The game's biggest flaw definitely comes from an underutilization of the Play As Anyone mechanic - make the characters distinct! Characters do not have meaningful shortcomings or strengths because they are either insignificant to start, or mitigated by the environment (spiderbot machines and cargo drone launch pads). Let me fail! The game is relatively easy as-is, but the fact that you aren't allowed to challenge yourself with weak characters (or a character with a strange specialization) means that the "Play As Anyone" system feels more like you're playing somewhere between 1 and 5 different characters with 50 different faces. It's a shame too, because the gameplay is decently engaging, and could be moreso if the characters you play felt different. There is a willingness to explore by adding a new mechanic, but no willingness to allow that mechanic to meaningfully impact how you play the game (or to allow the setting to change the game by maybe making guns harder to find?).
About the politics in the game: the game itself is sort of wishy-washy with its politics when it comes to things you're going to see during the course of the main story - vague allusions to "resistance," "taking things back for the people," and Bagley's jokes about "fascist school". The in-game radio shows, however, tell you the kind of weak lib shit you're meant to believe, though - that our current media landscape prizes misinformation in order to get clicks and keep you engaged, that this landscape is perfect for authoritarians to take root, but also that nothing needs to meaningfully change. It's good actually to have clickbaity news you can't trust! It teaches you to be critical (note: if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you)! These are actual points from the game! Despite this very obvious downside to modern media that has been actually exploited in-universe to put authoritarians in power, there's nothing you can really do about the media ecosystem - you can always trust the current version of the BBC (or GBB in-game) to uh, give you fair, unbiased news that you can trust, and if authoritarians abuse this system and take over? Well, the people have to rise up of course, to restore their classic British freedoms and a capitalist democracy. If Far Cry 5 is the beer commercial version of America, this is its British equivalent.
(The audiolog I was citing can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM4UfadGDkg)
About the politics in the game: the game itself is sort of wishy-washy with its politics when it comes to things you're going to see during the course of the main story - vague allusions to "resistance," "taking things back for the people," and Bagley's jokes about "fascist school". The in-game radio shows, however, tell you the kind of weak lib shit you're meant to believe, though - that our current media landscape prizes misinformation in order to get clicks and keep you engaged, that this landscape is perfect for authoritarians to take root, but also that nothing needs to meaningfully change. It's good actually to have clickbaity news you can't trust! It teaches you to be critical (note: if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you)! These are actual points from the game! Despite this very obvious downside to modern media that has been actually exploited in-universe to put authoritarians in power, there's nothing you can really do about the media ecosystem - you can always trust the current version of the BBC (or GBB in-game) to uh, give you fair, unbiased news that you can trust, and if authoritarians abuse this system and take over? Well, the people have to rise up of course, to restore their classic British freedoms and a capitalist democracy. If Far Cry 5 is the beer commercial version of America, this is its British equivalent.
(The audiolog I was citing can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM4UfadGDkg)
jobosno
2 years ago
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdy5y/watch-dogs-legion-review