During a prodigious, 6-hour (cumulative) weekend FC5 binge, I drank deeply from the well of unhinged, open-world rampage. Then of course, I hit the inevitable FC universe turd in the punchbowl -- the mission(s) on rails you really hate, but can't avoid. Two of them.
One in crazy-assed brother Jacob's realm, where recovering some subcretinous hick's stolen humvee so incensed brother Jacob that he sent his hunters to kidnap me back to his private shooting gallery, providing me with an opportunity to prove my mettle as a...midway shooting gallery rube. Over and overzzzzzzzzzz.
Soon tiring of this pointless and un-gratifying minigame 'mission', I esc-quit and restarted the game, in order to fast-travel anywhere but here. Three times. Fourth time, by going back to the starting point Ranger's station, I managed to give kidnappers and the minigame the slip.
Now I was in 'henbane' country, crawling with henbane-addled zombies, super-soldiers, and shape-shifting critters -- I suspect henbane is a metaphor for oxycontin (hillbilly heroin), but whatever.
So far so good, none of Jacob's squad about and I resumed my rampage apace. Yeehaw.
Capturing a henbane brewery was unfortunately (and perhaps predictably, in hindsight) OTT for sister Faith, for she then sent her best, armored-up LMG guys to hose me down with 'bliss bullets' and...wait for it...kidnap me.
And so I found myself press-ganged into a new mission, 'waking up' in captivity, dreading what tedious and degradingly repetitive chore I may be called upon to perform by Ubi's genius game designers.
So I gather. I did manage to do the escape Seed's torture camp in only about 6 tries (thankfully the script doesn't vary) then resumed hiking about and killing. Slowly working my way up the points ladder towards the third holster, but managing to hold my own with the suppressed sniper rifle, and the dirty harry six (a decent shotgun substitute on animals, zombies and VIPs, but requires better aim).
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I didn't want to spoiler it, but for me the not infrequent captures, cut scenes and contrived getaways significantly breaks the flow of the game. And why, having caught you, the Seed possie doesn't just kill you is beyond any rational explanation.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked." James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
Once I got the hang of it, the kidnap-to-forced-missions weren't that bad apart from the tedious cut scenes, which are skippable. I went back to the white mountains for the shooting gallery one and managed to get through it on the 3rd try, jumped down a rabbit hole and wound up in the arms of the honky bow dudes, or whatever that crazy survivalist militia call themselves. Still haven't figured out the silver bars thing but I read somewhere they can be found in safes, which I haven't tried to crack yet.
Got the F.A.N.G. center, my toughest outpost cap of all the Far Cry's. Must have taken me ten tries with variously the dog, the sniper lady, the bow lady, (who all stupidly run into the middle of the action and constantly need rescuing) and finally the guy with the ordinary assault rifle who supposedly carries extra ammo (maybe just for himself), and doesn't do stupid stuff. Well, not so much. I also swapped out the shotgun for the LMG with suppressor and optical sight, a truly awesome weapon. I think there's a mascot grizzly bear around that I can sic on people, but haven't checked him out yet. Oh yeah, Jacob sent his hunters after me again, so I fast travelled back to henbane country.
As I remember, and if it's the place I think it was, I did a lot of the spadework for that level from on top of a billboard or watchtower first with the sniper rifle, then with explosives.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked." James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
It looked like it would be terribly exposed to both ground fire and helicopters, and I only climbed it to see if there was some treasure up top.. To some degree it was, and I used a few medkits, but it was also an ideal platform to shoot down helicopters. Anyway I began my assaults from the tree-covered slopes on the opposite side, which worked fairly well up to a point.
The safes aren't exactly brimming with treasure though: $250 and 4 bars of silver looking very sparse in something the size of a steamer trunk -- about as much as a bear skin plus a skunk are worth, which you can collect walking up any road.
The 'black market' [skill] AP ammo OTOH is a real game-changer.
Blowed up the giant statue of Joseph, killed Faith, blowed up the drug factory, freed the sherrif in a cascade of shootin' galleries and missions-on-rails, which all felt pretty old as far as game design goes.
The open world game is brilliant, but whoever wrote the story with all the torture and sadism going on is kind of a sick fuck, no?
Ive sunk ~74-hours into this sucker, and the progress bar shows only 50% completion. 8-O
(I freely admit I am shilly-shallying around in the open world, doing loads of repetitive stuff, but that's how I play most games, and how I measure if they're any good. I also freely admit I had to let Peaches die, during a ferocious firefight against three LMG-wielding jesus christers :-(( )
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