Gaming

Far Cry 5 review: Immersive playground in the heart of cultist America

Featuring a lovely weekend with the Seed Family

Published

April 27, 2018

Luigi Leonardo

Since Grand Theft Auto III’s explosive arrival more than a decade ago, open-world games established themselves as part and parcel of the video game industry. For years, game developers have tried to replicate and improve on Rockstar Games’ formula.

Following Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft pioneered a more inventive take on the open-world system — an expansive map driven by waypoints. However, after years of sequels, their unique formula has grown tired and weary.

That is, until Far Cry 5 came along.

Reinventing the wheel

Only behind Assassin’s Creed, the Far Cry series enjoys its spot as one of Ubisoft’s most trusted properties. Besides the five main games, the franchise already has a plethora of spin-offs, expansions, and downloadable content.

At its heart, the Far Cry series is a Rambo simulator that drops you into an exotic location to fight off a militant force. From the start, you face a completely red map that you slowly carve to your favor. You do this by completing missions, liberating outposts, and unlocking the map. Throughout the game, you are pestered by the game’s — sometimes psychotic, sometimes manipulative — villains.

Far Cry 5 keeps the essentials but infuses a breath of fresh air into the tired formula. The game isn’t just a minefield of spoon-fed objectives anymore. Now, it’s a fully immersive map that you tackle in your own way.

Absolute freedom

In Far Cry 5, you, a sheriff’s deputy, are dropped into the hostile Hope County in Montana. A doomsday cult has taken roots in the county, coercing innocent people through torture and mind control. Your job is simple: rescue the populace and kill the cult’s leader, Joseph Seed.

Unlike previous Far Cry games, the fifth entry presents a completely explorable map right off the bat. In Far Cry 5, you decide which region you want to liberate first. It doesn’t lock out anything.

Also, the game doesn’t immediately reveal which points on the map have things for you to do. It’s a blank map that you explore by yourself. You unlock waypoints by either encountering them physically, reading about them in notes, or talking to NPCs in the surrounding area. The map isn’t a tedious checklist; it’s an experience you craft.

Additionally, Far Cry 5 doesn’t hide its skills or weapons behind grinding progression trees. Just from the first region, you can unlock all perks and weapons — if you have enough money or points, that is. Regardless, Far Cry 5’s skills costs are fair. A few hours into my playthrough, I already carried a .50 caliber sniper rifle, a shotgun, and a whole load of explosives.

Friends are forever

Another refreshing addition to Far Cry 5’s mechanics is the offline co-op.

A few years ago, Assassin’s Creed Unity had the not-so-brilliant idea of locking some of its content behind a co-op requirement, meaning you couldn’t play some missions unless you had a friend with you. If you didn’t have a friend with the game, the console, and a good internet connection, you were out of luck.

Far Cry 5 finally solves the riddle of co-op by introducing a host of NPCs that you can bring along on missions. Ubisoft has realized that even just a digital dog is enough to lift the monotony of killing tons of cultists. Throughout the game, you unlock and recruit new characters by rescuing them or doing missions for them.

Thankfully, Far Cry 5’s Guns for Hire aren’t cardboard cutouts. They have their own stories, characters, and abilities. Because of their diversity, their effectiveness depends on your own preferred play styles.

Do you prefer the stealthy approach? The huntress Jess Black wields a silent, deadly bow for your covert operations. Are you more of a demolitions guy? Hurk Drubman, Jr. touts a meaty grenade launcher that can cut down a helicopter in a few shots.

Besides this gaggle of oddities, Far Cry 5 also has a trio of strangely adorable furry friends (or Fangs for Hire) you can take with you. Boomer is a cute, scouting dog. Peaches is a ruthless mountain lion assassin. Cheeseburger is a towering bear. (Yes, you can pet them all.)

Joseph who?

Far Cry 5 features one of the most enjoyable first-person experiences this year. Until it drags you back into its story.

To liberate a region, you fill a meter of influence. Every third of the way through, the region’s lieutenant (or boss) issues a search warrant for you. Immediately, every enemy gets one-hit-kill ammo. One hit, you’re out. When you wake up, the lieutenant confronts you in his/her headquarters which you eventually escape from through stealth or gunfire.

These required story missions are still par for the course. However, while they do offer enjoyable gameplay, they are a massive pain. Their inevitability takes away from your pristine immersion into the game. Even if you’re busy liberating an outpost, once you hit that point in the game, you’re yanked mercilessly into one of the story missions.

Regardless, every lieutenant offers a unique flavor to their region. John Seed is a merciless evangelical who prefers torture to bend his adherents into shape. Faith Seed uses an airborne hallucinogenic to control her soldiers. Jacob Seed trains canines into dangerous killing machines.

Despite how charismatic they are, there’s not much to care about in Far Cry 5. The big baddie, Joseph Seed, offers nothing but a backdrop with which his lieutenants operate. Ubisoft tried to market a commentary on today’s political climate in the US. However, all they managed was a version of WWE’s The Wyatt Family.

Much of the story’s lack of empathy derives from the game’s curse of a nameless protagonist. Far Cry 3 had Jason, the fish out of water. Far Cry 4 had the recruited Ajay Ghale. Sadly, Far Cry 5 lacked that character anchor to hook gamers into its story. In fact, characters simply call you “Rook” or “Deputy.” You, as an in-game character, don’t have a story.

You never really care about any of the game’s more important characters including yourself. You engage in rescue missions for people whom you’ve never built any rapport with prior. Far Cry 5 just isn’t a convincing story.

Then again, Far Cry 5 harmonizes to the music of nature or of gunshots, but not to the Seed Family’s evangelization. The game shines brighter when you’re free to traverse the picturesque landscapes of Hope County. It’s still an all-around enjoyable game.

Gaming

PlayStation unveils Prism Collection

Transparent PS5 accessories return

Published

October 29, 2026

Rodneil Quiteles

PlayStation is bringing back the see-through aesthetic with the Prism Collection, a new lineup of transparent DualSense controllers and PlayStation 5 console covers.

Announced on October 28, the collection features three colorways: Flare Orange, Emerald Green, and Graphite Gray. Each combines translucent materials with a glossy finish, offering a glimpse of the hardware beneath the exterior.

The collection takes inspiration from the transparent electronics trend of the late 1990s, giving the PS5 and its accessories a retro-inspired look with a more contemporary design.

Three colors, one transparent design

The Prism Collection applies the transparent treatment to both the DualSense wireless controller and matching PS5 console covers.

The three color options are:

Flare Orange: A vibrant orange finish with subtle rosy tones where the transparent materials overlap.
Emerald Green: A deep green finish that gains visual depth through its translucent exterior.
Graphite Gray: A cool-toned gray design with a more understated appearance.

The DualSense controllers feature a high-gloss transparent finish across the back, revealing parts of their internal components. A metallic finish on the center cover adds contrast to the design.

The collection revisits an aesthetic popularized by consumer electronics in the late 1990s, when transparent plastic casings let users see the technology inside their devices.

According to PlayStation designer Leo Cardoso, the goal was to revive that look while keeping it consistent with the PS5’s design.

PlayStation Prism Collection price and availability

The Prism Collection will launch starting February 4, 2027, with preorders opening on November 10, 2026, at 10 AM local time in supported markets.

The DualSense controllers will be available globally, while the matching console covers will be sold directly through PlayStation in supported regions and in limited quantities through select retailers elsewhere.

Here’s how much the accessories will cost in select markets:

Accessory	US price	UK price	Europe price
Prism Collection DualSense controller	US$84.99	£74.99	€84.99
Prism Collection PS5 console cover	US$74.99	£64.99	€74.99

Actual retail prices and availability may vary by region.

Gaming

ROG G700 review: The best prebuilt PC you can get off the shelf

This PC will make you stop worrying about specs.

Published

October 28, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

The last time I touched a PC was 2014.

At the time, I’d just finished moving houses. While my old house had space for a desk and a fairly decent PC for its time, I opted for a smaller workstation because I was confident that laptops were the future.

Now, more than ten years later, I wish I didn’t dismiss PCs so readily. Thanks to AI, the price of a new PC has reached new levels of absurdity today. It’s not easy to stock up on components anymore.

So, it was like a very heavy blessing falling down from heaven and crash-landing on my lap when the ROG G700 arrived on my doorstep. It’s my first PC in over a decade, and, wow, what a return.

A box with everything you need

The art of building a PC takes a lot of effort these days. You’ll need a command over every little detail that every single component can do. Obviously, you also need to time the market for better prices.

That said, the ROG G700 is not for the minmaxers. It’s a fully built tower you can — gingerly — pick up from the shelf and play on just as soon as you get home.

It’s perfect for people like me. Now, if I had the time and the money, I’d definitely make a little more effort to explore every single detail. However, as someone returning to the PC world after a decade, this prebuilt PC is more than enough to dip my toes back into it.

It is quite the package, though. The tower is 9.45 inches wide by 20.05 inches long. It’s also 18.88 inches tall. If you have a small space, you might struggle to find a space for this behemoth.

Plus, it weighs 40.39 pounds. If you live up a flight of stairs, you’d better not skip leg day. Even then, it was scary to handle this tower, knowing how much hardware I was holding up a few feet from the ground.

A clean design for gamers

Usually, I’m not a fan of heavy gamer aesthetics. As much as I identify as a gamer, I prefer keeping that part of my identity lowkey from how I look. I don’t go for all the edgy angles and the RGB lighting.

But the ROG G700 is one exception to my rule. Even then, it’s not that huge of an exception.

The ROG G700 exudes that gamer aesthetic, but it’s still pretty clean. The chassis has subtle grilles that ease cooling. The main panel is transparent that peeks into a cleanly organized system with heavy ROG visuals. The brand’s logo is peppered throughout the system. The RGB lighting, though bright at times, was easy to get used to.

Personally, I liked how clean the internals are organized. It always hits the right part of my brain when I see something well put together.

Additionally, though it could use a tiny bit more, the G700 has an ample number of ports well situated at the back and up top. When I was setting everything up, I had enough space to make sure I didn’t end up with wire clutter. My workstation was clean at all times.

The 2026 machine

Now, let’s get into the performance. With the highest configuration, the ROG G700 goes up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, up to a 16GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB RAM, and 2TB of SSD storage. All thing considered, this is a very powerful machine for today’s world.

If you’re not down on particulars and just want something off the rack, this is more than enough. I tested the G700 on this year’s games like 007 First Light and Forza Horizon 6. Both games performed without a hitch. In fact, I appreciated both games a lot more than when I played them on older laptops. The graphics were absurdly crisp without sacrificing a smooth performance.

Also, as a hard multitasker, I love alt-tabbing even while I’m playing. While other setups usually complain, the G700 doesn’t really care. You can run a Twitch stream, play a YouTube video, or have Spotify open in the background, all while playing an intensive game. This is a machine that tells you to leave your worries at the front door because it can handle everything.

If anything, it can get too powerful. Despite the cooling system with a tri-fan intake, the tower still gets hot with heavy loads. After an hour on 007 First Light, my room started getting much warmer. Though you won’t get performance dips, all that heat is coming your way.

Is the ROG G700 your GadgetMatch?

As someone getting back into PCs, the ROG G700 is a powerful off-the-shelf prebuilt PC. Now, do you need all this hardware for day-to-day gaming? Probably not. But if you don’t want to worry if your rig can do certain things, get the ROG G700.

If you have the money, that is.

Being a powerful machine, the G700 comes with a hefty price tag. When it was launched, the machine started at PhP 179,995. Now, with prices of RAM steadily climbing, prices are likely higher today. Plus, you need good peripherals to maximize this PC, so expect to spend a lot more. Overall, it’s very expensive, but at least you’re getting your money’s worth on the investment.

For that, the ROG G700 gets a Swipe Right and a Super Swipe for being a powerful machine you can get today. It is, however, a Swipe Left if you’re looking for cheaper options that won’t break your bank.

Gaming

Nintendo eShop will finally launch in the Philippines

The doors will open on November 10.

Published

October 27, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

Filipino Nintendo fans, the wait is finally over! Nintendo eShop and Nintendo Switch Online are launching in the Philippines on November 10.

If you’re in the Philippines (or any other country without the service, for that matter), owning a Switch 2 comes with a modicum of difficulty. The country does not have access to Nintendo’s online services, prompting users to buy physical cartridges or switch their region to supported countries, which unfortunately leads to lopsided pricing.

Around the launch of the Switch 2, Nintendo promised that these online services will soon launch in more countries, including the Philippines. Finally, that date is nigh. On November 10, users can access the Nintendo eShop to purchase games digitally, and Nintendo Switch Online to play with friends online.

Besides that, we don’t know much else. There are still a lot of questions unanswered. For example, how will the games’ prices compare to prices in other regions? Since users in the country are forced to switch to another country’s store, they are also subservient to that particular country’s taxes and fees.

Either way, it’s a huge win for Filipino gamers, who no longer have to pretend they’re Singaporean or American just to access online games.