Far Cry Primal on PS4 – The DVDfever Review

Far Cry Primal: Ubisoft are in the zone at the moment with their current releases, launching Tom Clancy’s The Division and also this one within weeks of each other, not forgetting Assassins Creed Syndicate just before Christmas alongside Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. It has definitely been a good few months for them heading out of 2015 into 2016.

So here we have a new spin on Far Cry. Long gone are the Trigens and other mutated creations from Dr Krieger on the exotic tropical island that Jack Carver ended up on. Since the series roots, we have visited a war torn Africa, another large tropical paradise, the Himalayas and now we are heading back to 10,000 BC when Sabre Tooth Tigers and giant Woolly Mammoths still roamed the earth.

As with the prior games in the series, Far Cry Primal is an open world story driven first-person action game (avoid the shooter part there!). You have typical stone-age-inspired weapons like spears, clubs, bow and your grenades (bombs) are pots filled with bees initially. Again, the animals are taken direct from that period in time with variations on Sabre Tooth tigers, Jaguars, Wolves, Bears, Woolly Mammoths & Rhinos and the annoying Dhole’s are back from Far Cry 4 to name a few. The story itself sees you Takkar of the Wenja tribe having to roam the land of Oros recruiting new members (hunter, warrior, crafter), once recruited and completing each recruitment quest you then have to upgrade your village and get more of your nomadic folk under your fold.

Now to make things harder there are 2 opposing tribes, each with their own set of unique abilities. You have the Udam who are cannibalistic bullies who like to steal from you and capture your tribe members to eat to gain their knowledge and there is also the Izila, who are a bunch of Pyromaniacs. Of course, with these three factions it is up to you to take out the leaders of the Udam and Izila and bring peace and prosperity to Oros and your people.

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Far Cry Primal Gameplay Walkthrough Part 1 [1080p HD PS4] – No Commentary – MKIceAndFire

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The gameplay itself is very similar to Far Cry 3 & Far Cry 4 minus the modern day guns and grenades. You will find yourself collecting as many items as possible while on your travels to be able to craft extra spears, clubs and arrows etc. Understandably, there are no stores to buy these items so crafting is key and done via the weapon wheel to replenish stocks. You do have a stash which is replenished daily with random items that can be used for said crafting and upgrading. Once you have rescued the key members of your tribe you unlock extra upgrades to your weapons which can be upgraded on the relevant screen, you also have skills where you assign points to like in Far Cry 4, as an example upgrading what your owl can do and being able to tame a larger selection of beasts, getting said skill points comes from completing missions etc. Your home area on the left side of the map can also be upgraded – the huts to the key characters and your cave, once again the benefit of doing this unlocks extra weapon upgrades and the likes. Side missions like the prior two games (this seems to be the norm here!) will see you rescuing people from other tribes hands, killing a higher up member of another tribe and taking over guard posts and small villages to give you a fast travel points and opening up the large map.

The combat is what you would expect. Clubs, I must admit, do feel a little wavy with the way you use them, the same can be said for first-person combat in general though looking at Skyrim and Oblivion etc. This game feels more suited to a stealthy/hunter type approach to objectives, your owl replaces a set of binoculars and you fly above outposts tagging enemies so Takkar knows where they are and they show on your mini map. If you have upgraded your owls abilities, you can also take out a target, maybe taking out someone that will be higher up raising an alarm which makes it quite tactical. Other than that, though, spears and arrows will see you picking enemies off quietly and thinning out numbers.

You will have also seen that you have a pet with you at all times – you will get an early quest where you have to tame a white wolf. This is a great way to complement stealth or create chaos. Send your animal in to take out key targets while you snipe at others – it has a great synergy to it. Once you unlock higher Beast Master skill levels, you can tame animals like bears and Sabre Tooth tigers. Each animal has its highs and lows; heavily guarded outposts, I usually send my bear in to occupy the heavier enemies while I pick off the stragglers. Taming animals is a neat feature but it is not something that is overly hard – throw some meat down if in the right area and when an animal goes to the bait, creep in front of them and hold the tame button for a few seconds and you are done. No long hunt and tracking needed like the first mission to find the white wolf.

Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.

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Far Cry Primal Gameplay Walkthrough Part 2 [1080p HD PS4] – No Commentary – MKIceAndFire

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Visually the game is running on the Dunia Engine which has been used since Far Cry 2, understandably updated, though, as technology has improved. Personally, I have loved the visual style & effects this engine is capable of since then. It scales well on PCs, giving users a great experience and the consoles have always handled it well. You have really long detailed draw distances and the fur on animals looks great; animals, enemies and non-player characters (NPCs) have natural looking movements and are quite lifelike. Granted the grass and ground textures can be a bit lacking, but overall this game looks great and captures the feel of the stone age well (and no, I am not THAT old!!).

Sound is what you would expect – sitting in the long grass or hiding behind a tree while hunting, you will hear various animals, each with their distinct calls. When getting near a rescue mission, you will hear your tribesman crying out, or in a tribal war numerous voices and shouts. Cutscenes are all voiced with subtitles as the stone age folks don’t speak English – it kind of reminds me of the language the Navi use in Avatar, a personally annoying thing though is the subtitles are broken English. It will take something like “Go and get me a green leaf” to “You get green leaf”. Another thing that REALLY gets my back up is the crafter NPC. When going to get him for your village, you fall into his pit and he urinates on you, which was pretty vulgar, but he then calls you Piss Man constantly which, I don’t know why, but I found quite offensive towards the player, just took things a bit to far.

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Far Cry Primal Gameplay Walkthrough Part 3 [1080p HD PS4] – No Commentary – MKIceAndFire

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Conclusion

All in all, Far Cry Primal is a great game. The thing is, though, we have seen it all before – the 2 main bad guys in the Udam and Izila don’t grab your attention as much as Vaas or Pagan Min from 3 & 4. Again though the crafting and skill systems are all but identical to the prior 2 games, this can be said for most of the game. Don’t get me wrong, I love the prior two Far Cry games, Far Cry 4 being one of my favourite shooters of all time and the setting is just amazing. It just feels like the prior games reskinned, shook up and put out there as Primal. It is a good game and if you haven’t played either 3 or 4 then it should be an essential purchase. If you love the prior 2 games and have spent many hours on them, you may start to feel boredom setting in as you have seen it all before with like for like mechanics etc.

Finally, they have not included any multiplayer component in this title at all, nor even any co op which could have been awesome, something like large beast hunts with a few players co op taking down a herd of Mammoths or pack of Sabre Tooth Tigers. Something like this could have opened up the game a bit more and given you something different to do over all the crafting, collecting and similar missions.

One great positive is that on the PS4 it has only took up around 12Gb of space which meant I didn’t have to uninstall anything before being able to play!

All gaming footage featured is from the MKIceAndFire Youtube channel.

Far Cry Primal is out now on on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

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Far Cry Primal Gameplay Walkthrough Part 4 [1080p HD PS4] – No Commentary – MKIceAndFire

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Important info:

• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Players: single player

GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT	9 7.5 7 6.5
OVERALL	7.5

Director: Ramiro Bélanger
Music: Jason Graves

Cast:
Takkar: Elias Toufexis
Jayma: Ayisha Issa
Udam Lord Ull: DeLaRosa Rivera
Dah: Juan Carlos Velis
Wogah: Ron Kennell
Roshani: Ali Momen
Additional voices: TC Carson, Debra Wilson, Cara Ricketts and Nicolas Van Burek