Got past Falls End. Couple perks. Taking out plane with machine gone was nice, not to mention blowing up the Peggie’s with it on the ground. They fly through the air with the greatest of ease. But, going back to beginning of mission when I died was annoying...

An early Perk you should buy that you wouldn't necessarily think is that great is the one where you can be airdropped at a Fast Travel point. Combined with the Wingsuit, it makes transversing the map much easier and faster (especially when you get more "wanted" and everyone takes potshots at you whenever you drive anywhere).

Well I’ve opened up fast travel points. Haven’t used yet, but got parachute and bigger magazine...

Also, this driving mechanic, does it take some time to get used to? I don’t play driving games and don’t even like driving in games I like, like Halo, but these I’ve never encountered before. And, on the game control menu states the LS is the auto drive when in vehicle, but mine never auto drives. Is that a perk that has to be unlocked later?

And, I assume bow and arrow and fishing rod come later too?

How about when you are driving in a car minding your own business and helicopters, planes and peggies can recognize you from a quarter mile away and start blasting away? How dumb is that? I get that they want to keep the action flowing but it's not organic at all. I was trying to fish earlier and people kept popping up trying to kill me. I was way off road and was on my own. Kinda weak.

Having just finished off Faith and starting Jacob's area and it got me thinking about something else bugging me. The game is divided and far too insular. This is supposed to be "family." I kill one of them, you would think one of the others would retaliate in some way. Or at the least, oh I don't know, mention it in passing. "hey asswipe, you killed my brother, now I'm gonna fuck you up," or something. But nope...I kill John and nobodby gives a fuck. Faith? Who cares, she was adopted anyway. Each area is like playing three separate campaigns. Also not very organic.

Perks are run-of-the-mill and uninspiring. Hunting and fishing are useless unless you need cash. Using hides to upgrade your satchel was perfect in FC4, why get rid of it? Upgrading weapons is too "mechanical" and kind of an afterthought. Challenges are super boring especially since it's just a list. Shoot this, kill with this weapon x times, skin that, etc. Again, not very organic. Just fishing alone could have been solved with different rods, magazines or perks based on missions. First rod can only catch small/easy fish. Perform a specific mission to unlock a new rod and tougher fishing spots. Instead it's "here's a checklist of all the fish in the game, go catch whatever." Make it more interesting by having a weight challenge. Sure you've caught lots of 10lb trouts, but catch a 15 pounder and unlock a rod or perk. Something.
It all just seems like most of what you are doing (outside of the core story) is missing context, IMO.

Far Cry 4 was immersive and everything you did in the world made sense. Your rewards matched what you were doing. Skinning animals had a purpose. It all meshed together into one fantastic experience. It almost feels like the goal of FC5 was to make it more "video-gamey" if that makes sense.

There are lots of little things "wrong" with this game. Don't get me wrong, it's still a blast, but compared to 4, it just feels 'off.'

And RichC2, how is this remotely similar to BioShock? This is mostly open world and multi-faceted, side missions galore, etc... BS is follow the arrow, find this, kill him, bactracking and linear as hell. Not complaining mind you, but similar to FC? No.

Actually, great point.. that's by far worse than the super-sniper abilities of every NPC.

FPS that drops the nameless protagonist in a totalitarian world where he slowly pieces together what has happened while slowly acquiring new skills and abilities to eventually become super-powerful.
Agreed open-world is very different than the linear play style you tend to like (Halo, Prey, Wolfenstein). Personally I prefer open-world games because if you ever get stuck you can go somewhere else and get enough money/weapons/skills/items/health that will make the difficult task easier to complete a little bit later. I find linear FPS like Doom and Wolfenstein much more frustrating because you can be stuck in a room or hallway for an hour before you get lucky and finally beat a section. Sure that happened in FC5 with a couple of forced story missions as well, but it’s far less the norm for me in this sort of game.

Yeah, the more I play this, the more I realize it may be the weakest of the last few FCs. 3 & 4 were both WAY better. This may be a bit better than 2, and FC1 was long enough ago, that I'm not going to count it.

FC1 is a completely different sort of game. FC2 is big and open but not much story driven and not so fun. The series really found its identity in the third game. Of those three, this might be third, but I'm still loving it. And I like the perks system, though I can see the other side that liked the old progression system better. The one thing I will say is that this gets you to use more weapons and vehicles and stuff while the older progression system allowed you to coast on using just your favorite things. In Primal I barely even used weapons because I was so content to level up my animal skills and have them take out all the bad guys at every outpost. This is making me mix it up more.

I also like how the entire enormous map is open to you from the beginning of the game, really letting you explore wherever you want and letting you know where any of the companions are if you want to go get them right away.

Yeah I agree that this is probably the weakest. It has some things that are really great( the planes, the companions) and some that are not so great(seriously, why are the Seed kids NOT killing me when they capture me?)

I think the biggest thing that is a miss for me is that Ghost Recon, AC:O, and this are all basically the same game: Conquer a territory, fight a leader, go to next territory etc.

Dont get me wrong I still like this but I agree that it almost feels like UBI is running out of ideas.

It's literally been this way at Ubisoft for ten years now. You forgot Watchdogs and even The Crew. All their open-world games essentially play the same way. I still enjoy them and find them terribly addicting. But that's probably just a personal thing with me. I dig that kind of game. And to be fair, this is their first that doesn't require you to climb a tower to unlock more of the map. I do like that change a lot.

AC:O didn't either. There were still towers, but they weren't about de-fogging the map.

And to that point, why is the protagonist captured so often?? I'm thru John Seed and he beat my ass 3 times... fool me once.

Climbing those towers did increase Senu's "awareness" and revealed more missions and locations. Whether they de-fogged the map is a little academic.

OMG fishing in this game is the worse. First of all, it takes FOREVER even if everything goes right. Secondly it's easy for the line to break even when you are in green status and then you have to start over. Not to mention how easy it is to get interrupted during that time.

Yeah, that's my issue with it BY FAR. If you include a fishing mini-game, it should be a pleasant little diversion from the main game to unwind and maybe farm for stuff. If you're going to be shot at every time you try it, well then the whole exercise is kind of meaningless.

so, is there an easy way to drive vehicles in this game? i don't seem to know how to steer. the camera seems to follow my eyes, but i can't get situated and drive where there are turns and such. what is the LS that says auto drive for?

Driving is no different than any other game. Just keep your eyes facing the road/dash and your thumb off the right analog. If that's too complicated, set a waypoint and turn on autodrive.

Buy the fishing perk. Fishing is far easier. Of course it could be the type of fish you are after. Without the perk I can't imagine catching any of the 'hard' species. Also, buy the second fishing rod, that helps some too.

OB : Driving's not hard at all as long as you follow one simple rule : Don't touch the right stick. Left stick is for driving. Right stick is your head. In the same way you can't drive forward while looking back over your left shoulder, you can't drive in the game if you change your view. Just use the left stick, throttle and brake and you'll be fine.

As long as we are harping on things in this game, how annoying is playing it with another person due to the limited range before warping? I mean here's an open world game full of vehicles and designed for co-op and yet if two planes are just a little bit apart, the guest gets warped into the host's plane allowing his own plane to crash. Who thought that was a good idea?

This game is really fucking annoying...

*driving on roads and getting attacked by 3 enemy trucks*
*gets out of car and runs into the wilderness*
*gets spotted by enemy plane and chased half-way through the map*
*gets into house to listen to audio log but it's drowned out by the plane NPC AI futilely dropping bombs on my location over and over*
*goes outside and chopper spawns in*
*takes down chopper and another chopper spawns in*
*manages to hide only for another enemy plane to spawn in*
*quick travels elsewhere to start mission only for NPC to be stopped mid-conversation by enemy chopper spawning in and homing in on me.*

I'm going back to FC4.

I knew if I waited long enough I'd start to see the complaints on this game. I still might pick it up though. Sounds like the graphics are amazing the environments are worth checking out.

It's Ubisoft, I'm not expecting a masterpiece.

I'm still totally loving this game. As far as the spawning enemy helicopters and planes, just pick a companion with a copter or plane--pretty much neutralizes that issue.
I picked up God of War and love it, but I keep coming back to FC5. Last night I was fishing (yes the perk helps a lot), nice & relaxing, and then got blindsided by a bear. My cougar companion helped me out, and I looted the skin. I guess I just love the chaos.

I haven't started the game yet, and I'm sure I'll like it once I do, but I hope the reports of enemy's hyper-observance are worse than it actually is. I like the chaos and nonsense of FC games, but do like to play stealthily when it comes to taking over outposts and the like. Which for me is kind of odd, since I'm not really into stealth games all that much.