“I don’t think it’s too bad as it is, but if we had had to wait until next week I’d have been surprised if we had a festival at all this year.”Ĭheltenham Festival racegoer, Jason Ellis, on Wednesday, March 11

The daily ritual for many in racing was to log on to Betfair’s special ‘will racing go ahead’ market for the Cheltenham Festival, which grew exponentially to become the most viewed market in the exchange’s history while the best part of £4 million was traded by the time the betting closed.

Oliver Dowden, Culture Secretary, talking to the BBC about the Cheltenham Festival on Monday, March 9įour weeks ago the watchwords for British racing were “business as usual” as final preparations were put in place for the Cheltenham Festival, the four biggest days in the jumps calendar.Ĭoncern had been mounting in the week prior to the festival as cases of Covid-19 crept up in Britain following the February half-term holidays, and other countries across Europe, such as France and Italy, started to report significant numbers of infections. No-one is trying to make Vaas a sympathetic character (he’s not, and he knows it), but it does make his perspective on things a bit more understandable.“The advice from the Chief Medical Officer is that at this stage we should not be cancelling such events, so we are not planning to cancel them” Michael Mando absolutely hits it for six with his performance of Vaas again, bringing a disturbingly unhinged but rational intensity to the character who alternates between self-deprecating jokes, wisecracks, and genuine anguish.Īs a short character study, I found Vaas: Insanity to be surprisingly insightful. It didn’t outstay it’s welcome, it was something I could get through fairly quickly (important when you’re an adult with a family), and didn’t try and pretend to be more than what it was. I breezed through the three Blade Piece missions and all 20 “end” waves on Story Mode in about two hours (not including the hour or so I spent on “Action Mode” at the start before that) so it’s not a long piece of content – and to be honest, I actually liked that. Either way, you’re never short of ammo or cash. There’s no happy middle on the difficulty level, unfortunately – it’s either so easy the enemies are no challenge at all (“Story Mode”), or so difficult you’re constantly dying after being shot a few times by someone you didn’t see from behind a pillar (“Action Mode”), with nothing in between. Vaas’ mind is a strange place, to say the least. It’s still very much Far Cry content and the premise works very well in the context it is presented. It’s all surprisingly similar to Deathloop in that regard, but what’s even more impressive is Vaas: Insanity doesn’t feel like a knockoff of Bethesda’s time-loop shooter at all. There’s a catch, though – if you die, you have to restart without any of your weapons or pick-ups, but you do retain any skills you’ve unlocked and a limited amount of money.

The three pieces of the blade are in different areas of the map which involve completing some challenges – such as destroying the radios on a World War II-era Liberty Ship while being attacked by enemies including manifestations of Jason Brody, the player’s character from Far Cry 3.Īs Vass works his way through various challenges, he earns money and unlocks character upgrades (more health, carrying more healing syringes, etc), buffs, and weapons which can be selected from safehouses – although I stopped bothering after I got the longbow and the side-by-side shotgun, because it proved an unstoppable combination. You take Vaas on a journey through his psyche (represented as a fantastical version of part of the Rook Islands from Far Cry 3), in search of three pieces of the Dragon’s Blade knife which is then reassembled to unleash the final battle (waves of enemies) in a representation of Vaas’ compound. This, of course, involves shooting people. Far Cry 3‘s protagonist Jason Brody is definitely living rent-free in Vaas’ head.

Virtual instanity season