The Dadcade Axie Infinity Game

The Far Cry series has really come a long way since the first game was released 14 years ago. What was once a pretty standard shooter has morphed into one of the best AAA open-world games on the market. Sayings like “Do you know what the definition of insanity is?”, M.I.A’s Paper Planes, and the classic villains of Far Cry 3 and 4 have carved themselves into the annals of gaming history. With the release of Far Cry 5 and it’s a pretty intense marketing campaign in the United States, gamers were left wondering what type of game this would be. Would the series take a big leap in a different direction or would we get refinements on an existing formula? After about 2 weeks with the game, we think we have some answers.

Far Cry 5 begins with you, a Hope County, Montana Sheriff’s deputy, on a helicopter heading to arrest a cult leader named Joseph Seed, aka The Father. You’re with a couple of other people including local and federal law enforcement and within minutes of landing, you can see where things are about to head. The compound is armed to the teeth and the sheriff is pleading with the U.S. Marshall to holster his weapon to not start a war with the followers of “The Father.” Events progress and things go horribly wrong, as you’d expect, and you’re left alone, running for your life. You’re saved by a local who offers you food and clothing and sets you on your path to take back Hope County from the piggies (the cultists) while also saving your coworkers from the deranged family lieutenants of The Father.

If you’ve been following social media in the days since Far Cry 5 came out, you probably noticed a trend. A lot of people are upset with the story in Far Cry 5 not because it’s bad, but because it didn’t tackle the issues they wanted to be covered. On the whole, the story in Far Cry 5 is serviceable. You’re not going to get some gripping tale of redemption or some crazy symbolism of the political divisiveness in America. It seems that a lot of people expected Ubisoft to come out swinging against those on the right-wing side of politics and never let up. If you were looking for this, you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, you get a story of a family using nefarious means to brainwash a town into believing their crazy religion with one man, The Father, is the cult leader. You’ll work with locals to take down lieutenants in broken-off sections of the map with the ultimate goal of taking down its leader. The story itself isn’t that compelling. It is mainly there to move the plot along for the ultimate showdown with The Father. I think Ubisoft is getting unfair ire about the story because people wanted it to be something it’s not. Some reviews are dinging the game for not taking a political stand and I think that is just absurd. Judge the game by what it is and not what you wanted it to be. What the story in Far Cry 5 is though, is a mediocre but satisfying drudge through cult worship with a healthy dose of Americana thrown in. It’s not great, but it’ll keep you moving along. What is great though is the world and the stories you find outside of the main plot.

The world of Far Cry 5 is probably one of my favorites in the series. Hope County, Montana is big, sprawling, and beautiful. Each section of the map has its unique appeals with Jacob Seed’s area being very mountainous with wolves plenty while John Seeds area is more open with farmland. The residents of Hope County are varied and have their own struggles and reasons for fighting back against the cultists. As you explore different areas, you’ll unlock mercenaries to join your cause. Each mercenary has their own story and you’ll have to help them out of a bind usually to unlock their services. Collecting these “guns for hire” was easily my favorite addition to Far Cry 5. The characters you can unlock to join your cause are incredibly varied and unique with each bringing a certain type of co-op gameplay partner to your game. There is the expecting father fearing for his family who flies a plane and gives you air coverage or the former soldier who snipes enemies from a distance. But above all of the human companions are the 3 animal “fang for hires” you can pick up. You’ll meet Boomer, the dog who can find enemies for you and tag them; Peaches, the cougar that can stealth attack enemies; and my personal favorite, Cheeseburger the diabetic bear that is a tank companion. These unique characters add a flair to the Far Cry games that just wasn’t there previously. When you unlock the ability to have two at once in a mission, they’ll often talk to each other and include some pretty great lines. If one thing is taken from Far Cry 5 into the next Far Cry game, I hope it’s the companion system.

The gameplay in Far Cry 5 is a step forward in some areas, a step back in others. First, the positive. The shooting is top-notch and the wanton destruction you cause is as fun as ever. Coming up to an outpost and having a wide array of ways to wrestle control from the cultists is always satisfying, especially when you consider what companion you have with you. I rarely play a game to completion, especially open-world games, but I found myself ticking away at every outpost in an area before moving on just because of the fun I was having. You’ll also unlock perk points as you complete in-game challenges (kill x amount of enemies with this gun, skin this many cougars, etc.) and you can spec your character as you see fit. This allows for a certain degree of customization although by playing the game long enough and completing enough challenges, you won’t be wanting for any skills.

Another thing that stands out in Far Cry 5 is its ability to set you off in one direction and give you a ton of things to do. Rarely did I ever want to fast travel somewhere outside of a story mission. Typically, I’d run to my location and get sidetracked with a couple of things along the way. The moment-to-moment gameplay and its feedback loop is expertly crafted. Sure, the game has a bunch of bugs where I saw cars float in the air and a bear mysteriously appear in front of me but these can be forgiven when the gameplay is so much fun. Hope County is chock full of things to do and you’ll want to do most of them. If there is something you aren’t fond of like fishing, just avoid it outside of the necessary mission quests.

In a series first, you can modify the look of your character through a basic character creator. There are a couple of faces available for both sexes and a range of hairstyles and clothing options. It’s a neat feature, but unless you’re playing a lot of co-ops, it won’t make any difference to you. You never see your character and you never speak. The clothes you wear and your outfit can be seen in first-person mode occasionally but not enough to warrant any care to be given to keeping your clothes up to date. In the 20 or so hours I put into the game, I think I changed my clothes once. You can buy additional clothing as the game progresses, but I never felt the need to. It’s nice to have, but outside of co-op, I can’t see most caring much about it.

While the gunplay is amazing and the moment-to-moment action is addictive as it’s ever been, there are some stepbacks from previous entries. In Far Cry 5, you can hunt animals in certain locations but it doesn’t really amount to anything. Crafting is gone. Want a bigger gun holster? You’ll have to do those challenges I mentioned previously. The skins you get from animals are only used to sell to NPCs to get money to buy guns. This seems like such a wasted opportunity because the crafting system in the previous games offered a great way to hunt down upgrades to your equipment. Now, it’s tied to the perk system which isn’t bad, it’s just nowhere near as good as the former upgrade system used to be.

Another step back seems to be the gun variety. I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is, but the guns themselves seem far too similar and there are just fewer overall. This could be based on Ubisoft player data that said some guns were never used and they were removed, who knows. All I know is that the weapons seem lacking and once I found one or two I liked, I rarely ever switched. I would put all of the upgrades into it, get a silencer with, larger ammo capacity and it was my gun for the game. In a game where weapons are so well done, it’s disappointing to not see more of them.

Overall though, Far Cry 5 is a great experience. I could list out issues with the game and its story, but at the end of the day there is one question that needs to be asked, was it fun? My answer to that is a resounding yes. From the moment we received code for the game from Ubisoft, I played nothing else. When my son was napping, it was Far Cry time. Got a few minutes before bed? I bet I could take down a couple of outposts. Far Cry 5 sucked me in like few games can and I wanted nothing more than to experience everything it had to offer. If you were on the fence about Far Cry games in the past, this installment may be a bit of a mixed bag. It’s streamlined in ways that may cater to a more casual fan of the series, but overall, it’s more of what you’d expect to see in Far Cry 3/4. If, on the other hand, you have loved Far Cry games in the past and aren’t looking for extreme political discourse in your games, then you’ll have a blast playing one of Ubisoft’s best open-world games in a long time.

Usually, with each holiday season, game companies are vying for those precious dollars and seeking the title of “The must-play game of the season.” But when it comes to the holiday game king of the hill, one franchise has rested comfortably on the top of the heap for the past several years. Call of Duty seasonal releases have become as predictable as the falling of the leaves and gamers eagerly await it with frothing excitement. The trouble with a huge, loyal fan base and a yearly release schedule are that it’s easy for a franchise to stale and rest only on past success. Does Black Ops 3 repeat the formula of its predecessors or does it truly deserve that top spot on your wishlist this holiday season?

The campaigns of Call of Duty, while formulaic, have always been the highlight of the game for me. While the multiplayer succeeds in occasionally making you feel like a badass soldier, the campaign completely delivers on this front. Black Ops 3 starts with the player picking out your character’s avatar and gender, a welcomed first for the series. From there you’re tossed into your first mission, which goes horribly wrong and you’re left maimed and for dead on the battlefield. Thanks to the help of some cybernetically modified soldiers, you’re patched up and repurposed as a super soldier, much like the beginning of Advanced Warfare. The training missions are presented in a slick, unique way that gets you up to speed on your new abilities. The big change in the campaign comes in the form of your cyber core abilities. Players can choose from three tiers of cybernetic abilities, anything from the ability to run on walls, to taking over turrets, even unleashing a swarm of nanobots that overtake enemies and explode. Since you can only equip one tier at a time, players can replay missions for a completely different tactical experience. In addition to the cyber core abilities, another big change is how players load up missions. You’re given the choice right off the bat to take on any mission in any order via the new Black site. The Black site is where players will customize load-outs, abilities, view stats and medals, and select missions. Overall, the campaign is a fully-featured portion of the game and not just a tacked-on mode to accompany an already popular multiplayer experience.

Truly the bread and butter of COD are multiplayer. The online experience is something that has been tested and tweaked into near perfection over the years and this iteration builds upon the pedigree even more. Black Ops 3 introduces players to specialists, unique characters with special abilities players pick at the start. There are nine specialists to choose from although only 4 are available to start. Players must rank up through multiplayer and spend unlock tokens for special weapons and abilities. Special weapons range from a bow with explosive tips to flamethrowers and swords, putting more emphasis on close-range combat. Specialists can be customized via unlockable outfits by completing total kills while playing as a specialist. The jump pack makes a revised appearance and players can wall run and power slide around the level making the usual fast chaos of a match even more so by allowing players to utilize more vertical space. The maps feel well designed and balanced and fan-favorite Nuketown makes a return.

Zombies mode gets an overhaul with the setting taking place in a noir style 1940s town. You can play as one of 4 characters, each with unique playstyles and background stories. For the first in the series, progress is now saved and Zombies has its own level progression system. While the zombie’s mode has grown over the years, this is the first time it feels like a standalone game and one that you can spend more than a few play sessions in. For those that have enjoyed the Zombies mode over the past few years, this offering will most likely be your favorite to date.

Treyarch has become the go-to developer for the Call of Duty franchise. Their work on the Black Ops series has been the most innovative and fun since the series first took a leap from the past with Modern Warfare. They had three years to work on this release and the extra time looks to have paid off tenfold. They could have simply rested on previous work and put out the same thing, but this offering has taken what worked and improved upon it across multiple modes. The changes breathe new life into a series that some have questioned for being stale over the past couple of years. The gameplay and sound design are great and the graphics are truly breathtaking in the hi-tech future world of Black Ops 3. In a time when game companies seem to want to nickel and dime you for content, it’s refreshing to see a big AAA title still want to do right by their loyal fans. Although players on last-gen miss out on content, this is still worth every penny. I can only hope the other developers in Activision’s employment take notes and continue to build off the work that has been done on Black Ops 3