"Far Cry 5" is a ham-fisted mess of American stereotypes and wink-wink, nudge-nudge jokes about gun violence. It feels like the wrong time to make this joke about an AR-15 considering that's the gun that was used in the Parkland shooting:
And that's the basest foundation of the kind of tone "Far Cry 5" takes with regard to American culture.
Much of the game's dialogue and characters are poorly done caricatures of American stereotypes: the sheriff, the preacher, the conspiracy theorist, etc. They all have something vaguely obvious to say, often with a subtle reference to today's culture. It's all stuff that would feel right at home in a side mission in "Grand Theft Auto 5" — a game that came out in 2013.
But it's 2018, and the US is more divided than ever. White nationalists are emboldened, teenagers are marching in the streets for gun control, and the White House seems particularly unstable.
Maybe it's not the best time for this kind of imagery?
Maybe I'm just too precious of a snowflake, but that seems unlikely given my interests. I love many violent games, and I've argued passionately before that playing violent video games doesn't cause real-life violence. I wouldn't argue that "Far Cry 5" is an exception.
It is, however, a tasteless game from bottom to top — from weapon descriptions, to character types, to dialogue to imagery. And not the good kind of tasteless that has something to say, but the juvenile kind that stuffposts on Reddit for fun.
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