Oh Far Cry, how I love you. Your beautiful gameplay, environments, and wildlife hell-bent on the eradication of the human race because fuck yeah nature. The guerrilla gameplay of Far Cry is what has always kept me coming back, and now with the twist of being set 12,000 years in the past, this gameplay is much better. Don’t get me wrong; guns are sorely missed. It’s much more convenient to shoot someone with a silenced sniper rifle from a mile away than it is to pray to God that this arrow doesn’t hit slightly to the left of its mark and alert every enemy within a hundred mile radius.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this map had a hundred mile radius either. This is mostly a positive, but the lack of vehicles can make this aggravating. Perhaps in future DLC they should consider the addition of Flinstone  esque modes of transportation. The prospect of which arouses me. The trek across the map to your next objective gets old. More so after the hundred thousandth time a wild boar decides it wants to attack the man that just fell a mammoth with a few sticks and rocks.

Nature really has it in for you, and perhaps that’s why I decided I would have it in for nature. You see, in Far Cry fire has always spread. With the addition of the ability to light your weapons on fire, my time in Primal was spent doing one thing: Burning the homes and children of every living thing I found in the wilderness. I left nothing behind me but a trail of charred trees and raging flames. I spent twenty minutes scaling the side of a cliff with a pre-historic grappling hook, burning all of the eagle’s nests and children because fuck nature. There is no better sight to an American than wasting a bunch of their own time by burning down the homes of a foreign invader that I didn’t even realize existed until it attacked me.

Fire is only so effective though. It wasn’t until I was being gored by a mammoth that I discovered larger animals didn’t fear the flames. For the predators you must take a different approach, bait. When you bait an animal you have the option to tame it. It will become your minion, much like the system in Shadow of Mordor. There’s also an achievement for killing and skinning one of your furry friends. Sadly, this was not the most shameful thing I’ve done to progress my PSN level.

Primal’s story is largely secondary in this game. The lack of a truly insane character like Vaas or Pagan Min is not only felt but sorely missed. Early on a big burly guy with a caveman name appears to attack your village. Your time is then spent gathering villagers and important characters. This mighty quest is at the behest of a lady you find in a cave that would be kinda hot if it weren’t for the hairdo and ear necklace. Characters are wacky and quirky like the guy that head butts you and the other guy that pisses on you.

I wasn’t expecting much from Primal but it managed to surpass expectations:

Pros:
●    Setting
●    Fire
●    Ooga Booga dialogue
●    Burning of Nature
Cons:
●    Sidelined Story
●    Weak Characters