Far Cry 5: All substance, little style. *Minor game-play spoilers*

I agreed to write this as my inaugural post for Fanagram and I intended on making it a first impressions comment. But that was almost 20 hours ago now so I'm not sure I can get away with something as vague as 'Yeah, it seems OK. A lot of fun so far' but the game is also so big I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

There are a lot of fantastic points about this game and there is no denying that and it plays the way an open world game should play. A lot has been stripped away from this Far Cry compared to the previous installments, especially with regards to mission structure.

There are 3 main mission types: Main Story Missions, Side Missions and Guns/Fangs For Hire Missions. The only difference between these missions is whether or not you get a recruitable specialist or sometimes a unique outfit or vehicle. All of these go towards filling up your resistance meter which will eventually lead to some minor or major boss fight or boss level.

However, and here is where Far Cry 5 shines in respect to how you progress in the game; just about every side activity from executing VIP's, liberating outposts or rescuing civilians all adds to your resistance meter. This means that unlike previous Far Cry games these side activities became little more than a grind for a trophy or achievement and quickly degenerated into pointless busy work now has purpose for advancing the game as well as being super fun on the whole. It also means that a 'capture party' will be sent after you to trigger a boss mission and remind you that there is more to this game.

Prepper stashes are another side activity, these could have been the pointless, annoying grind in the game necessary for leveling up your character as they are the easiest way to gain perk points and cash. But each one comes with an albeit simple, but entertaining environmental puzzle that breaks the overall chaos of the game.

This is all great, and I really am enjoying this game but here comes the 'Buuut'. There seems to be two types of enemies in Far Cry 5: The first are the roving packs of elite in armored cars with LMG's that can spot you from 50 feet away. You can quickly become overrun and overcome by these cultists, especially early on in the game. 20 hours in and I'm a little better with weapons handling and a lot better at running away!

Then there are the cultists that guard the outposts. You get the feeling these guys have taken a little too much Bliss and all the other cultists just say 'OK, you stay here and guard the base'. They are slow to react, have a visual range of around 6 meters (3 if you crouch) and have the peripheral vision of half bind mole that has been dumped in the Sahara Desert at mid-day.

Sneaking through outposts undetected isn't difficult, going through them loud & proud is often disappointing as only about 2 at a time will hear you. You have to really land in the middle of an outpost or drive right in to get any real attention.

At one outpost I was undetected and blew up a barrel of explosives next to cultist after missing a shot and the cultist stood right in front of it looked around startled, shrugged and walked off. Now, I haven't been a drug addicted religious cultist for a few years now, but I like to think that where that the case today and a barrel of explosive materials spontaneously combusted that I would do a little more than shrug and walk off.

Sometimes your only hope for a little excitement is that one of the cultists will run to the alarm and call in one of those roving packs of elites that seem to be always right around the corner. That's when the action really heats up!

If all of the enemies A.I's behaved in this way then I would have to say the game is almost broken.

The A.I. suffers on both sides of the fight in this game. You companions and friendly NPC's generally perform competently in a firefight, but they will occasionally run through your line of site when firing an automatic weapon or just stand in doorways or corridors to block your progress completely. Thankfully these incidents have been few and far between.

Overall I would definitely recommend this game to newcomers and veterans of the series, it has some solid foundations and interesting game mechanics that could change how open world games play out if carefully nurtured and I am excited to play through the rest of the game to see what else it holds!

So stay tuned for more!