Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

A very good game but it could have been so much better. I will start with negatives first...

Crafting is, well, very very poor, they could have and should have gone much deeper into crafting, such as craft your own weps/armour food etc etc (something like fallout style would have been very good here) instead you just collect animal skins to be able to carry more and plants to produce health pots or enhance various abilities for a short time.

Loot system again is just pointless really, you cant use ANYTHING on the island accept ammo, plants, weapons and animal skins the rest of the stuff you loot is just pointless, if there is no use for objects you loot why even bother putting them ingame??? for instance you loot objects like ''smartphones, flash lights, drugs, ropes, batterys, the list goes on and on'' a better craft system could of led to much better use of these objects, instead there classed as nothing more than junk and get sold. Most open world games offer great use of loot to encourage you into exploring the whole of the map, here, exploration seems pointless because you know you wont get anyting from it in the end apart from maybe some nice scenery.(that being said, they do try to encourage exploration in the way of finding hidden relics, memory cards and letters of the lost, but finding these offer no real reward apart from various info about the island and its inhabitants)

Another poor side to the game is NPC's, you cant interact with 95% of the islanders, not even speak with them, with 99% of open world games out now (skyrim, dragons dogma, fallout, etc etc) you can interact with everyone ingame, even if its just to say a quick hello its still better than nothing in my opinion and it pulls you more into the world.


OK now to positives, because i did actually really enjoy this game despite of its wrong doings...

Graphics are beautiful, no question and doubt that the island and its inhabitants (including animals) look fantastic.

The gameplay itself really sucks you in as your crawling through the jungle listening out for possible threats from wildlife or pirates, the unpredictable nature of the island is amazing, for instance one time i was stalking a group of pirates, watching there movements and looking for an alarm system, i arm myself with my sniper rifle and was just ready to fire upon them, literally finger on trigger half pulled, then i hear a rustle in the bushes behind me, i turn around to find myself face to face with a sneaky tiger that had been obviously hunting me for sometime, well needless to say i end up fireing at the tiger which in turn alerts all of them pirates that i was soo carefully stalking to my precence and a whole can of ''holy sh*t'' was opened. Its moments like this that make this game come to life, the unpredictable and possibilites from hostile wildlife really make you feel liike you must keep on top of your game at all times. The AI of the pirates themsleves is 90% of the time really really good and its generally always good fun to get into a rumble.

The story is well, hmm its ok, not great but not bad, kind off, hmm, expected??? if that makes sense. I mean after you play through the little intro to the game you can kinda guess what the story is going to offer (there is a few nice surprises thrown in, but all in all its nothing amazing) but this game isnt really about story, its about dealing with the islands hostile inhabitants and finding new and fun ways to deal with them (i would say its about survival but for me the crafting and loot system ruined that, its purely a ''shoot em up'' kind of game)

Maybe my problem is that i was expecting a much more rpg/fps hybrid like fallout. but in truth theres no rpg here, its purely a fps, with an open map, which is fine because the game does what it does very well, the problem for me is that they tried to add little bits of rpg elements and failed (by which i mean the leveling system and the crafting and looting system).

End conclusion is, this is a very good fps game that could have been so much better if they worked a little harder on the rpg elements that they tried to apply. dont beleive the hype that its filled with content and loads to do because there really isnt much more to do than shoot pirates and skin animals, that being said, it feels dam good doing it ;)

8/10 for me =)