Far Cry: New Dawn
Posted: 2020-07-28 03:03pm
Or Far Cry: Heroin Jesus Edition.
So, standard boilerplate: I haven't posted in a while, I did another rant about Far Cry 5 that might be worth a look, "blah blah no one cares, just rant about shit." Look, I know why you bothered to click this topic if you did.
In retrospect, I want to say: I was WAY to harsh on the Farcry 5 music. It's actually pretty fuckin' good. I don't know what I was thinking in the old thread. New Dawn's music is.... holy shit. If you play this game, remember by default on PC, "[" turns off the radio AND you can shoot BoomBoxes (that somehow still exist in Far Cry). NOTE: The music played by the Hope County Crew is licensed oldies, so it's good stuff.
SO, Far Cry: New Dawn. The game is 1.5 years old, expect spoilers. You aren't missing much anyways. This one is honestly hard to break down, but it hits a lot of the same beats as FC5, but corrected some annoyances. But we will get to that. ONWARD TO GAMEPLAY:
Ok so, FCND continues the trend of infinitely serviceable and engaging gameplay and technical implementation. The game looks great, it's responsive, it has incredible amounts of feedback and tactileness (Ex: The positional audio lets you identify targets, and putting lead into them gives feedback). Your character moves when you want them to, they interact when you want them to. This is easily a 9/10 implementation of an engine with only minor GAMEPLAY contrivances as annoyances. Which we will now discuss.
1. You no longer find "weapons you like" and run them til the game is over. Enemies and weapons are now tiered (I II III Elite). This forces you to upgrade your base to access new weapons. This creates a Borderlands style leveled list, however the game never throws you up against Elites (unless you want to, such as the Elite Animal Missions) when you're stuck with Level I weapons. But this also makes the game a pretty standard escalation event. This is.... a thing that exists. It has both positive and negative impact to the gameplay experience depending on your opinion.
However, what sucks is the only weapon upgrade are flat % damage increases. The guns exist as-is. If a tier doesn't have a gun you like (like a silenced shotgun, which are actually useful in this game), tough.
2. Enemy AI seems sketchy at best, as does the detection mechanic. Pretty much, IF you are detected, you WILL get an audio and visual cue to this. Like it or love it, it does exist and worked near 100% in Farcry 5. However, in ND.... sometimes it just doesn't. Nothing is happening, and then an NPC looks at you, through a wall, says "CUT THE MUSIC, something is going on" while he points at you. Then things go to Hell.
3. Game is gated through materials for crafting, so it's about the grind. Or you do 2-3 expeditions (little side missions in other areas) and you have all the materials you ever need.
4. The Grind. A fairly enjoyable event. Outposts make a return from FC5, but you can scavenge them for resources to retake them, with more alarms and more and tougher enemies. This is fun, games need more of this.
I could go on all day, but this is a gameplay loop that celebrates FREEDOM. The ability to just fuck around in the world and do random events for resources or just for fun.
THE STORY!
So, remember how the Far Cry 5 story was stupid and bad and boring and stupid and bad and constantly took control of the player away and when it DID give you options to intervene they were either A. pointless or B. "I would never do this"? They FIXED that..... by removing the "constantly" part. ....... sigh... here we fuckin' go again. Ok, so the good part first: you CHOOSE when to deal with Story Bullshit. It never just happens when you fill a meter up. The Story MISSIONS themselves are at least different from "kill more badguys with gun." There's a demo derby, there's a prison-break style stealth missions, there IS some variety here, but unfortunately they don't last long at all, since they are still about mostly exposition, and they are not repeatable (for instance, the demo derby is pretty fun, why can't I redo it?) that I know of. They are also way low on the difficulty tier, with the possible exception of the Twins boss fight.
So, to the actual story. Bombs fell, Hope County rebuilt, but then these Highwaymen showed up run by two black women who.... ok, let's cut to the chase real quick. I consider them insulting racial caricatures, but that could just be my privilege showing. So, I'm just going to skip the racial context and point out that the Highwaymen is a pretty diverse operation including men and women of all races (same as with the Hope County Rebels.... who get very little to no screentime this game). So, the twins wanted the resources of Hope County and they been fuckin' shit up. But they left Prosperity, the main base, alone..... for reasons? They literally control the entire rest of the county. It's not like the base is well hidden either (it's literally John Seed's old ranch). So, one of them goes and gets some help from outsiders, Rush. He builds things..... I guess? They have a train. You're "Cap." You're the muscle. The third guy of this group, who dies really early, is.... I guess "piss" because he's a coward and pisses himself non-stop and then dies.... and I'm supposed to care that a coward who wanted to leave me for dead is.... now dead? Anyways, the highwaymen blow up the train as it comes in.... then laugh because "you came ridin' in on a loud ass train. What did you think would happen?" and I'm like "yea, good point. Maybe talk to the writers." The Highwaymen extend across the entire country BTW, and the Good Guys are coming into Hope County specifically to help fight them, so it's not like they couldn't have expected this.
Anyways, the Twins don't just kill you, even though they tried, then they say other shit like "You could have joined us" when it's obvious this is untrue, but it's presented like anyone had a choice. And then they ramble tons of dumb shit. But the worst parts are the cutscenes where you're forced into situations no sane person would be forced into and then Rush dies, which sucks because...... I dunno? But you let this happen for no reason because you gave up your weapons voluntarily, then either cuffed yourself voluntarily or they did it anyways, and you can't stop it. So... they kill Rush, then you hulk out with your Hilly-Billy Heroin (Bliss) powers and fuck the Twins up until they shoot you.
Oh, did I skip this? Joseph Seed (yep, he's back) gives you a forbidden fruit (an apple.... because symbolism is a sledgehammer used to crush skulls in this game) blessed with bliss that turns you into Heroin Jesus. You can double jump, you can go into a rage where you take next to no damage, punch for more damage than an RPG, AND knock people into orbit. You can also become so stealthy, you can crouch in front of an elite mob and he will NOT detect you until the power runs out.
And you have these powers during this cutscene....... see, ok the Rook from Farcry 5... there's some wiggle room there. You could argue she's just incredibly lucky or resourceful but COULD get bushwhacked. But as said, Cap is Heroin... fuckin..... Jesus. (NOTE: The enrage power is also the only damage reduction ability in the game: woof!). So, more shit happens, you kill them in a lackluster boss fight, then you have to kill another dude. Ethan, Seed's son, who is obviously setup immediately to betray you at some point and then he WAIT FOR IT, betrays you. I seriously cannot point out how setup this is. There is nothing shocking about it, but it's played as if it is. Anyways, he also eats the apple, but he's not worthy so it turns him into a smoky Sasquatch (not a joke) and you shoot him a lot. Then Joseph finally realizes what we all knew: he wasn't the voice of God, he was just kind of lucky (and everyone else stupid) and he's trash and this is all his fault. Kill him or not, who fuckin' cares. Look, you want a plot synopsis, I'm sure there's a video on youtoobs will all the cutscenes.
Shit literally happens because it has to. Because no one helps you. Because people do dumb shit they have no excuse to do. Because you trust people you have no reason to trust (and they end up trustworthy, but you knew they would because the plan was so bad). Because you HAVE to do things a certain way. FC5 had this same problem, but as said, The Rook WASN'T HEROIN JESUS.
In case you care about what happened to Rook: Joseph psychologically (and likely physically) tortured her so much, she became a mask wearing mute (due to character creation shenanigans, you also can't determine gender) who joined his New Eden project as "The Judge." So, happy endings all around.
So, standard boilerplate: I haven't posted in a while, I did another rant about Far Cry 5 that might be worth a look, "blah blah no one cares, just rant about shit." Look, I know why you bothered to click this topic if you did.
In retrospect, I want to say: I was WAY to harsh on the Farcry 5 music. It's actually pretty fuckin' good. I don't know what I was thinking in the old thread. New Dawn's music is.... holy shit. If you play this game, remember by default on PC, "[" turns off the radio AND you can shoot BoomBoxes (that somehow still exist in Far Cry). NOTE: The music played by the Hope County Crew is licensed oldies, so it's good stuff.
SO, Far Cry: New Dawn. The game is 1.5 years old, expect spoilers. You aren't missing much anyways. This one is honestly hard to break down, but it hits a lot of the same beats as FC5, but corrected some annoyances. But we will get to that. ONWARD TO GAMEPLAY:
Ok so, FCND continues the trend of infinitely serviceable and engaging gameplay and technical implementation. The game looks great, it's responsive, it has incredible amounts of feedback and tactileness (Ex: The positional audio lets you identify targets, and putting lead into them gives feedback). Your character moves when you want them to, they interact when you want them to. This is easily a 9/10 implementation of an engine with only minor GAMEPLAY contrivances as annoyances. Which we will now discuss.
1. You no longer find "weapons you like" and run them til the game is over. Enemies and weapons are now tiered (I II III Elite). This forces you to upgrade your base to access new weapons. This creates a Borderlands style leveled list, however the game never throws you up against Elites (unless you want to, such as the Elite Animal Missions) when you're stuck with Level I weapons. But this also makes the game a pretty standard escalation event. This is.... a thing that exists. It has both positive and negative impact to the gameplay experience depending on your opinion.
However, what sucks is the only weapon upgrade are flat % damage increases. The guns exist as-is. If a tier doesn't have a gun you like (like a silenced shotgun, which are actually useful in this game), tough.
2. Enemy AI seems sketchy at best, as does the detection mechanic. Pretty much, IF you are detected, you WILL get an audio and visual cue to this. Like it or love it, it does exist and worked near 100% in Farcry 5. However, in ND.... sometimes it just doesn't. Nothing is happening, and then an NPC looks at you, through a wall, says "CUT THE MUSIC, something is going on" while he points at you. Then things go to Hell.
3. Game is gated through materials for crafting, so it's about the grind. Or you do 2-3 expeditions (little side missions in other areas) and you have all the materials you ever need.
4. The Grind. A fairly enjoyable event. Outposts make a return from FC5, but you can scavenge them for resources to retake them, with more alarms and more and tougher enemies. This is fun, games need more of this.
I could go on all day, but this is a gameplay loop that celebrates FREEDOM. The ability to just fuck around in the world and do random events for resources or just for fun.
THE STORY!
So, remember how the Far Cry 5 story was stupid and bad and boring and stupid and bad and constantly took control of the player away and when it DID give you options to intervene they were either A. pointless or B. "I would never do this"? They FIXED that..... by removing the "constantly" part. ....... sigh... here we fuckin' go again. Ok, so the good part first: you CHOOSE when to deal with Story Bullshit. It never just happens when you fill a meter up. The Story MISSIONS themselves are at least different from "kill more badguys with gun." There's a demo derby, there's a prison-break style stealth missions, there IS some variety here, but unfortunately they don't last long at all, since they are still about mostly exposition, and they are not repeatable (for instance, the demo derby is pretty fun, why can't I redo it?) that I know of. They are also way low on the difficulty tier, with the possible exception of the Twins boss fight.
So, to the actual story. Bombs fell, Hope County rebuilt, but then these Highwaymen showed up run by two black women who.... ok, let's cut to the chase real quick. I consider them insulting racial caricatures, but that could just be my privilege showing. So, I'm just going to skip the racial context and point out that the Highwaymen is a pretty diverse operation including men and women of all races (same as with the Hope County Rebels.... who get very little to no screentime this game). So, the twins wanted the resources of Hope County and they been fuckin' shit up. But they left Prosperity, the main base, alone..... for reasons? They literally control the entire rest of the county. It's not like the base is well hidden either (it's literally John Seed's old ranch). So, one of them goes and gets some help from outsiders, Rush. He builds things..... I guess? They have a train. You're "Cap." You're the muscle. The third guy of this group, who dies really early, is.... I guess "piss" because he's a coward and pisses himself non-stop and then dies.... and I'm supposed to care that a coward who wanted to leave me for dead is.... now dead? Anyways, the highwaymen blow up the train as it comes in.... then laugh because "you came ridin' in on a loud ass train. What did you think would happen?" and I'm like "yea, good point. Maybe talk to the writers." The Highwaymen extend across the entire country BTW, and the Good Guys are coming into Hope County specifically to help fight them, so it's not like they couldn't have expected this.
Anyways, the Twins don't just kill you, even though they tried, then they say other shit like "You could have joined us" when it's obvious this is untrue, but it's presented like anyone had a choice. And then they ramble tons of dumb shit. But the worst parts are the cutscenes where you're forced into situations no sane person would be forced into and then Rush dies, which sucks because...... I dunno? But you let this happen for no reason because you gave up your weapons voluntarily, then either cuffed yourself voluntarily or they did it anyways, and you can't stop it. So... they kill Rush, then you hulk out with your Hilly-Billy Heroin (Bliss) powers and fuck the Twins up until they shoot you.
Oh, did I skip this? Joseph Seed (yep, he's back) gives you a forbidden fruit (an apple.... because symbolism is a sledgehammer used to crush skulls in this game) blessed with bliss that turns you into Heroin Jesus. You can double jump, you can go into a rage where you take next to no damage, punch for more damage than an RPG, AND knock people into orbit. You can also become so stealthy, you can crouch in front of an elite mob and he will NOT detect you until the power runs out.
And you have these powers during this cutscene....... see, ok the Rook from Farcry 5... there's some wiggle room there. You could argue she's just incredibly lucky or resourceful but COULD get bushwhacked. But as said, Cap is Heroin... fuckin..... Jesus. (NOTE: The enrage power is also the only damage reduction ability in the game: woof!). So, more shit happens, you kill them in a lackluster boss fight, then you have to kill another dude. Ethan, Seed's son, who is obviously setup immediately to betray you at some point and then he WAIT FOR IT, betrays you. I seriously cannot point out how setup this is. There is nothing shocking about it, but it's played as if it is. Anyways, he also eats the apple, but he's not worthy so it turns him into a smoky Sasquatch (not a joke) and you shoot him a lot. Then Joseph finally realizes what we all knew: he wasn't the voice of God, he was just kind of lucky (and everyone else stupid) and he's trash and this is all his fault. Kill him or not, who fuckin' cares. Look, you want a plot synopsis, I'm sure there's a video on youtoobs will all the cutscenes.
Shit literally happens because it has to. Because no one helps you. Because people do dumb shit they have no excuse to do. Because you trust people you have no reason to trust (and they end up trustworthy, but you knew they would because the plan was so bad). Because you HAVE to do things a certain way. FC5 had this same problem, but as said, The Rook WASN'T HEROIN JESUS.
In case you care about what happened to Rook: Joseph psychologically (and likely physically) tortured her so much, she became a mask wearing mute (due to character creation shenanigans, you also can't determine gender) who joined his New Eden project as "The Judge." So, happy endings all around.