Recent reviews by acdcdave1387

Terrific expansion.

Pros: The levels are complex enough that it's arguably as long as the main game.
Same great level design with challenging gameplay that doesn't feel too hard or too easy at whatever difficulty level you prefer. And don't feel too guilty using a guide to help you keep from getting lost. Just don't read too far ahead to avoid spoilers. A lot of the switches and such don't tell you what they're opening so you can waste hours just running around trying to figure out what changed. I learned that the hard way in the main game so for the expansion, I used a guide the whole way through. Like I said, don't read too far ahead and you'll still be challenged and find yourself getting killed by traps like I did.

Cons: Nothing is really new. It is just more levels of the same stuff. Same baddies. Same character classes and weapons. That isn't necessarily a bad thing since it was already a good game to begin with. Just would've been nice to have at least something be different about it. Pretty cool that there's only 1 con and it's basically complaining about adding more of a good thing to a good game hehe.

Overall - I shan't forget to remind you to use GZDoom to run this instead of trying to play the game the regular way. It is so much smoother with GZDoom. Also, you can install mods. I used an AI upscaled texture mod for this that I got on the Nexus so it looks a bit better.

Cute game. Casual enough to just relax and make pizzas while you watch a show or something.
A downside is that some of the pizzas people (or sometimes animals) order are very odd. It can be a bit immersion breaking though the game is clearly not going for immersion here.

Pros: as with all of the entries into this series, the world and map design is spectacular. The level designers deserve props because the atmosphere and detail is top notch.
The sound effects! Oh my, the glorious sound effects. They finally got it right. The first two games had horrific weapon sounds in particular but this game has some of the better sound effects out there. A+
The human AI is quite nice and fights against them have the potential to be fun.
You can finally adjust the FOV in game.
Anna.

Cons: much like the other games, they want it to feel like a survival experience so you never seem to have enough ammo. You can barely carry any ammo at all yet the enemies all seem to have infinite ammo. This is annoying and unbalanced in my opinion.
There is a crafting system like all modern games seem to have and I'm not well versed in it to provide much of an opinion. But I think modifying weapons out in the field is a bit silly to a degree.
The character movement is still too dang slow and fighting against monsters is annoying as a result.
The performance is ok for the most part. I didn't have framerate issues at all but there is a tiny little micro-stutter that I notice mostly in the animations. It isn't as bad as in the previous titles so I wouldn't call it game-breaking but it is definitely annoying.

Overall:
The story seems to carry over from the previous titles and that is a problem for me since I didn't like the two previous titles at all. I will likely not finish this game right now. I think maybe one day I will watch some playthroughs of the first two or read a detailed synopsis of what all happened so that I can try this one again. It seems like a decent game. Nothing special but not a bad time. Worth checking out if it seems like it interests you.

Pros: the world design is fantastic and the whole atmosphere is well crafted. Props to the level designers.
The combat against the human enemies is quite nice actually. One of the better AI experiences you'll have in a shooter.

Cons: the character models seem off to me. All of them have really bugged out eyes.
Sound effects, much like the first game, are very bad. The guns sound like toys and that is a huge turn off.
The character movement is far too slow so fights against monsters are incredibly annoying.
Your character can't carry much ammo at all. This makes fights with humans very annoying because it always seems like you have barely any ammo and the enemies have infinite ammo. I get that they want it to feel like a survival experience but it should still balance out to where enemies have to watch out for their ammo as well,
geez.
EDIT: forgot to mention this con. The performance is fine in terms of FPS as I had a solid 60fps at all times. However, there is a very annoying micro-stutter issue. It isn't consistent but mostly affects the animations and I see it sometimes when turning horizontally.

Overall, much like the first game, I tried it multiple times and just can't get hooked into it at all.

I couldn't get into this game. I even got the Redux version and tried it twice over the span of a few years. The sound effects are important to me in a game and this game has terrible sounds. The weapons sound like toys and the FOV is very narrow and non-adjustable. I think you can adjust it outside the game though but that isn't enough to make me want to play it.
I wrote more details into my review of the redux version but in the end, I just can't recommend this as a shooter worth playing.

I'm very surprised and disappointed with this title. I've played every single Far Cry title to date and this is one of the few I disliked.

Pros: as usual, Ubisoft does a great job of crafting a giant, beautiful environment that feels alive. The performance is fantastic. Using a 3090ti, i9-12900k, 32GBs of DDR5-5200 and a 4th gen NVMe, I was able to fully max out the settings at 3440x1440 with FSR at max quality as well and it ran as smooth as possible. Very impressed with how this engine has progressed over the years.
The voice acting is top notch as well, Ubisoft is good about that (Bethesda, you need to learn from these people how to hire voice actors).
Honestly, that's about it. The overall mechanics are ok since it's basically the same ole stuff since Far Cry 2 or 3 but they went wild and added too much extra stuff in. More on that below.

Meh: Sound effects are not bad but not great. I can't place them in either the pros or cons category. Sound effects are very important to me.

Cons: it doesn't feel like a Far Cry game. Even if I pretend it isn't a Far Cry game, I just can't seem to enjoy it.
You get this massive rocket launcher you wear on your back...yet holstering your weapon and walking around doesn't come off as suspicious. The bad guys are always at a disadvantage since you can walk around to an ideal side and then kill them before they know what's up. And the rockets home in on them? Killing people causes the rockets to somehow magically respawn? It's laughably absurd. If this was a Blood Dragon sequel, I would understand but this is supposed to be a serious title and it doesn't feel serious at all.
The shooting mechanics are all messed up. You can shoot people multiple times in the face and they often survive. There are tons of craftable weapon mods that look like home made pieces of junk and extremely silly or immersion breaking. Remember the cat on the rifle as a cat suppressor in Postal 2? It isn't far off from that.
The story isn't all that compelling either. The main character doesn't feel like they even want vengeance. There should be a passionate reason to want to continue the fight and there is none.
You are supposed to be part of this super secret and "hidden" resistance group but the pathways to their hideout are absolutely covered in bright blue paint. There are markings out in the open pointing directly to where the rebel leader is and yet the bad guys don't see all of it? Come on man.

Super cheesy and not very fun with all the goofy 'experiments.'

As a story it is a bit cheesy. I still enjoyed the missions though. If you like crafting/customizing as well as having a follower then this will tickle your fancy. Personally, I don't bring followers with me anymore so I didn't mess around with the robot build stuff much.

This actually works perfectly fine if you:
A - have plenty of VRAM
B - utilize some of the top performance and bug fix mods
I put 83.5 hours into the game before I beat it and literally never had a single crash.

Why is it so poorly rated then?
There are equal or arguably higher quality texture mods out there that are significantly smaller in size.
Personally, I used this official pack first to test it out and when I realized it looked fine and wasn't giving me any trouble I just stuck with it. The mod alternatives are still big enough that downloading from some mod sites would be a huge pain so I had no issue with using this official pack.

I won't definitively say that this is better or worse than mod alternatives, it all comes down to personal preference in the end.

Pros:
Heavily improved base game features and tools over the previous entry in the series. The road tools in particular as well as the landscaping are so easy to use.
The way city services operate now is significantly better. The last game had so many issues with services. I got tired of the constant water pipes and managing temporary power lines. All that stuff is in the roads now. You no longer need to build like 10,000 schools and things like that.
Much larger map sizes with the ability to build really beautiful cities that have small towns on the outskirts here and there. You could also just build a series of small towns. Such a cool experience.
The video options are the opposite of the last game...the last game had hardly any options to tweak. This one has tons more to tweak. While some bugs are present at launch, certain options can be disabled (like that awful fog) to greatly improve the FPS as well as the visuals.
While the game launched with some optimization issues, that sort of thing is expected to some extent. This is a very small dev team and they produced one heck of an advanced simulation. The future potential is through the roof.
Impending mod support looks great and the editor they revealed recently looks improved as well.
Before the game launched, numerous folks, including the devs themselves, created guides explaining the video settings. I haven't had any FPS issues after adjusting things based on those. Just read through some guides and find out which settings are holding you back.
Speaking of the devs, they have been extremely transparent and forthcoming with information and communicating with the player base. I highly respect this since most devs don't care nearly as much.
Also, while so many people trash talk modern games increasing in price, this one launched at $50 for the base game.
Also, the unlock all and infinite money cheats are present like in the last game. I like this sort of thing when I have finished the tutorial so that I can really design my city the way I want.

Cons:
Please direct the majority of frustration surrounding the game releasing in an arguably 'unfinished' state at the PUBLISHERS. The devs don't choose when the game comes out so please stop trashing them. And yes...the game could have spent some more time in the oven but since it is working for me I can't complain.
There are still some optimizations and such that need to be handled eventually. When zooming in, textures set to high will mysteriously fade into a blurry mess sometimes. It happens at random so I can't tell what is causing it.
Also, there are evidently import/export supply issues which is a bummer. I haven't seen it personally, since this sort of thing happens in the background but the devs already reported they are researching it. I'm too busy focusing on road structure and growing my city :)
Maybe it is just me but in this game it is SO MUCH HARDER to make money. The first 3 hours I was in the negative the entire time.