Far Cry Primal: Review

Hello fellow gamers, today i will be reviewing Ubisoft's Far Cry Primal. One of the great things games can do is give us a glimpse of a different world. It might not be authentic, lifelike, realistic or remotely believable. It might be a fantasy, dream or nightmare. What matters is that it feels – if only for a few hours – convincing, and that it takes you out of your mundane life.

Very much a 'take the previous template and make it feel primal' approach, Ubisoft's latest imagining on the Far Cry franchise is a smart piece of work. The atmosphere and scope in particular are highlights, making you feel as if you have traveled back to the past where tribes, woolly mammoths and Sabre toothed tigers roamed the Earth. There are no guns. There's no radio conversations. There's no pretty much everything you might expect in today's world!

Such a decision has shunted Far Cry into somewhat new territory, too. With an emphasis on what tools were around at the time, crafting and building feels essential from start to finish. Whether that's sculpting a new arrow for your bow, or smashing together a new club to whack someone in the face with, collecting resources is as important as doing missions.

 The same can be said for Primal's settlement system. Serving as the game's point of progression, focusing on these RPG-like trees and increasing the population continually offers more rewards. These could be your standard level-up boosts – more health, better speed etc. – but it also ties into what animals you can tame, what extras are available to you and, quite nicely, how many resources you have flowing in your direction – every time night turns to day you'll be given a 'reward stash'. The bigger your miniature home, the more benefits you'll get.

Such evolution is nothing new to the Far Cry games, mind. It's certainly dressed up in different clothes this time – as well as having an addictive nature – but the familiar tentpoles are all there. Nowhere is this more apparent than Primal's mission structure. All set within a map so big it'll make you sick, the majority of the time you'll be hunting animals, recruiting important members of your tribe, or flat out killing your main rivals, the Udam. Certain missions play with the formula a tad (and as you'd expect it's littered with side quests), but a certain routine does set in relatively early.

There's nothing wrong with 'do mission, return home, level up, do another mission', but if you've sunk a lot of time into past Far Cry titles there's a slight chance it may all start to ring a few bells sooner than you'd like. There's only so long you can go looking for a deer to skin until before getting the itch to do something else. When it's good, however, it is entertaining and presented pretty damn well, the visual side of things being an absolute treat.

Whether or not it's better looking than Far Cry 4 is arguable, but from the off Primal is an example of why the current generation is impressive. Be it the sheer size of the thing or how pleasant it is to find a high spot and just stare off into the distance, Ubisoft's engine remains an absolute monster. It's a huge plus, mostly because it turns simply walking around the environment into a joyful experience. And then there's the bow and arrow.

 While sharing many traits with the one from 4, having to rely on it so much this time (mostly because there's not an MP5 in sight) forces you to get the hang of it. Once you do, it's a delight. Plunging an arrow into someone's skull is easily as satisfying as a sniped head-shot, and stacking these together sees it become better still. The same is true for the spear, making the slight dip when you engage in melee combat a little disappointing. It's certainly not bad, but up close attacks often spiral into button spamming with no real sense that you're trying to smash someone's face in. You're just swinging wildly.

Thankfully there are ways and means to avoid this, namely the ability to tame animals. Far Cry Primal holds nothing back in this regard either: if you want to have a bear as your partner in crime, you can go and get a bear to be your partner in crime. What's more, you can extended your finger, whistle, and the monster will go rip apart your prey. Acting as a party of sorts, it's a constant as you progress, coming into its own when larger beasts become accessible. Much like nearly everything in-game, this can also be ranked up. Before you see the end credits, you'll essentially be a walking disaster.

Far Cry Primal is a very fun video game (which sounds like a sentence a child would write), but it is a video game you've played before. Think how much a new setting means to you – and how much you enjoy Ubisoft's take on the open world genre – and the answer to whether you need this should be very clear. If you're still on the fence, you can ride around on the back of a woolly mammoth should you choose. That's alright...

Rocket League: Review

Hello again fellow gamers, hope you enjoyed my first blog and now I will be moving onto “Rocket League”. The concept is as silly as it is simple: football with rocket-powered cars. But it’s the execution that really makes this multiplayer fun-fest really take off.

Whatever you think of video games as an entertainment medium, you’ve got to admit that replacing footballers with rocket-powered cars is an attractive idea. And Rocket League hits like a rocket-powered train. From the first seconds, as the engine growls under your all-powerful trigger finger, this feels not just fresh but perfectly-formed.

Teams of rocket-propelled cars face each other in an enclosed arena, where the walls can be driven up and all corners are rounded for maximum bouncability. At both ends is a large goal, and somewhere in the middle is a giant ball, around twice the height of the cars, which has what feels like its own low-gravity rules: it hangs in the air, moves begrudgingly after taps, and even when whacked will rarely outpace a rocket engine.

Then each team tries to score more goals than the other. The dynamics of hitting a ball with a small rocket-propelled vehicle obviously differ from those of the foot, but the same principles apply – anyone who’s ever played five-a-side will instantly be at home with the key role of ricochets, knocking the ball into walls for clever bounces or smashing it at angles for surprise shots. Even if hitting the thing head-on can be a little tricky at first.

One of the things that make “Rocket League” really special is the depth of the controls, and the learning curve you go through while getting better with them. Simple things are enormous fun. Your early games will be full of flailing vehicles and mosh pits but it still feels great, and pulling off more complex moves feels even better. You soon learn the delicious kinks in acceleration, how long you can hang a jump in the air, and when to go all-in or back off. Soon you’re “flipping” the car to overtake parallel rivals, riding up walls to nose a ball ahead of the jumping mass, even hitting the juice mid-jump and taking to the skies.

The titular rocket engine is a double-edged sword, capable of blasting a car across the pitch to a loose ball (sometimes right through an unfortunate opponent) but just as easily leaving you hopelessly stranded after a misjudgment. The combination of such blistering precision with the ball’s lazier, grounded momentum is irresistible.

It’s so good, in fact, that Rocket League can put the game front-and-centre. It doesn’t waste time with extraneous modes or gimmicky rule sets, but focuses everything on rocket car football with varying team sizes and the same simple rules. The austere, one-on-one duels teach you the skills, but it’s in the 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 playlists that Rocket League takes off, serving up match after match of player-authored brilliance: end-to-end slugfests, delicate tactical exchanges and full-blown wars all fit into quicksilver five-minute sessions.

The match length, such a boring stat it almost passes unnoticed, is what gives Rocket League seriously addictive qualities. As it’s so quick to play, a swift game of Rocket League is always tempting and, after that, you’ve already got it up and running so why not have a few more? Rocket League steals hour after hour and sometimes entire evenings in these five-minute increments, each effervescent hit just making you want more.

Rocket League’s visual style is brighter, its ball physics are that all-important touch heavier, and its matches are a slightly slower but much more substantial and chunky experience.

The difference is phenomenal. Few games can survive on one core loop repeated ad infinitum, but Rocket League is among them. What has made this game special is the extra layer of polish on an idea that was already refined, and the resistance to adding unnecessary extras: in this way, it feels like a Nintendo game. Rocket League is simply a joy to play, win or lose. And with friends? Wow. This is the most fun you’ll ever have behind the wheel of a rocket powered football playing car.

Anyways, here's what's good and bad about Rocket League.

What i love about Rocket League:

• Football with cars that can jump, flip, and have jet engines on the back
• Hilariously awkward gameplay, especially with novice players
• Rules and objectives are simple and to the point
• Controls are simple to pickup and play
• Detailed car editor

What i have mixed or no Feelings about:

• No option to change game length (one period of five minutes per match)
• Inability to change quick messages (the defaults are fine though)

What i hate:

• AI teammates often leave goals wide open for no reason or score on themselves
• Cannot search ranked and unranked matches at the same time (I don't care about my stats, I just want to PLAY!!!)
• Both camera options can be frustrating since they follow the car so close
• Matchmaking can take a painfully long amount of time
• In-game lag can be horrid

Games Similar to This:

• ATV Offroad Fury 4 (Ice Hockey mini game)

What did you think of “Rocket League”? Leave a comment below, or email me at cheshirechats@gmail.com and let me know what you think!.