Same here. Hopefully between this and AC, Ubisoft is getting the message that sameold is… sameold. This will give me time to work off some of what I like to call QTlog: Games I had no clue about that I all of a sudden really want to play thanks to this forum.
Jeff was ripping into it pretty hard on the Bombcast. Given that I still haven’t summoned up the enthusiasm to play Far Cry 4, I can’t see myself playing this. I pretty much hateplayed Far Cry 3, and that was before Ubi had milked the open-world formula dry.
It’s hard to get excited by this given the lukewarm feedback, but I love prehistoric stuff so it’s hard to pass on, and since I haven’t really spent any time with Far Cry 3/4 (although liked what I saw of 4, in particular) I don’t have the same fatigue with the formula that some people do. Tom’s description of how the game essentially duplicates modern weapons/mechanics (grenades, owl spying, etc.) instead of being a more novel use of the setting is really a turn-off though. But I’m not sure I can pass up the opportunity to hang out with mammoths and sabertooth cats, etc., so would be interested in other feedback if anyone has given it a shot.
If you just wanna hang out with cool prehistoric critters then get Ark instead. :)
/Pedantic mode full on
Prehistoric critters does not include Dinosaurs - thats about 3000 years BC and a very different time ;-)
There are no dinosaurs in Primal so its a very different setting. If Desslock is like me, havent really played 3-4, then he may get a good time out of it, like I do.
Well, the difference between Ark and Primal isn’t the setting. They’re both goofy takes on prehistoric eras. The difference is the gameplay. One is an online survival crafting game, the other is an Ubisoft open world. And to Desslock’s point, I think if you haven’t played a Far Cry since, say, Far Cry 2, you’re going to have a lot more patience for it than I did.
-Tom
I haven’t played Far Cry since FC2, but I am holding out for Far Cry Frontier! I want flint lock weapons, trapping and some good old fashioned Lewis and Clark adventuring!
I agree completely about the not playing Far Cry since the first two thing, but I have to ask if I don’t understand the word “setting”. Does that not mean the backdrop , where the gameplay takes place? As in, in this particular case, one setting is prehistoric (3000 bc), and the other is a sci fi version of Triassic Era(230 million years ago). This is not a pedantic question, but a curious one.
Edit: nevermind - I guess I can’t read after all!
I thought that FC: Primal was supposed to be set in 10,000 BC, not 3000, right? Recorded history goes back to around 4000 BC if I recall correctly, unless China’s written records go back farther than that.
Yeah, “Pre-historic” as a term is a bit vague and generally means before recorded history, which varies from region to region.
Primal does take place 10.000 BC though.
I haven’t played Far Cry since FC2, but I am holding out for Far Cry Frontier! I want flint lock weapons, trapping and some good old fashioned Lewis and Clark adventuring!
Have you tried AC 3? It’s probably 90% the same game.
Is this really a thing? I’m reading “Lord Grizzly” right now (historical fiction book about Hugh Glass, AKA “The Revenant”) and was thinking the American frontier seems like a fantastic setting for an open-world survival/PvP game. Mountain men, Indians, fur trading companies, military expeditions, buffalo, grizz, trapping… Sounds good to me (not saying I want Ubisoft involved tho)
Back OT: After reading Tom’s review my interest for Primal dropped several notches but it was fairly low to begin with.
Yeah, this sounds like half of the AC games if you can ignore the dumb modern day scenes.
Has there ever been a game where the Indians were enemies, let alone the bad guys? Unlikely to ever happen.
Betrayer, kind of. They might have been ghost indians.
In strategy games, perhaps, like Colonization and Seven Cities of Gold, IIRC. Not all Indians were hostile in early America either and in gaming YOUR side is always the good guys anyway. But you’re right, it’s still too touchy a subject even while developers/consumers are fine with postal workers and gang-bangers murdering people in cold blood (for kicks) by the dozen…
The Revenant videogame tie-in will have this.
Seriously, though, as Guildboss points out, this isn’t at all uncommon in strategy games about the time period. The Europa Universalis series and Colonization are both explicit about particular Indians, and they let you choose how to treat them. A game called Expeditions: Conquistador lets you decide how your conquistadors feel about the native populations; racist is a trait characters can have and it’s not just a debuff. Whatever the case, you fight plenty of Indians.
But, yeah, you don’t tend to fight them in shooters mainly because there aren’t many shooters set in the time period. I think the political correctness is only a secondary consideration. Alistair is right about Betrayer, but wasn’t it ultimately about the guilt of the conquistadors against the native populations (avenging ghosts and all that)? Was there an Indian level in the last Call of Juarez? I don’t recall, but I don’t think so. There might have been an Indian boss?
-Tom
Internet high five!
-Todd
I played far cry 1/2. Finished 1 but got lost/side tracked in the sand box in 2 although I still really enjoyed it. It would have really have been cool if they had done a version of 2 but placed in a Land of the Lost setting. I’d have a field day designing skill trees. You could pour dinosaur urine all over yourself as a skill unlock. Think of all the Chaka recipes that you could come up with.
Life in 10,000 B.C. wasn’t very fun. Well I guess there was zug zug? Or was that 1 Meg BC. Is Shelly Duval in this game by chance?
This is the same thing i say about Far Cry 1.