This is probably the game that caused one of the biggest “OOOH” moments on this year’s E3 stage; but before we talk about that goodness let me tell you about one of the scariest experiences I had as a gamer in recent history.
I was swimming through a swampy marsh, as I approach the other end of it a man can be seen fishing. I nonchalantly decide to swim out of the marsh near this man, as I’m about to take my first step on land I hear chomp and splash of water that nearly rock me out of my seat and gaming headset. I quickly relate the sound to what is about to happen which I believed was a QTE where I attempt to get out of an alligators grasp. But this does not happen, I’m in my seat thinking “is this a glitch? Where’s the alligator? I was kind of looking forward to skinning it”. It took a second for me to become aware of my surroundings, and see what had happened. The fishermen was no longer there and I look in the marsh and can see a pool of blood forming. As soon as I realized what happened I invite all my friends to a party to tell them again how awesome Far Cry 3 is and why. This singular moment made me want to continue playing the game, through to the end and upon completing it I was roaming the island like a risk taking adrenaline junky paragliding through outpost’s and releasing tigers on my enemies.
But before we get to the amazing moment that produced that “OOH” reaction I was talking about lets go through the beginning of this fantastic new piece of gameplay for what is sure to be another great installment in the far cry franchise, as well as genre defining for modern-day first person exploration games.
The main character starts out at the top of a mountain overlooking the horizon, you can see a large bird take flight across sunlit cliffs, let’s just say this game looks amazing. It cuts to a tittle screen, then back to the main character who has now approached a small back pack and grapple, which the player presses a button to pick up. The backpack is actually a wing suit, the player proceeds to pick up the items and grapple from the edge of the cliff to another path across a giant gap. This is already adding up to be a highly exciting gameplay video.
Then he proceeds to grapple upwards, to a dry forest like area, with some enemies. He sneaks around most shooting only one who has seemed to stray from the rest of the group. He walks up too an overlooking building, with a gasoline tank on it. The player puts a C4 on it and kicks it down, presumably dispersing of a large group of enemies.
*skip forward a bit*
The player then jumps into a tiny car and sets off down a narrow path, where he encounters a second group of enemies, in a big truck the player shoots out its back tires and the van flies off the cliff as it accelerates to try and put some distance between itself and ”Rambo” in the tiny car behind it. There is a large convoy vehicle a bit further that the player pulls up beside and jumps on to the passenger side window, pulling the passenger out of the vehicle, right before sticking a knife in the neck of the driver.
*Skip forward a bit more*
The player has invited a friend to help them take out a fortress. While both players are raining hell on the fortress with gunfire, an elephant has gone crazy with all the commotion going on around it. It is stampeding across the fortress mostly as distraction for the fortress inhabitants. The trailer ends with a stride from the elephant flipping over a car and liberating the fortress and displaying the words “Every Second Is a Story”. Which is exactly how I would sum up that trailer and hopefully all of Far Cry 4.
This moment of the elephant flipping over a truck is when you heard the audience in my viewing go absolutely bonkers. I myself could hardly stay in my seat as my jaw hit the floor. All the things I loved about Far Cry 3 can still be seen in tact in Far Cry 4, and if not more. When this game releases I expect myself to be zipping through the island with a friend, liberating outposts and hunting sharks.
Sony also revealed that friends are not going to need a copy of Far Cry 4 to be able to play with you in co-op. This is the first major push for game sharing in a Triple A title on current and next gen systems. You won’t have to wait too long to get your hands on what is sure to be one of the best games of 2014.
Far Cry 4 comes out on November 18th, on Xbox One, PS4, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360
By: John Almanzar