This game is incredible. First, it's gorgeous. Second, there are so many options! Here's a bunch of enemies - you figure out how to kill them. Sneak around and take them out one by one? Sure! Have a tiger or leopard do the dirty work for you while you watch from the corner? Can do! Ride in on an elephant, guns blazing? Why not?

Some other first thoughts:

-the gyrocopter is amazing...as are the other methods of getting around Kyrat.

-did I mention it's gorgeous? Stunningly so...

-Honey badgers are almost as terrifying as tigers and both pale in comparison to rhinos.

-Snakes and eagles...if one isn't biting me from below, the other is dive-bombing me from above.

Who else has spent some time in Kyrat? Thoughts? Impressions?

I like that it isn't getting up in my face with how edgy it wants to be like Far Cry 3 did.

It gets a thumbs-up from me so far, it looks great, plays great, and the characters (so far) haven't been annoying and trying to be super edgy.

Like Jeff and Brad mentioned in the QL. It's seriously just more FC3, but...that's still pretty ok. It's still got lots of new content and it looks and runs great. There's also lots of really neat quality of life improvements they made over the last game like the fact that animal skins you can no longer craft anything with get sold off when you do quick sell. Or how you are always carrying that car fixing tool now and it doesn't take up a weapon slot anymore. Plus don't even get me started on the wingsuit from almost the very beginning of the game.

My only real gripe is the shangri-la levels are kinda terrible. But I watched that trailer they put out a couple months ago and could pretty much tell from that, that they didn't look very fun so it's not like I went in with any expectations or anything.

Been having a good time with it, but not really hit the peak quite yet. There's something about it being set in a "valley" rather than on an island that made it very disorienting and overwhelming at the start. You don't really know where you can and can't go etc. It all got better once I flew around in a gyrocopter though. Although while the copter is great and everything it also sorta "cheapens" the game. I ended up just flying from tower to tower unlocking several in succession without having to deal with any of the open-world stuff.

I've been enjoying the crazy side-characters a lot though. It's all very "gamey" and they don't really make any sense, but that also allows them to just go for it and do silly shit. The 2 main ones haven't been as impressive, but I guess they need some sort of anchor to drag the game along.

The only major issue I've had so far is that the outposts seem a bit too cluttered. It's almost impossible to get good scouting done before you start engaging. I seem to remember them being much more open in FC3 and the guards were much more exposed.

Also, has anyone found any of the masks yet ? I've searched a few of the areas but couldn't find anything.

Is there an M.I.A. song in there? That is the most crucial important detail to me

My first impression is that the PC version is unplayable because of the mouse acceleration issue. How developers are still making the same mistake in 2014 is beyond me.

I have this and Dragon Age arriving from Amazon today, and am at a quandary as to which to play first. Far Cry looks like Skyrim with guns, and as I dropped almost 200 hours into Skyrim it might be something that takes up more time than Dragon Age will.

Not as yet. It uses "Should I stay or should I go" by the Clash in the opening cinematic though so that's fine with me.

Played up to the end of act one and it's pretty great. Looks fantastic and runs smooth on the PS4. I did think about getting it on PC but it's a game I want to play on the couch with a controller so I picked the PS4 version.

It is basically FC 3 In a new setting with a couple of new mechanics but that's a pretty good thing in my opinion. I do prefer the setting much more to that of FC 3 though. Exploring the mountains is a ton of fun.

The PC version runs great and looks fantastic (Intel/NVIDIA here). It doesn't seem like too big of a jump from Far Cry 3's visuals though. I haven't had many issues with birds like Jeff has. Also, you don't have to worry about fuel with the gyro-copters, but do have to be concerned about altitude. The story has been hit and miss so far. It started really strong and then gives you a choice in the main story that effects future mission availability. It was a hard choice to make, and they did a good job making me feel like shit for making that decision. Shortly after that, that decision was left to be pretty much meaningless.

A lot of the characters and mission givers are hit and miss as well. My favorite character so far is Hurk. He's a typical balls-to-the-wall American that likes fist pounding, and talking like a redneck. He's pretty great because he's so stereotypically bad. Dan would like this guy.

The overall mechanics and structure of the game are incredibly similar to Far Cry 3. The new world is a lot different in that it's much more mountainous and has a better variety of unique areas and weather. The Bell Towers are more challenging to climb this time around. It helps make them more enjoyable to figure out. The new options for taking out enemy camps are pretty great too.

Also, riding an elephant that's bashing shit to hell, while shooting baddies with an uzi is fun. Really fun.

Here's some screenshots I took admiring the pretty game:

Gallery

I'll try to add more to this later, after work.

I just got a new graphics card today and it came with a voucher for a free copy of either "Far Cry 4", "Assassins Creed:Unity" or the upcoming "The Crew".

This has made my choice much easier, thanks!

Riding an elephant and wrecking outposts with it (along with anything else that gets in my way) is the most fun I have had with a video game this year.
I also yelled "NOOOO" really loudly when my elephant companion finally bit the dust after 4-5 outposts :(

Just one comment thus far. So... Nvidia quality is slightly better than ultra? I say it as a question because... What? Is there a reason for this aside from it's Nvidia? Oh well, it does look pretty Damon good. Oh! And church man is my favorite character so far.

I'm pretty pissed that I can't get this until tomorrow.

That fucking speech you get when you meet the weapons dealer is going to stay with me for a long time, that was some incredible bullshit.

Man this game is fun. It's got the same issue I had with 3 in that at the beginning of the game I run out of my assault rifle ammo every 15 seconds while hunting but 2 upgrades later and it's all good (plus hunting with sniper rifles at this point anyway)

Edit: is anyone else seeing tree's that are essentially flat? Playing on PC and settings are on Ultra and about 10% of the trees are basically 2d

@bmccann42: yes but dragon age is like skyrim with... more skyrim.

@earlessshrimp: "Which gun would Jesus use?"

@oginor: "I'd say a Jericho, 941 FBL."

Oops, different fiction.

Yeah, picked up the game after work today and have been playing ever since

On the Xbox One, and it looks FANTASTIC. Minor fps drops when driving but that is it.

I probably could run it on my PC as I have a GTX 780 but I would rather play on my tv and not have to hook my PC up to it and all that jazz.

@xseanzx: It'll run great on your GTX 780 if you ever want to try it on PC. You'll be able to max out the settings (maybe not AA though) and keep a steady 60fps at 1080p. I have a much older card (GTX 470) and it runs maxed out (with SMAA) at a steady 30fps. It looks SO good on PC. The console versions look amazing as well, but you can clearly see a huge difference in quality between them and PC.

@pimblycharles: I've got the same card and I'm having a ball as well

Does anyone else feel like getting cash is too easy in this game? I seem to be able to max my current wallet of about 450k quite easily most of the time and have by now bought most of the common weapons, map unlocks and so on.

The trouble is that I have only liberated 7 towers so far and havent really explored most of those areas that I have uncovered so far. Done about 2 main missions so far. I still have over half the map left to uncover and to explore and it feels like I have already been able to get quite a lot of stuff that is available in the game.

I feel like I'm falling into old habits again with this game by doing an absolute ton of side content while kind of ignoring the main plot. I followed the main story up until the first decision mission in my first sitting. Then I just did a bunch of side quests and hunted a bunch. Today I only did one more main story mission and the first Yogi mission. After that I just spent at least 5 hours getting towers, taking over bases, hunting and doing a few other assorted side quests. It's massively fun but I feel like I should really be doing more story missions.

@nardak: Money is by no means very hard to get, but you've basically only bought the cheap stuff so far (except for maps I guess). When you start unlocking signature weapons and the homestead you'll have plenty of ways to dump your cash.

It all comes down to how much of a scrounger you are though. I was picking up everything to begin with and ended up in a similar situation of having too much money, so I stopped skinning/looting and opening chests and suddenly I found myself in a situation where I barely had enough money to buy ammo and armor. I'd say overall it's pretty similar to how it was in FC3, although there seems to be a few more high-value random items being thrown around.

Only about 4 hours in but it’s a great game, yes its more FC3 but FC3 was a great game. I’m even tempted to get the season pass.

The first impression was awesome. Though i faced shadow problem and map issues initially but then saw an article in sheeparcade. It is working fine now.

@justkamtoo: I caved and grabbed the season pass today (MSFT gave me $32 in rebates from all the games I've purchased this month...ouch). I've now spent about 15-20 hours in Kyrat and already know I want to spend lots more...especially if there are going to be yetis.

@ares42: Yeah, Ive been finding the masks. Though you definitely have to look, the game doesn't point them out to you. It also likes to hide them: under beds, on top of book shelves, in little nooks. Make sure you are looking where the chanting sound they make is loudest and you can shoot them if you cant reach them. They are sort of like shooting the coins in RE4.

Have you guys looked at the trophy list yet? It seems like you dont actually need to collect a bunch of stuff to get the platinum. In fact it looks like the platinum would be relatively easy to get. I think thats really admirable that they didn't just default to "collect all X"

This game is drop dead gorgeous. Best graphics on the PS4 by far.

To me the map seems smaller than Farcry 3..the game looks great defiantly but i think i preferred the more tropical setting of 3. Oh and thoes birds... at first it was funny but now its just pissing me off..they should patch that shit.

Eagles are the new cliffracers

@carlos707: On the masks: if you're near one, a blue shaded area pops up on your mini-map, and some really creepy jungly music plays when you are close to the mask within the blue shaded zone. And you can buy maps of their locations from any vendor in the "maps" section of the store. With all the rupees this game throws at you, may as well use them.

Okay a small updated impression. About 75% done so far (playing on hard difficulty).

The game has far too may retaliation strikes against your own bases. There is an enemy attack against a camp every second or third time that I visit a base. The attacks should be much lower in frequency or there should be a limited amount of them per base.

It is pretty exhausting to defend the bases so many times. Also the attacks never begin when you are at the base but about 200 to 300 meters away from them meaning you have to run back to the base and abandon anything that you were planning to do at the moment.

Otherwise the game is great.

fall damage sucks. It super sucks that there's not a skill to negate that, its just a buzzkill left and right. 20 foot drop isnt that much. I like everything else, by which I mean the side content. Main game content is a chore with all these stealth missions. I dont come to this series for that shit.

@bargainben: There is a skill to reduce fall damage. It's called Soft Landing. Tiger side, bottom row.