[Update: At the bottom of this post is a poll – please help me out, I’d like to hear your opinion on which game I should buy and play. Vote in the poll and feel free to leave comments below]
Sci-fi is definitely my favourite movie genre, and particularly space-based alien style sci-fi such as Guardians of the Galaxy or Aliens. I grew up watching sci-fi TV shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation which influenced my interest in how cool the future can be. This is why I have a fascination now with electric vehicles, renewable energy, artificial intelligence and all that stuff, and why I read the Electrek blog daily.
I also grew up with Top Gun and Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies and was interested in war and guns and fighter jets. This lead to my first career pursuit at school as an RAF pilot, because I wanted to be like Maverick. However, I hated sports and PE and approaching 6ft (1.8m) as I began my teens I think I was always taller than most other children my age. So moving my gangly limbs always seemed like a lot of effort.
When I was about 14 I went with my dad to an RAF career recruitment office to ask about the requirements of entry. They told me the academic requirements were a minimum of five GCSE’s grade A-C. My maths, English and science were fine and this seemed totally achievable.
But I was concerned about my height, so I asked if I could be a fighter pilot if I was tall. Like… tall tall. They said it probably wouldn’t be a problem and there are are lots of different jobs and aircraft in the RAF, but there would be a physical test. That totally put me off.
My kind of games
Why am I telling you all this? Well, despite really enjoying sci-fi movies and TV shows to this day, I’m not really a fan of sci-fi video games. I really like games rooted in reality. I know… all games are simulations. But my point is I prefer an M4A1 assault rifle to a laser blaster in an FPS. I prefer tanks over spaceships. Earth over Mars. Humans over aliens.
My favourite games are based on earth, either now or in the past. Such as Battlefield 1942, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or more recently Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Ghost Recon: Wildlands (obviously).
I’ve also been recently converted to open world games which is lucky because there are more and more of them coming out and they look great!
Red Dead Rockstar
If you’ve read my plans for YouTube in 2017 you’ll know I’m looking forward to Red Dead Redemption 2 later this year, and I plan to make the most of Wildlands until then. I played the first Red Dead Redemption and it was so good!
But this past week there’s been some news. Rockstar announced that RDR2 – which was due for release in time for Christmas 2017 – is being pushed back to 2018.
Since the teaser was revealed last year, I’ve planned to definitely buy this game and play it to death, which is of course the only way. If you’ve played the first game you’ll know it had a great storyline and a character, John Marsden, you could really get behind. The Undead Nightmare expansion added a little extra pep to the game just when you thought you’d collected everything and got bored with it.
Man was that a good game, so I do have high hopes for RDR2 which I totally expect will provide the gun slinging ‘realism’ of olden times in another amazing open world like the original, all backed up with a cracking story and some interesting hidden gems.
Enter Far Cry
But now Far Cry 5 has been teased and looks like it’s going to be set in the good ol’ wild west as well. It’s set for an official unveiling at E3 in June.
So here’s the thing. Lately I’ve been quite enjoying Ubisoft games, – my recent exposure having been the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, on the strength of which I bought Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and now Ghost Recon: Wildlands – but I’ve never played any of the Far Cry series.
It looks like it could be a lot of fun, and assuming it’s based in the ‘real world’, by which I mean it’s not going to be Cowboys & Aliens style weird sci-fi… if it’s stagecoaches and steam trains and stallions and six-shooters and showdowns and all that shenanigans, then I think I’ll really enjoy it!
For now it sounds like it may involve an unconventional approach like a cult or something, which could be interesting! Guns and moonshine sounds a lot more appealing than a sci-fi twist.
But…
Which leads me to my quandary. It has to be said there’s a certain formula to Ubisoft games. While I’m enjoying Ghost Recon: Wildlands immensely, Zero Punctuation describe it as follows (take a deep breath)…
I knew it was yet another Ubisoft sandbox game and therefore another round of blandly visiting icons on maps like an overworked Uber driver… Our main goal is to take down a dense checklist of leaders and underbosses by completing a fucking endless wall of repetitive missions which we can of course approach in whatever way we choose providing we choose either stealth or a direct assault except the direct assault may cause high value targets to leg it so the actual choice is stealth or extra stealth with bells on… very quiet bells obviously.
So is there room in my life for two excellent open world Western shooters? Do I enjoy the Ubisoft formula so much I want to repeat it again before the next Assassin’s Creed comes out? Will I have to choose FC5 or RDR2 and which will be released first?
Fortunately at this stage I do have the luxury of time, and there’s more to be revealed for both games, so I’ll wait and see. Maybe it’ll all come down to timing, or maybe I’ll just fancy giving the Rockstar formula a try again for a change.
I won’t have to wait long for the next exciting instalment to arrive though. The Far Cry 5 reveal trailer is due tomorrow, 26 May 2017.
Vote below to let me know which game you think I should play: