E3 2014: Far Cry 4 Hands-On Preview – Elephant Melee Is The Best Thing Ever

I’ll admit that Far Cry 4 was not one of the games I was most looking forward to seeing on the E3 floor. In fact, it was only my inability to get into the Rainbow Six: Siege theater presentation (which for some reason was on a separate scheduling system) at the Ubisoft booth that led me to end up in a small room to try a small slice of co-op play.

Imagine my surprise when it ended up being some of the most fun I had at the show. Thanks to two very patient developers, I had a chance to play a two-man raid on a heavily guarded compound somewhere in the Himalayas three different ways: on foot, by autogyro and by elephant.

We did the autogyro first, and it was cool enough. The piloting player can still fire a weapon with his or her off-hand, and the passenger is of course free to blaze away from the back. Raining down death from above is always a good time, though piloting and firing is tricky, and we got shot down more than once.

On foot, things were pretty straightforward. The dev blew the main gate with C4, and we went in and did our thing. Regular Gamesided readers will recall that I’m not very good at shooters of any type, and there were some sad/funny sequences where me and my partner would just take turns reviving each other before needing a save ourselves. The main boss, who shows up riding in a helicopter, proved too tough for us to take out.

That left just one more option, and it was a great one. Far Cry 4 allows you to fight while riding an elephant, and it’s even better than it sounds. For starters, we could forget about the C4, because simply holding down the left stick and “sprinting” caused the elephant to smash through the gates. Melee attacks can be performed with the right stick when in range, tossing enemies around with the animal’s trunk. That’s if you don’t trample them first, which was easy and immensely satisfying. Before long I was ignoring the developer’s directions and just roaming around crushing bad guys underfoot.

I’m sure there’s plenty more to Far Cry 4, as the dramatic trailer showbn during E3 hinted at a memorable antagonist and an interesting story. There’s also the very unique fact that people who buy the game will receive a number of codes they can use to invite friends who don’t have it to play co-op.

Forget all that though. All you need to know to look forward to the game’s November 18 release is that elephant melee rocks.