Far Cry 5

[Bazooka]

I will pick this up eventually, finished 4 a couple of weeks  back and as good as found everything, minus all the stuff I'm not going to bother to find, which is half the game.

[Ferris]

The storyline is the usual Far Cry pap, but it's not awful or anything.

The gameplay is basically the same as 4, but that doesn't stop it being lots of silly knockabout fun.

[bgmnts]

How is it fun though? What is fun about the same regurgitated ubisoft empty open world? I don't get it

[Ferris]

How is it fun though? What is fun about the same regurgitated ubisoft empty open world? I don't get it

Get in a helicopter gunship, strafe a load of cows in a field, fly it directly at some baddies and jump out at the last minute, parachute open, grenade launcher firing at some baddies in a big car nearby, land your parachute, set your bear on anybody who is left, sprint away before those barrels explode, spy a nearby fortress and buy a new shovel launcher then sprint over there to give them the business etc etc etc.

It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't.

[Zetetic]

Except for all the gesturing towards contemporary social and political stuff that doesn't actually mean anything.

[Ferris]

Except for all the gesturing towards contemporary social and political stuff that doesn't actually mean anything.

I meant the gameplay itself. The storyline is AAA pap, but who cares? If you're playing a Far Cry game for the storyline, you're missing out

[Zetetic]

Then I wish they'd fucking scrap it, and stop spraying their bilge over things that someone could choose to say something interesting about.

That's a slightly interesting question:

Why do people building power-fantasy gun-wank games feel the need to give the vague impression of commentary or meaning?

It's not cheap - they pay for huge amounts of writing and design (most of which will be binned). What's left is usually at odds with any of the gameplay. Then they spend a fair bit of PR time denying that any of it is meant to mean anything.

[Ferris]

No idea.

[Brundle-Fly]

And who cares? Discussing the plots or social commentaries to Far Cry games is like analysing Motörhead lyrics.

I also think this why to me, most superhero movies became tedious when they took themselves too seriously.

[Brundle-Fly]

Get in a helicopter gunship, strafe a load of cows in a field, fly it directly at some baddies and jump out at the last minute, parachute open, grenade launcher firing at some baddies in a big car nearby, land your parachute, set your bear on anybody who is left, sprint away before those barrels explode, spy a nearby fortress and buy a new shovel launcher then sprint over there to give them the business etc etc etc.

It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't.

Exactly. Surely, we could reduce all types of games to a repetitive experience?

[Zetetic]

If variations on Motörhead's output accounted for something like 80% of the shit that cunts were listening to every year, I might be more interested in their lyrics and the process that produced them.

"This game is vapid pointless shite!" "Who cares? It's vapid pointless shite." ?!

(Although that's a generous description.)

[Brundle-Fly]

But ultimately it is a game. A game designed for young people. It's not Tolstoy.

[Zetetic]

I responded to a claim that "it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't".

It purports to be about something. It has a plot, it has a setting. Both at great expense. Both try to sell some sort of themes. Both try to gesture towards recognisable issues in the here and now. The plot is largely at odds with the gameplay and the experience (nicely described above) of a power fantasy.

Why? And why like this? What is the imagery of militias and evangelical Christianity for? Why is it used in such a weird cowardly way? (The answer to the last of these is miserable, if straightforward. But that just makes the previous questions even harder to answer.)

I would be less interested if Ubisoft's output was less visible (not forgetting vaguely similar work like CODBLOPS). Instead, it forms a massive proportion of most people's experience of computer games - just as WWII-settings did a decade or two ago.

The WWII setting isn't hard to understand, of course. It's about providing a readily accessible context for gameplay that's entirely about the player using violence for good, with a reasonable degree of challenge.

Moving away from that, for novelty if nothing else, we've ended up ... fighting not-really-Christian, not-really-white-seperatist militias that are meant to look like both those things (but with drugs instead of history and motivation) and actually it turns out they're sort of in the right or something. What?

I don't think only Tolstoy is worthy of understanding. A lot more "young people" will have played Far Cry 5 than read any Tolstoy. You're going to be appalled when you see some of the other sub-forums here - Tolstoy barely gets a mention in Comedy Chat.

[The Boston Crab]

Brudners,


I get your point but it's not one thing or the other. A game can be designed for young people and have a sincere message. The issue with FC and plenty similar is that they want the attention of 'addressing' serious contemporary themes but they disingenuously shrug and say 'I dunno what you mean' when pressed on what their actual stance is. I'd say that's because they actually don't want to say anything for fear of alienating anyone who might buy their stuff.


For people who see FC5 as exaggerated satire of alt-right nutters, it still works because you can join the gaps as you like. For right-wing folk, it works because it's just a psychotic playground of death. That kind of having your cake business is morally and intellectually bankrupt.

That said, they are fun, mindless psychotic sandboxes no matter your politics.

[Zetetic]

I don't think it's even just wanting "attention". But perhaps I'm being too generous.

I don't think it really does work as a satire of "alt-right nutters". You can't join the dots, because a fair amount of effort has been made to erase the relevant dots.

[The Boston Crab]

It doesn't work as a satire at all, I agree, but for people who want to see it that way, they can fill in the blanks to make it whatever fits their perspective.

I also agree that they've been careful about not having any dots to close the together to be open to substantiated criticism from that crowd.

Not sure what you mean by your first sentence, though. Can you expand a little, please?

[Brundle-Fly]

I responded to a claim that "it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't".

It purports to be about something. It has a plot, it has a setting. Both at great expense. Both try to sell some sort of themes. Both try to gesture towards recognisable issues in the here and now. The plot is largely at odds with the gameplay and the experience (nicely described above) of a power fantasy.

Why? And why like this? What is the imagery of militias and evangelical Christianity for? Why is it used in such a weird cowardly way? (The answer to the last of these is miserable, if straightforward. But that just makes the previous questions even harder to answer.)

I would be less interested if Ubisoft's output was less visible (not forgetting vaguely similar work like CODBLOPS). Instead, it forms a massive proportion of most people's experience of computer games - just as WWII-settings did a decade or two ago.

The WWII setting isn't hard to understand, of course. It's about providing a readily accessible context for gameplay that's entirely about the player using violence for good, with a reasonable degree of challenge.

Moving away from that, for novelty if nothing else, we've ended up ... fighting not-really-Christian, not-really-white-seperatist militias that are meant to look like both those things (but with drugs instead of history and motivation) and actually it turns out they're sort of in the right or something. What?

I don't think only Tolstoy is worthy of understanding. A lot more "young people" will have played Far Cry 5 than read any Tolstoy. You're going to be appalled when you see some of the other sub-forums here - Tolstoy barely gets a mention in Comedy Chat.

Fair enough. I'm only a casual gamer in his early fifties who has never played 'live' so really should keep my trap shut. I'm probably doing the CC equivalent of the hoary old " but comedy is subjective" cliche on this thread. Soz.

[Brundle-Fly]

Brudners,


I get your point but it's not one thing or the other. A game can be designed for young people and have a sincere message. The issue with FC and plenty similar is that they want the attention of 'addressing' serious contemporary themes but they disingenuously shrug and say 'I dunno what you mean' when pressed on what their actual stance is. I'd say that's because they actually don't want to say anything for fear of alienating anyone who might buy their stuff.


For people who see FC5 as exaggerated satire of alt-right nutters, it still works because you can join the gaps as you like. For right-wing folk, it works because it's just a psychotic playground of death. That kind of having your cake business is morally and intellectually bankrupt.

That said, they are fun, mindless psychotic sandboxes no matter your politics.

I'm the latter. A terribly srong storyline and character development aren't that important to me but I wouldn't want to lose them. I teared up with that last Tomb Raider ending.

[Ferris]

Exactly. Surely, we could reduce all types of games to a repetitive experience?

It's not like a po-faced Metal Gear Solid title, which lets you have only the tiniest amounts of fun, rationed out very occasionally only if you have been a Good Boy and played the game it was meant to be played.

@Zetetic - I didn't mean to cause you all this agro, I did genuinely mean the gameplay is straightforward and fun, without any pretence of being a great work of art. I quite like that about it.

And honestly (and I'm not saying this to be glib), but on a replay I haven't picked up any attempts at moralizing at all. Now! That might be because I've played it and know the plot so I'm not paying attention (which is probably true), and as you correctly point out I think the story is pap so I'm not looking for any deeper meaning, and I'm only playing for 45 minutes at a time in between looking after my son and going to work so I don't have enough time to get immersed in the deeper meaning (if it's there at all). But all of that said, I don't think it's heavy handed with the "watch out for the alt right libertarians!" message.

Each to their own, of course. It definitely doesn't get in the way of enjoying the game for what it is, in my opinion. Other opinions are available.

[The Boston Crab]

Stupidest take on Metal Gear Solid I've ever read, because those games are the exact opposite of po-faced and incredibly deep and open with how you can approach them with so many ideas you won't even find the vast majority, compared to FC which is about four basic ideas stretched across the entire series. Completely superficial reactive shit and almost no way to interact with anything in the game outside of killing it. Idiotic comment.

[Ferris]

Never played a metal gear game. They looked dull so never bothered. Making this shit up as I go along.

[The Boston Crab]

I have a lot of respect for that approach.

If you never played one, I'd recommend The Phantom Pain for an absolute masterpiece of reactive, adaptable open world gameplay. Systems overlapping with systems and so much creative opportunity, the Far Cry games would shit themselves if they were 1% as complex.


It's current gen, always cheap nowadays, multi format and the story is largely secondary to the gameplay for various reasons. If you're intrigued by it, you can always try the others but it's a pure mechanical marvel.


The stories and character stuff in the series and the inventiveness of Kojima and layers and layers of meta goofing off are like nothing else full stop. It's not necessarily all good but his is a unique voice.

[Zetetic]

And TPP manages to play around with a bunch of ideas without saying grossly stupid or unpleasant, even when being mostly quite silly. when it does come across as either of those, you can be fairly surely it's a fair representation of Kojima's view of the world, rather than accidentally saying something through trying so hard not to.

[Ferris]

Fair enough, might give it a whirl but I have such a backlog of games to get through (that I've bought because they looked good and never played because I'm a twat) and very limited gaming time so I won't be on the MGS train any time soon.

[Zetetic]

And honestly (and I'm not saying this to be glib), but on a replay I haven't picked up any attempts at moralizing at all.

Which is a bit odd that the game is about you murdering a bunch of vaguely realistic people to death in vaguely real place (with a bunch touches designed to create a sense of being there).

The people you're murdering come with a bunch of symbols and context that links them to far-right militias and evangelical Christianity.

But, ah, actually they're not really Christians! And some of them are black!

And the people you're on the side of are all into a individualist gun-wanking vision of America.

And then at the end you're, broadly told off for interfering with the cult.

Is this the absence of moralising? Or is it just extremely confused? The cult lot are meant to be baddies for the purposes of murdering them after all.

All of which would be hard to care about if 1) it wasn't so popular and 2) it didn't start from the point of trying to attach itself to actual violence and politics.

(No aggro, I should say. I'm ... exercised by these things not upset by discussing them.)

[Zetetic]

Not sure what you mean by your first sentence, though. Can you expand a little, please?

At least part of me doesn't want to believe that this starts from Marketing trying to work out what will get a few more articles over the course of the release period.

Part of me thinks that someone somewhere felt that the game had to be about something, and you had to tell a story with some sort of view on that, if only so you could hang a range of gameplay together in a vaguely purposeful satisfying way. (Or else you go the other way and bin narrative almost altogether. But FC5 absolutely doesn't do that.)

[Ferris]

Which is a bit odd that the game is about you murdering a bunch of vaguely realistic people to death in vaguely real place (with a bunch touches designed to create a sense of being there).

The people you're murdering come with a bunch of symbols and context that links them to far-right militias and evangelical Christianity.

But, ah, actually they're not really Christians! And some of them are black!

And the people you're on the side of are all into a individualist gun-wanking vision of America.

And then at the end you're, broadly told off for interfering with the cult.

Is this the absence of moralising? Or is it just extremely confused? The cult lot are meant to be baddies for the purposes of murdering them after all.

All of which would be hard to care about if 1) it wasn't so popular and 2) it didn't start from the point of trying to attach itself to actual violence and politics.

(No aggro, I should say. I'm ... exercised by these things not upset by discussing them.)

I agree with all of this - it wants to have its cake and eat it "ooh we're being critical of this but actually not really". It feels like lot of the game assets were created with the idea of a much more full-throated satirical edge which was pulled back at the last minute. My point was that these things don't interfere with the gameplay at all.

I'm liberating a barn by driving a pilfered tractor through some hay bales and into the front doors at very high speed. It doesn't matter if it's a barn owned by Pagan Min's pseudo-Nepalese militia, or these cult loonies, or if it's a centrist party farmyard picnic that's taken a turn for the worse. It doesn't impact my motivation for doing it - it's just fun. I understand your hesitation around realistic violence melded with politics, but to be honest that's every FPS out there these days. Lest we forget, Call of Duty has story mode with ham-fisted politics stuffed into it and I think that's a much worse offender, to name the first one I could think of.

Ultimately, I guess it doesn't bother me. And even if it was completely aimed at wholly satirizing alt-right religious nutters, then so what? That wouldn't bother me either. I'd respect it more for having the minerals to stick to its guns (ha!), and I'd probably agree with its criticisms, depending on how they were made. I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that I grew up playing video games, so when I'm playing a game that I'm not bothered about, I don't pay attention to some the chuntering of NPCs during mission setups - I just think "fetch-quest, ugh, fine I'll go and get the maguffin and bring it back to you".

I fully accept it is potentially my own fault for not picking up on any dodgy themes because I just don't bother looking for them if I think the game will be a load of pap. I paid more attention to what the NPCs had to say in my latest playthrough of Pokémon LeafGreen on my GBA emulator than whatever the side characters in FC5 are banging on about.

And I'm glad I'm not pissing you off - I was worried I was coming across as winding you up for no reason which wasn't my intention at all.*

_{*maybe a bit with TBC because I knew he couldn't let a dig at MGS go, but rest assured even that was done in good humour.}

[Zetetic]

And even if it was completely aimed at wholly satirizing alt-right religious nutters, then so what?

Then it might be far less offensively stupid for a start. (As you say, you might respect it more.)

Call of Duty has story mode with ham-fisted politics stuffed into it

Ah, but one can't criticise that either, of course. (Noting I mentioned CODBLOPS above.)

It doesn't impact my motivation for doing it - it's just fun.

Can you imagine gameplay-dressing that might interfere with your motivation?

[bgmnts]

The point is, gameplay wise, they are EXACTLY the same. So the setting and characters and all that shite is quite important isn't it? If you're easily bored by doing the same thing over and over again, you need something to get invested in.

[maett]

I just ended up joining the cult and spend most of my time off my face with Faith. Life is sweet. He is coming.