Far Cry: New Dawn

[TheFeniX]

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.

[Dominus Atheos]

Remind me, wasn't there a point where after I killed one of the twins, the other's like "Look, I know you probably want to kill me, but you don't have to"? Is there anyone who didn't shoot her? They really were just the worst characters, I can't believe anyone would instantly shoot her...

[TheFeniX]

There is no "point" to Far Cry games. Not once you dig past the inch deep metaphors and look for something deeper. There literally is no deeper.

If you don't kill..... Mickey or whoever the oldest was, she DOES leave and leaves a note saying she's going to look for her mom and that she's "done" with the Highwaymen, but you need to clean them up since there's still (obviously) tons of them. That said: Why do we believe her? No, there is rationally no reason not to kill her. Even ignoring what she has done to you personally, she's an incredibly dangerous person who is on the hook for, I mean at the LEAST, a thousand cases of murder, torture, kidnapping, just name it. And you, the player AND the protagonist, have zero expectations the death of her sister would genuinely turn her around.

You could work the whole "Vengeance vs forgiveness" angle, but I get so tired of writers acting like this should just get you off the hook. When you factor in this being a post-apo world, keeping either of the twins alive is dangerous. They have friends, they have ENEMIES, they are physically incredibly capable. The Hope County survivors have no way to safely keep her contained and protect themselves. And just letting her go is increibly irresponsible. You could even make the argument it's MORE reasonable to let The Father live because he is USEFUL and has shown he will work with Hope County. In fact, Kyle shot him, but said specifically he should have let him live so Joseph has to live with his guilt AND try to reintegrate the New Edeners. Because at this point, he's not all that dangerous, but the case could be made either way.

WRT the twins: Kyle didn't realize he had control of his character before I did, so he kind of laughed because she stopped talking, then it was just <sounds of heavy machine gun fire> and then me entering his FOV with a shovel and beating the corpse with it while bitching something along the lines of "this is what you get for monologuing at me so much."

Sometimes I think Ubisoft makes such BAD villains because they can't make good (in the sense of engaging characters), so they make infuriatingly bad ones because NO ONE talks about a mediocre villain. But a really well or badly written one? You can talk about all day. I was mad enough to wail on her corpse for.... maybe 45 seconds? just because she was SUCH a shit villain, I was mad at having listening to her bullshit.

Being unable to upgrade Guns of Hire to have 1 with you while doing coop is balls. Timber (Boomer 2.0) rides in the sidecar if you drive a motorcycle. He is a Good Boy.

[FaxModem1]

Yeah, I'm not getting this game. I got 5 because it took place in Montana, and while I had some fun, the ending with you being a cult leader's sex slave chained to a mattress while WWIII was going on outside really turned me off to the game.

[Dominus Atheos]

It's too bad bargain bins don't exist anymore. If this was in a pile of games labeled "all games 4.99 each" I'd suggest buying it.

[TheFeniX]

Steam sales. Got the game with all the bullshit DLCs (just weapon packs) for like $8.

Far Cry: New Dawn also takes place in Montana. It's the same map, though chunks are cordoned off by "Radiation Zones." Most the original locations are there in varying forms, but for different purposes. Like the old prepper stashes are there, and they contain some materials, but they aren't the locations you access for perk points, etc.

New Dawn just skips the entire WW3 part. The nukes literally existed as a plot point and the U.S. ceased to exist. Radios and other electronics still work, so there's no reason Ham radios wouldn't. With this in mind, there is zero mention (I've seen) of the U.S. govt attempting to exert influence. Small factions (or large, as the Highwaymen somehow became a loosely unified roaming Nationstate within 20 years) fight for resources. Which also makes little sense because their power structure seems incredibly stable concerning the Top Dogs. Killing them is supposed to be a massive blow to them, but said Dogs are just .... super tough and willing to kill for any reason. It's not like they ever show any real leadership qualities. They inspire nothing but fear into their subordinates. Yea, maybe you can hold onto power for a while with this system, but a lot of these subordinatess are drugged/boozed up and willing to kill for any reason. With all the shit The Twins talk and how every Highwayman is armed at nearly all times.... she hasn't talked shit to the wrong asshole and got shot for her trouble?

I mean, ONE "outside looking in" Highwayman scrub gets the idea to kill them (because she pissed him off) and he comes up with a (albeit stupid) series of plans for you and him to kill them.... that actually WORKS because the HWM are fuckin' morons. The plan only fails, and even then you ARE able to wipe out 90% of the HWM leadership, because ANOTHER character betrays you and the twins leave to pay him for his assistance before they can be included in the "slo mo shootmans scene."

Also, there is no reason to avoid scavenging computer parts and other electronics. Sure, the Internet is Fubar, but computers did things before that. Power isn't even an issue as you can see tons of generators reconditioned to run off ethanol. And as said, other electronic equipment functions fine. But the kids complain that computers are just "these boxes older people talk about that showed images."

[Franky Sometry]

I am a fan of Ubisoft games and Far Cry series in particular but this spin-off leaves a lot to be desired, my opinion.

[LadyTevar]

Franky, please try to check and see when the last post in a thread was dated, so you don't commit Thread Necromancy. This thread ended in August 2020.
LadyTevar, Moderator.