Far Cry Instincts

"Far Cry is far out!"

Far Cry: Instincts is probably one of the best first-person shooters (fps) out right now for the xbox. Far Cry seems to have all the fine qualities that make up a good fps game. Although there are several minor problems with the game, it is still a great game to add to anyone's collection.

Story
--------------------
Like most fps out there, Far Cry: Instincts isn't really a story driven game. You play a character named Jack Carver who is a tour guide to a tropical island. Basically, the game puts you into action without giving much of an introduction. All you know is that you are in your boat giving a tour to some woman and then suddenly your boat is blown up by some helicopter. All you have to do is somehow survive the island and make it out in one piece.

I find that there are many faults to the story line, which really isn't a big surprise considering it's an fps game. One thing that I didn't understood is why a certain group of people were suddenly after Jack. It seems for no reason, unless I missed out on something.

Far Cry: Instincts shouldn't be bought if you think you're in for a unique story.

Graphics
--------------------
The graphic in Far Cry: Instincts is absolutely amazing. The developers did a really great job in creating a realistic jungle/tropical environment. The game features an amazing amount of cool water effects, awesome plant life, and a lot of other great features. Cool thing about all this is that there is barely any slow downs in the game.

The only problem with the graphics, in my opinion, is that there are a lot of “tricks” used in the game. By “tricks” I mean that the graphic system only draws in the radius of around 20-30 ft. By drawing, I mean when you see something appear on your screen. So, you could be walking when suddenly a tree appears in front of you that you didn't see 3 seconds ago but would have seen in real life. For the most part, this isn't a problem as most of the environment is designed to support this view. However, when you are running really fast through the world, you will notice that grass and other things “suddenly” becomes visible that wasn't visible a few seconds ago.

Game play
--------------------
The game plays out beautifully. You walk around the world in either stealth or run-and-gun. You get tons of weapons to choose from and not to mention that you get awesome “animalistic” skills. How you get the “animal” skill is kind of a spoil to the game. However, when you get these skills, you can launch a person into mid air, or run at a really fast rate. Overall, the game plays out smoothly. You can use real world weapons such as a 9mm pistol or M4. You are only limited to carrying 3 weapons at a time: a pistol, main weapon, and a heavy weapon. Also, you get to use mounted weapons and some vehicles. Personally, I liked the hummer you get to drive around. It comes with a machine gun mounted on the top and it comes around quite frequently throughout the game. Another thing I like is this one boat that you can drive around in with a machine gun. However, the boats and land vehicle have limited use as you only get to ride around with them in the early parts of the game and not so much later on. Another cool feature of the game is that you can rip the mounted guns out and use it for a limited time. For example, a mounted machine gun can be ripped out of its base and be carried around or used in the mounted position.

The problem with running around is that sometimes you want to come in for a silence kill. However, this game isn't so much into the “stealth” as it says. You can hide, set up traps (like a tree branch trap or claymore mine) and play guerilla tactics. But, there is a severe problem with this as it is extremely hard to use these “stealth” tactics. In the first part of the game, you can easily run around and stab people in the back. However, later on, it is extremely hard to set up traps or revert to guerilla tactics. You can crouch, crawl, or walk slow to sneak behind someone, but it isn't really an essential part of the game play.

The overall game plays out nicely. Only complaint is the dumb AI. The final boss of the game, who I will not say, is rather dumb. Basically, at the end he ran into a wall and got stuck. I reloaded and a similar thing happened but I managed to budge him out and get into a more even fight. Also, there is a problem with the same repeating “mini” boss guy. You kill him every time, but another of the same model appears later in the game. I found this thing fun at first when he was tossing barrels at me and stuff, but after about the 8th ot 9th time seeing him, it became more boring than fun. I find this annoying that there isn't really much of a challenging boss fight in this game. You can easily get headshots all the way through and no decent boss fights.

Overall
--------------------
Overall, the game is extremely good. I give the game an 8/10 because it is a really good game. Far Cry suffers from the same “dumb AI” and “no story line” that most fps has. The overall game is nice and it has been a while since a good fps came out on the xbox. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a decent fps.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/05