Far Cry Primal

[OWGKID]

  :-X

[PZ]

 

[fragger]

Here's some gameplay footage. As suspected - looks like FC4 only with clubs, spears and arrows. There's still outposts to liberate, and even a grapple hook, for heaven's sake. About the only real innovation that I can see in this clip is the ability to tame some animals and w@&k with them, instead of always being mauled by them.

But if this clip is anything to go by, the game looks pretty dull to me.

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[Binnatics]

pretty dull indeed. A bit too primitive for my taste.

[Art Blade]

kind of primal, really.

[fragger]

Very

"Me Gronk, me got big club, me kill!"

[Art Blade]

Mmmh? Urgh? GRONF! :-D

[PZ]

I just received notification that Primal is out - yay!  .... not

[Art Blade]

it's out now? I think that's what they call prime time.

[OWGKID]

On the consoles, it is out. PC version will come on March 1st.

[Art Blade]

so, primal on consoles, second on PC.

[Binnatics]

Let's get off topic a bit; ever heard of the band Primal Scream?

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[Binnatics]

Oh man, they are better than I thought...

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    !!!! This is one of the songs on Radio X in GTA San Andreas :-D

[JRD]

Great songs Binn... brought back my teenage self.  :-X 8) >:D

[fragger]

Far Cry Primal is actually getting pretty good reviews (although I generally take reviews with a small rock of salt). The general agreed-upon downsides seem to be that the game is a lot of fun for a while but then starts to get repetitive, and that there is little in the way of characterization - no memorable arch-villains like Vaas or Pagan. Also, it's still "very much a Far Cry game" - make of that what you will. No doubt the usual minimap and map functionality, hunting and crafting, liberating outposts, doing side quests, and getting pounced on by various wild animals. I'm willing to bet that last one will happen a lot in this game. Until you learn to tame animals, you can probably expect to become a chew-toy for proto-wolves, a scratching-post for sabre-tooths and a frisbee for mammoths. Apparently you can ward them off with a flaming club or spear if you have the skill, but it still sounds like it will be a case of "someone give me a Buzzsaw for gawd's sake" for me.

Biggest plusses appear to be that the innovation of animal taming is well-handled (which you initially learn by rescuing a shaman and subsequently undergoing the now obligatory drug-induced vision trip, but to me it sounds like just another thing that could quickly get old), the quality of the graphics and the way the landscape is presented. The combat model also got a lot of thumbs-up, despite its inherently primitive nature. There are no vehicles of course, although you can learn to ride a variety of large animals like mammoths, bears and sabre-tooth cats, which you can also order to attack enemies on their own. You have your clubs and spears and arrows which can all be upgraded and many can have fire applied to them, and there is even a species of prehistoric hand grenade (a bag full of stinging wasps) and some kind of loco-bomb (a thrown wad of noxious muck that will somehow induce your enemies to attack one another) but of course no firearms. You don't have a camera to tag enemies with, but you can fly your pet owl around to perform this function, and you can also make him attack from the air once you have acquired the appropriate skill (this time you get to direct the business end of the bird >:D)

Your overall objective is to reunite your fragmented tribe in the face of stiff resistance form two other hostile tribes. You have settlements which grow as you rescue more of your people (as well as a few other key characters, who teach you other stuff) which will attract other scattered members of your tribe to return. As you settlement grows, you will benefit from additional supplies, skills and options which become available with increasing tribe numbers (I think I've got that right - something along those lines anyway). Ultimately you'll have to face off against the leaders of the opposing tribes in some kind of boss battle with them, and from what I can gather, victory will be fairly dependent on how good a beast-master you've become in the meantime.

I might have a go at it one day as some aspects of it do sound interesting - maybe when it hits the bargain bins. Doesn't sound like the sort of thing I'd want to spend a big dollop of dough on though.

I can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet that Ubisoft will employ its usual practice of barring you from half the map until you reach the required point in the story. They've done that with every Far Cry title after the original (which wasn't open-world) so I don't see any reason to believe they've abandoned that silly, outdated practice.

[PZ]

The only thing that gives me any hope that Primal is any good is the recent AC release, which is a breath of fresh air for me. I still do not like the bows and arrows primitive period, and the fact that Ubi follows the same game plan of "map reveal" I must admit has me angered me a bit against this title (and any Ubi game). I have not played AC Syndicate  enough to make a determination about the map reveal thing but so far it is encouraging.  I guess I will wait and see because there are so many games that I have on my list that this title is not on it ... yet

[Binnatics]

Sometimes it seems you play the games more in your head than in actual gameplay :-D

[PZ]

 :-() You're correct, BinnZ

I would love to play more, but life gets in the way

[Art Blade]

soon, PZ, soon..  :-()

[PZ]

 ^-^ :-X

[OWGKID]

TotalBiscuit got an early look at Primal. He isn't impressed by this game  ::)

[PZ]

I think he said it best: "the game is all about hunting, and gathering for crafting - pointless busy w@&k"

[Art Blade]

 :-X

[fragger]

"Day 1 patch". Surprise surprise, who would have thought?

Entertaining enough review from TB, to an extent. I didn't watch all of it as I actually started to get a bit annoyed. I'll elaborate, but let's just say that I don't particularly care what TB says.

For starters, I didn't agree with his comments about the game's period setting being used as an excuse for a lack of weapons. Well, hello, it's called primal for a reason - the game is set in 10,000 BC. What other weapons could there possibly be apart from clubs, spears and arrows? As it is, what weapons there are can be upgraded, and even that's a bit of a stretch. I thought that bit of criticism was harsh on TB's part. If you don't want to fight like a caveman, stay in the modern era and play a gun game.

TB's reviews can be fun, but there are times when I think he's a bit full of himself - like when he says things like "My opinion on (this or that) should be abundantly clear by now". Well, I'd be sorry to tell TB that I don't sit glued to my PC with bated breath eagerly anticipating his next game review. This is only the third TB clip I've ever looked at so I wouldn't know his opinions from a bar of soap. To assume that anybody watching that clip is already completely familiar with all his opinions and pronouncements on everything smacks of arrogance, and that sort of attitude grates on me. I've said similar things online myself - but only here at OWG, where I'm connecting with a few good friends who I believe have come to know me well enough to actually be familiar with some of my opinions on some things, e.g. I feel safe in assuming that most members here would know about my love of strategy games. I wouldn't be so brash as to assume that everybody on the net is already so enamoured with me that they are all familiar with my opinions and takes on everything. TB is probably an OK guy but I feel that when he phrases his comments he should proceed from an assumption that whoever he is addressing is seeing one of his clips for the first time (because somebody probably is), and phrase his comments accordingly - not merely assume that the world looks up to him as some kind of gaming guru and is au fait with his colours.

He likes to complain a lot and he overly belabours the point. Yeah, we get it, there's a lot of hunting and gathering in the game - we don't need to hear how many different ways he can rephrase the claim. Without the needless reiterating the clip would only be about one third the length that it is. There always seems to be a great deal more complaining than applauding in his critiques (though to be fair I've only seen three, including this one). I'm finding him to be a long-winded blowhard and I think he's just a tad too keen on the sound of his own voice.

I started getting annoyed with that clip when he jumped into a river and got attacked by a crocodile, then he bitched about it and said "Alligators probably weren't even real in this time!" Firstly, I saw that CROCODILE before he even jumped into the river when he was using whatever that enhanced vision thing was, so it was a bit rude of him to lose his temper about getting attacked by it when he clearly wasn't paying enough attention (too busy bitching while blindly running around), and secondly, crocodiles are one of the most primeval forms of life on the planet (can be traced back to about 100,000,000 years) so yeah, TB, they were in fact "real in that time". He was effectively blaming the game for his own carelessness and ignorance at that point, which didn't do a lot for his credibility as a serious game reviewer in my book.

So I don't really give a stuff about what TB says. He's an amateur critic, not a "professional", if there is such a thing. I don't give self-styled critics much credence at all, be the focus of their critiquing games, music, movies, books, or anything else. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if you want to put your opinion out there in the public domain, fine, but show a little humility and at least try to balance it with some objectivity. TB did do that a couple of times, but it was grudging and it sounded like it was getting in the way of his first great passion - whinging. Maybe I'm being harsh now, but these are the impressions I get.

I'd still like to check the game out sometime, but I'm not prepared to pay top-dollar for it. I'm a bit put off by what TB said about performance issues too, dunno whether the day 1 patch did anything about that (there will no doubt be more patches to come anyway - it's Ubisoft). TB didn't say anything about whether half the map is initially off-limits (unless he mentioned it after I stopped watching) but seeing as how everything else looked to be FC-standard, I'd say it would be.

[Art Blade]

  I only read PZ's quote of TB. That was enough for me to like that line. I didn't even watch the clip because I only watched about 1.5 of his other reviews and back then he already got on my nerves. Just one of those self-inflated YT gurus.