Homeworld and several smaller, stranger, delights.
But what’s next? RATHER A LOT. Far Cry: Primal, Hitman, The Division, Shardlight and SUPERHOT for starters. Adam and Graham convened to discuss the last of the winter harvest.
]]>Far Cry Primal is skulking around in the development undergrowth, waiting for the right moment to strike. We sent Brendan to observe its behaviour.
I wasn't sure if many players would enjoy the Stone Age setting of the new Far Cry, then I saw a man from my tribe taking a painful dump behind a tree in the middle of our settlement, and I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. This is the village of the Wenja, one of three tribes who fight it out in the world of Oros for territory and resources. The story centers on your cave man character, Takkar, as he rebuilds his people from their scattered remnants after a long ice age. There are no explosions in the year 10,000 BC, but you do get to ride around on the back of a sabretooth tiger, so there's always that.
]]>I don't know much about Far Cry Primal [official site] beyond its stone age setting, but Adam did recently tell me that you use owls as binoculars in the game. That doesn't mean you hold them up to your face and place light-refracting lenses in their mouths, but that you can maybe possess or become an owl. I don't know. There's a new trailer below though and there's definitely an owl flying away from a feather-explosion in it.
]]>"Ugh, a system requirements post?" you groan. "Talk about scraping the bottom of the post-Christmas barrel..." and I grab you by the ear, throw you to the ground, and stand over you yelling: LISTEN, YOU DREADFUL LITTLE SNOT, ONLY TWELVE THOUSAND YEARS SEPARATE US TODAY FROM THE FACTUAL, HISTORICAL EVENTS OF FAR CRY PRIMAL [OFFICIAL SITE] AND EVERYTHING YOU HAVE IS BUILT UPON THAT TOIL OF MILLENNIA. WITHOUT THEM, YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE WHINING THAT 'HOVERBOARDS' DON'T HOVER. YOU WILL APPRECIATE EVERY OUNCE OF TECHNOLOGY AT YOUR DISPOSAL.
]]>There's a scene in the new Far Cry Primal [official site] trailer in which the player character instructs his pet owl to eat someone's face. It's amazing how inconsequential the lack of vehicles and rocket launchers seems now that the full extent of the animal-taming can be seen. Feed wild beasts and they can be tamed, which leads to big cat snuggling, guard bears and tiger ridin'. Given that sniping the locks off animal cages was my favourite way to take out a baseload of baddies in Far Cry 3, Primal suddenly looks very tasty indeed.
]]>Ubisoft attempted to announce Far Cry Primal [official site] with a tantalising livestream, which was rather spoiled by a brief leak of the game's name and basic details. Now we know more, including proper trailers, screenshots, and a release date... which will see the game land on PC the month after it'll arrive on console.
]]>Update: There's now proper trailers and everything, embedded below, or hop to this post for Far Cry Primal's release date, screenshots, trailers and more.
Viral marketing isn't entirely going Ubisoft's way lately, but at least having their own promotional rug for the next Far Cry pulled from under them by a loose-lipped IGN Turkey means exciting news rather than quizzical looks. Yep, the next Far Cry is, it appears, to be named Far Cry Primal and is set during the Ice Age.
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