So I managed to talk my way into some alone time with a preview build of Far Cry Primal.
Disappointment abounds.
To be fair, I was actually impressed by the balls-out premise. Especially after the way FC4 followed up FC3's mediocrity with a big lukewarm dollop of the same. Ditching it all for a game in the stone age? Fucking brilliant. Sign me up.
On the plus side the world looks awfully pretty. Really sells the whole primeval wilderness thing. Colossal trees, rugged peaks and wild animals galore.
There's the usual cast of whacky and slightly unhinged characters who get fun and memorable introductory scenes but then sit around doing sweet fuck all besides sending you on fetch quests.
On the downside there's... well, everything else.
You play as Takkar, a random hunter guy with absolutely no distinct personality or characteristics whatsoever. It feels like playing a silent protagonist who insists on talking.
Biggest disappointment is the melee combat system. There isn't one. You just equip a melee weapon, walk into range and mash left click. You flail at the enemies and they flail at you until whoever started with less health falls over. No block, no parry, no counter, no dodge. Later on you can hold click for a charged attack, but I'm pretty sure it's actually less efficient than just mashing left click.
Combat essentially feels like if you took FC4, removed all the enemies except the hunters and the melee guys, and you only have the bow and the aforementioned click-a-thon melee. Despite the removal of guns and explosives it manages to feel remarkably samey. Fighting animals is even more boring since they don't have any abilities. They just run at you and melee you. You shoot them and melee them back until they die. Takedowns are still a thing, but they had to remove the more fun ones. After all, you can't do a grenade or sidearm takedown thousands of years before those things existed.
The one thing they did expand was the resource gathering. You know how in FC3+4 you gathered animal skins and colour-coded leaves to get upgrades? Well now you get to collect rocks and sticks and clay and reeds and beehives and special rocks. You get to do it a lot.
The big new feature is the animal taming. Mr Takkar the non-character is also some kind of Special who can tame animals for reasons the game was in no hurry to explain. Basically you throw some meat at an animal (predators only), hold down a button and it turns into your ressurectable buddy who follows you about attacking things that attack you. You can sic them on specific targets, although it's generally more efficient to just shoot them yourself. I only ever bothered doing it to see the admittedly cool kill animations. For such a vaunted feature it feels oddly token and unnecessary.
According to the skill tree you can ride some of them. I didn't get that far. Although I did get to ride a mammoth. Which was exactly like riding an elephant in FC4, but now the elephant is hairy.
So then you do the Far Cry thing. You go to places and kill everything, you clear outposts and you chip away at a mountain of collectibles. Except this time you can have a jaguar following you around.
It's a shame really. Primal feel like it could have been a really cool game if it had been made by someone other than Ubisoft as something other than a Far Cry sequel.
Disappointment abounds.
To be fair, I was actually impressed by the balls-out premise. Especially after the way FC4 followed up FC3's mediocrity with a big lukewarm dollop of the same. Ditching it all for a game in the stone age? Fucking brilliant. Sign me up.
On the plus side the world looks awfully pretty. Really sells the whole primeval wilderness thing. Colossal trees, rugged peaks and wild animals galore.
There's the usual cast of whacky and slightly unhinged characters who get fun and memorable introductory scenes but then sit around doing sweet fuck all besides sending you on fetch quests.
On the downside there's... well, everything else.
You play as Takkar, a random hunter guy with absolutely no distinct personality or characteristics whatsoever. It feels like playing a silent protagonist who insists on talking.
Biggest disappointment is the melee combat system. There isn't one. You just equip a melee weapon, walk into range and mash left click. You flail at the enemies and they flail at you until whoever started with less health falls over. No block, no parry, no counter, no dodge. Later on you can hold click for a charged attack, but I'm pretty sure it's actually less efficient than just mashing left click.
Combat essentially feels like if you took FC4, removed all the enemies except the hunters and the melee guys, and you only have the bow and the aforementioned click-a-thon melee. Despite the removal of guns and explosives it manages to feel remarkably samey. Fighting animals is even more boring since they don't have any abilities. They just run at you and melee you. You shoot them and melee them back until they die. Takedowns are still a thing, but they had to remove the more fun ones. After all, you can't do a grenade or sidearm takedown thousands of years before those things existed.
The one thing they did expand was the resource gathering. You know how in FC3+4 you gathered animal skins and colour-coded leaves to get upgrades? Well now you get to collect rocks and sticks and clay and reeds and beehives and special rocks. You get to do it a lot.
The big new feature is the animal taming. Mr Takkar the non-character is also some kind of Special who can tame animals for reasons the game was in no hurry to explain. Basically you throw some meat at an animal (predators only), hold down a button and it turns into your ressurectable buddy who follows you about attacking things that attack you. You can sic them on specific targets, although it's generally more efficient to just shoot them yourself. I only ever bothered doing it to see the admittedly cool kill animations. For such a vaunted feature it feels oddly token and unnecessary.
According to the skill tree you can ride some of them. I didn't get that far. Although I did get to ride a mammoth. Which was exactly like riding an elephant in FC4, but now the elephant is hairy.
So then you do the Far Cry thing. You go to places and kill everything, you clear outposts and you chip away at a mountain of collectibles. Except this time you can have a jaguar following you around.
It's a shame really. Primal feel like it could have been a really cool game if it had been made by someone other than Ubisoft as something other than a Far Cry sequel.
