March 26, 2018
A mission to save the US from destruction by a charismatic leader flits between flamethrowing fun and graphic torture in a tonally unpredictable vision
Far Cry 5 review – cults, chaos and all-American silliness
In rural Hope County, Montana, an extreme Christian cult has been slowly eroding the power of the state. Its charismatic leader, his body inked with religious iconography and his hair pulled back in a man-bun, has amassed an armed following that feels he can do no wrong. Sent in as part of a team of US marshals to arrest Father Seed, you can feel the tension as you walk through crowds of his jeering followers and into his church; it’s as though everything is about to tip over the edge, and soon enough, it does. Before you can even get into the air with the handcuffed Seed, his followers have shot your helicopter down in flames and dragged your screaming teammates away. After a doomed car chase through the night as you try to escape the county, you’re rescued by a crotchety old survivalist, handed a gun, and told that you are now part of the resistance.
The opening is a high point for Far Cry 5. It introduces a great villain, the rather timely premise of saving forgotten America from the brink of disaster, and the kind of seat-of-your-pants action that video Games are made for. Afterwards, the sense of purpose quickly dissipates in a meandering journey to liberate the county’s three regions from gun-toting cultists, and the game soon reveals that it is very tonally confused. The story missions, centring around Seed and his siblings, are disquieting and extremely violent, with pretty graphic scenes of torture, indoctrination and religious frenzy; after a while, it gets wearing. Meanwhile, when you’re roaming free in Hope County, you’re clinking beers with hillbillies, tearing down a mountain on a quad bike accompanied by blaring hair-metal and fireworks, hunting down crazed moose or collecting ingredients for a food festival called the Testy Festy (no prizes for guessing the featured dish).

Far Cry 5 is most enjoyable when it embraces the chaos that ensues when a player is left on an island full of hostile cultists with enough guns to embarrass John McClane. Blowing up cultist shrines, liberating farms and factories from their grasp and generally making yourself a flamethrower-toting nuisance is great fun. The characters you can recruit are entertaining caricatures of small-town USA. Planes, boats and road vehicles are all easy and enjoyable to drive and blow up. It’s jarring to be wrenched away from the open world and into a confrontation with one of the Seed siblings, which sometimes happens with no warning – like being briefly kidnapped into a different game entirely.
Although beautiful – even breathtaking, especially at sunrise and from the air – rural Montana isn’t as fun to fool around in as Far Cry 3’s tropical island, or 4’s Himalayan mountains. You won’t be busting out a wingsuit and jumping off a mountain very often. This is a more militaristic interpretation of the series’ survival theme: instead of hunting bears and trying to tame the wilds, you’re constantly fighting off fanatics trying to kill or capture you. It’s also harder to sneak around with a bow, throwing knives than to run in all guns blazing, because the cult lieutenants send more and more lackeys after you until you can barely drive half a mile without being pursued by two carfuls of cultists and a fighter plane.

Co-operative multiplayer adds another unpredictable element – with two players running around, things are even more likely to go awry and devolve into continually escalating shootouts. Sometimes this chaos is enjoyable; sometimes it’s confusing and frustrating. Occasionally the game forgets where you were and what you were doing before you died and plonks you somewhere random on the map. Other glitches and confusing moments happen when the game’s systems collide; upon approaching a man weeping over the body of what looked like his dead friend, he immediately straightened up, delivered a line of dialogue about some nearby side-mission, and walked off. Radio chatter from other characters sometimes has nothing whatsoever to do with what you’re doing. Story-based missions can completely lose the plot when something unexpected happens, leaving you standing in a field miles away while the action happens elsewhere.
Far Cry 5 taps into the prevailing geopolitical sense of being right on the brink of disaster, but it stays well away from the real-world issues that clearly inspired its themes. There are numerous oblique references to Trump – one side-mission has you retrieving a certain infamous, compromising tape for a federal agent who keeps talking about golden showers – but it’s played for laughs rather than political commentary. The Eden’s Gate cultists might be extremists, but they’re emphatically not white supremacists. It comes close to trying to say something, but never actually does – and it’s far more comfortable when it’s being silly than serious, making you wish that it had committed wholeheartedly to playful satire rather than spreading its bets.
There are great individual moments in Far Cry 5. The gunplay is excellent, its unpredictable world generates daring stories of accidental heroism, and when it leans into the whole red-blooded American patriotism schtick, it’s genuinely funny. It doesn’t always fit together as well as it should, sometimes forcing the player to work around the game rather than with it – but the wildly vacillating tone is the bigger issue. It’s at once disorienting and noncommittal. Paradoxically, this is an extreme satire of modern America that says pretty much nothing about it.
Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Politic
Mary Trump 'energized' as uncle 'Donald's campaign spirals into chaos'
Mar 29, 2024
Donald Trump's campaign is in chaos, and his niece says she's energized.Mary Trump, the niece of the former president and a psychologist by trade, has previously been critical of her uncle.On Thursday, she said her uncle's failures are adding up.ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different"As the RNC’s fundraising falters and Donald’s campaign spirals into chaos, I am energized!" she said in a Substack post.She then continued:"When Donald dominates the news cycle, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. Every bad headline has a negative impact. But then I remember something crucial: There’s usually more to the story than meets the eye. I’m determined to cut through the media noise and share with you all the good that happened this week. These are the headlines we need to remain energized and hopeful that the media largely ignored."Mary Trump goes on to highlight President Joe Biden's recent fundraising hauls."President Biden’s $155 million+ war chest has just received another turbo boost, bringing the total of cash on hand to at least $180 million. (By comparison, between his campaign and the RNC, Donald barely has over $50 million — and continues to drain the accounts to cover his absolutely staggering legal expenses)," she wrote. "This is a development that could significantly increase Biden’s ability to influence the narrative in crucial swing states."This, she says, also tells us a lot about voter excitement for Biden."While critics have expressed doubts about the degree to which the Democratic base is fired up as compared to 2020, today’s $25 million fundraiser, raised with donations ranging from $250 to $500,000, should put any doubts to rest — yes, we are absolutely behind President Biden and Vice President Harris and we’re in this fight until the end," she wrote.Read the full post here.
READ MORE
Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Ruby Franke’s Husband REVEALS Alleged Rules He Had to Follow at Home | E! News
March 28, 2024
_mU-3lE2QwI
#KenanThompson speaks out following the #QuietonSet documentary. (🎥: Tamron Hall Show) #shorts
March 28, 2024
8AGP-Gfw_Ek
King Charles Shares "Great Sadness" at Missing Royal Appearance | E! News
March 28, 2024
lyizFqf1kQY
Martha Reeves Walk of Fame Ceremony
March 27, 2024
QzyezumEPtQ
Eminem, 50 Cent & Snoop Dogg Present Dr. Dre with a Star on the Walk of Fame
March 19, 2024
4bNLs1hxVp8
Opening Remarks for the Variety Summit October 20th, 2023 Jay Penske
March 18, 2024
c6Z707iLq8E
Montell Jordan Dishes On Young MC Wedding, 'This Is How Date Night' Plans | TMZ
March 28, 2024
G3SMExj-qio
Davina Potratz Says TV Not Helping 'Selling Sunset' Relationship Woes | TMZ
March 28, 2024
D4piy4GNm4k
Logan Paul Rips Graham Bensinger Over Documentary, You Promised Apple TV+ | TMZ Live
March 28, 2024
NiSDpZhZklQ
Prince William pinned royal medal to Spice Girl Mel B’s boobs #shorts
March 28, 2024
O1cQ0UW9pco
Jennifer Garner shares ‘hard’ part of raising her and Ben Affleck’s kids
March 28, 2024
3Q7mZaVUdgc
50 Cent's ex Daphne Joy named as an alleged sex worker in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs lawsuit #shorts
March 28, 2024
yhLFI8DG9rM
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
28
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
PSG W - Hacken W
28
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Barcelona W - SK Brann W
27
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Chelsea W - Ajax W
27
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Lyon W - SL Benfica W
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.