Far Cry 4

Far Cry 4 has weak characters, but its campaign, co-op, and competitive multiplayer feature incredibly fun freedom.

Like the terrain if depicts, Far Cry 4 travels both high and low, representing the good, the bad, and ugly of video games all at once. It's awesome and messy and dumb and fun and annoying and gross and beautiful.

Far Cry 4 is well worth a visit, but it's more a backpacker's delight than a five-star island paradise.

At its core, this is just a brilliant, well-designed shooter. The weapons feel great, there’s genuine opportunities for creativity, and it all takes place in a dynamic world where random tiger attacks are commonplace.

From a very cynical perspective, Far Cry 4 is "more Far Cry," but it's delivered in such a sophisticated fashion that I can't really see how that's a negative. If each iteration is this smart and silly and beautiful and ridiculous, I don't see this series wearing out its welcome with me anytime soon.

Far Cry 3 remains the series' peak, but Far Cry 4 is a lovely-looking, accomplished offering that suffers from lacklustre writing and an odd lack of purpose.

The rich setting is fun to explore, but the familiar gameplay experience doesn't stray far from Far Cry 3

Cry 4 truly shines in the almost bacchanalian sense of freedom it bestows on the player as they traverse through its environment. In Kyrat you have the ability to go anywhere and do pretty much anything – much as Pagan Min would advocate. Here, the only pact you need keep is that with your conscience. God help you.

Like jazz, open-world games promise the bliss of structured randomness. Developers load up games with multiple systems – traffic, pedestrians, wildlife, etc. – which players probe to create unique moments. Ubisoft's Far Cry series marries this open-world game design to a caricature of guerrilla warfare, the improvisational aspect of which fits well with the player's need to make the best of whatever is in his or her toolset.

Far Cry is a series still struggling with that balance, between offering you the freedom to do what you want while enforcing the limitations to make what you want meaningful. I think it's also only a game away from needing a gritty, Bond-style reboot back to its Far Cry 2 roots.