What if I told you that Ubisoft had decided to expedite the release of their Far Cry compilation? Haha! Actually, we’ve no reason to suspect that The Wild Expedition was ever intended for anyhing other than a February 21 UK release. We mustn’t allow humour to cloud the facts, in this, The News.
It’s a grudgingly great deal: all four Far Crys to date, including a prettier version of the Crytek one, for £24.99. That’s a fiver less than on the consoles.
The only bad thing about The Wild Expedition is that it sounds like a new game, and isn’t. Move beyond that, and you’ll find four ace games: The One Made By Germans, The One With Malaria, The One With That Vaas, and The One That Was Purple.
Far Cry 1 is the most intriguing prospect of the lot, by merit of its new ‘Classic’ lick of paint. We can expect real-time day and night cycles, and new vehicles for underwater and air travel (beyond the existing brief encounter with a hang glider, presumably):
There’ll also be “stunningly realistic” foliage – which is a priority, as most of the parts of the game that aren’t indoor Doom are spent squinting through greenery. I played through Far Cry 1 again recently, and found it overlong – but its best, open-air environments are still (gallingly) a cut above most of those in contemporary games about shooting people. All in all, it stands up rather well.
Ubisoft reckon that the games have collectively left an “indelible mark” on video games, which seems fair. Far Cry 3 was the best shooter of 2012, we reckoned. What do you lot think?