Welcome to my first game review!
I started Game Over Gimmicks to write about wrestling, but my other love is gaming. It’s always been a dream of mine to enter the gaming industry and there’s no better way I can think of than by writing about it! My first official foray down this foreign path is a review of Far Cry 6!
I have gamed for the majority of my thirty two years of existence, but my gaming history consists of one major valley in between two peaks. A valley consisting of high school, various extracurricular activities, and awkward teenage mischief. My propensity for caring too much what others thought of me caused gaming to fall by the wayside. Being a gamer wasn’t ‘cool’ like it is now and I didn’t want others to know about it.
I missed numerous classic games during the early and mid-2000s, but one series I’ve completely glossed over ever since has been Far Cry. After dabbing my toes into the series with Far Cry 6, I really regret passing on the over-the-top series. It’s wacky, wild, and an outrageous good time.
Libertad the name, Liberation the game

Far Cry 6 is set in the island nation of Cuba…I mean Yara. Fascist dictator, Anton Castillo (Giancarlo Esposito), is El Presidente of the once peaceful Yara. The island nation bursts at the seams with constant strife between Castillo’s FND and the various factions of Guerrillas throughout the island nation. You play as Dani Rojas, an orphan Yaran whose friends die while they attempt an escape from Yara to Miami. In honor of her friends, Dani joins rebel Guerilla force, ‘Libertad,’ to assist in the destruction of the Castillo regime.
Throughout the story, you traverse through the different regions of Yara, meet a wide array of characters, and join forces in a fractured country. I enjoyed the overall story, albeit having an inevitable and obvious ending. There was a large cast of characters, but only a few of them were memorable. Characters that blend together can be an issue in large games where you meet a lot of them. I looked at the cast pictures and could only remember one name outside of the main cast. My favorite characters ended up being main antagonist, Anton Castillo, and one of Dani’s rebel friends, Paz. They stole the scenes that they were in and I felt the emotion from each of them.
Welcome to the Jungle

The name of the game in Far Cry is exploration, and there is a lot to explore. Yara is a monstrous map to traverse with caves to explore, treasures to find, and FND bases to blow up. Three distinct sections make up Yara, with Dani needing to explore each of them one at a time. Each section has a group in charge, a villain to overcome, and it’s our job to coordinate these efforts with as much destructive choice as possible. The world of Yara is beautiful and it’s a fun dichotomy that Dani and Libertad are charged with blowing up half of it.
In general, the goal of the game is to gather help in defeating Castillo by following the main missions. I’m a big fan of games that don’t just have one major story, but drop me into an immersive world filled with things to do and people to meet. Far Cry 6 is a quintessential Ubisoft game and has this in spades. Honestly, there might be too much stuff going on. There are minigames, side quests, and hidden treasures in caves littered throughout the world. With the monstrous size of the map it becomes a little overwhelming seeing a hundred markers everywhere you go. With that being said, I had wayyyy too much time doing one specific minigame…
Cock Fighting

This minigame is so ridiculous, but so well done! It’s a full on fighting game inside the world of Yara and there was even a full on side quest mission line relating to it. I’m not proud to admit how much time I spent gathering different roosters to fight with and trying to beat the highest level fighters. In other words, I wasted four hours of my life trying to beat up roosters. Fun stuff!
Another cool part of the game are the friends you make along the way. And when I say friends, I mean actual animal companions that follow you around:
Boom Boom Chicharron Chorizo
Yes, that is a Rooster with piercings. There’s also a killer crocodile with a gold tooth and little Chorizo in the far right picture is a Dachshund puppy that distracts your enemies with his cuteness. Above all, look at my good buddy Boom Boom sitting in the car like a good boy!
Game of the Year! (not really)
The Amigos are there to assist your journeys throughout the island. Some amigos are stealth oriented and some are combat oriented and have special abilities. You can target an enemy and have the Amigo distract or silently kill them. It’s a really fun mechanic, but I ended up not using it after awhile. The Amigo AI would end up getting me spotted by running head first into an enemy camp or revive them if they died. It ended up being a headache after a certain point.
Archipelago of Anarchy

Despite any issues I have with the collect-a-thon nature of a Ubisoft game, the inevitability of the story, or the UI of the amigo system, the true Far Cry experience comes from the awesomely fun gameplay. In Far Cry 6, there are sections of the map that need liberated prior to taking on Castillo in the capital of Yara. Most of the game, regardless of completing a main mission or destroying a random outpost, requires a choice: do we sneak or smash? Every mission (most) can be completed with a quiet knife strike or a very loud gunfight.
It’s important to realize how many ways to kill FND soldiers there are in Far Cry 6. There are pistols, melee weapons, rifles, and any kind of shotgun or explosive weapon you can think of. The game even has “unique” weapons different guerilla members around the island created for you to use. I only found a couple, but they were usually strong. The Supremo system was where the true damage could be done. These are special backpacks for Dani to use special attacks, either stealthy or explodey. The countless variety of causing destruction kept me having fun for hours.
Verdict
My summary of Far Cry 6 is one word: FUN.
There is a nice rhythm that the player gets into during their journey through Yara. I could have quickly passed through the main story, but I would regret missing out on a lot of fun side parts. The side missions, or “Yaran Stories,” contained some of the best character work in the game.
The game is surprisingly long and needed to be shorter. It takes awhile to get through the regions of Yara and finally get to the capital, but the ending was good. There was a nice swerve at the end that I didn’t see coming and added to it. I’ll definitely remember how it ended and that means something to me. Giancarlo Esposito as Anton Castillo was a great choice. The rest of the main cast also was good, but Esposito obviously shined.
Overall, the fun I had in Far Cry 6 outweighs the complaints I have. The game is good, but nowhere near perfect. I still recommend playing it! Especially if you are like me and haven’t played a Far Cry before.
Score: 3.5/5