Far Cry Instincts

"Well, it's worth a rental..."

When this game was advertised however many years ago at E3, it looked like an awesome game, and for a long while couldn't wait for it to come out, now that it has, I wish it hadn't. Like most sequels, this game was sub-par, the original far-cry was spectacular, at least in my opinion. This game fell short in many areas, which will be covered in this review. To put it short, this game is worth the rental, and possibly the purchase in a price drop. Also note that this is only my second review on GameFAQs, so it may be sub par to more experienced review'rs.

Story
4/10

I don't think im spoiling anything huge here, but if you don't want any of the *plot* ruined, then don't read the next bit. You are Jack Carver, and host tour-boat rides to places. You are told to go to some random island in the middle of nowhere by a chick named Val. Your boat is destroyed, and you are forced to swim to land, where you need to survive. Along the way, you meet Doyle, who is the 'Navi' of the game. On this island you are givin some form of steroid, and are slowly turning into an animal. You gain powers, and stuff to make the game interesting. Oh, there is a guy named Crowe, who is bad.

Gameplay
7/10

Gameplay in this game is much like halo 2, with some half life 2, mixed with a small amount of Metal Gear Solid. The first few levels require stealth to beat, or at least, the want you to use stealth, it isnt hard going 'commando.' Difficulty wise, Far-Cry: Instincts is fairly easy, there are a few hard parts, and some places where you might get stuck, but nothing to drastic. The game is pretty well set on, "Kill everybody to win!" and you weapons show it. This game also allows Duel Wielding (Akimbo) with certain weapons, to make it easier than it already is. The health system is screwed, one of the biggest problems in the entire game. on the first 3 levels or so, you need to find your own health. After you get the drugs, you begin to get super-powers, and start to regenerate health. This takes away the entire stealth portion of the game, because you can just run in, rip everybody to pieces, then retreat to the forest and regain all your health. The AI is great though, no more "I Smell You!" lines. The enemies will search for you, call in people to help them, and use the forest to their advantage.

Sound
9/10

Amazing, simply spectacular! This game gets the forest noises perfect, the sneaking music is suiting, and when you are blowing the brains out of your opponents, you get music that makes kill even harder(?). The voice acting was really well done, but you might get some characters confused. The only reason I give this a 9 rather than a 10, is that a nasty glitch might cause the music to be screwed up, but this is fixable by deleting all your game info, and starting a new file on your X-Box. Also worth noting, is that this game has an extremely excessive amount of swearing, Ive never heard the F-Bomb dropped so much in one game (but Im sure there are worse games).

Graph-X
9/10

Wow, Just wow. These are some of the best graphics I've ever seen. The effects used in this game are awesome, the reflections, the light flares, the everything. Again, a month delay could make this a 10. Ubisoft got sloppy, and some of the plants, and other things are looking a bit shabby. Some of the things I loved were the sunsets/sunrises, haze, nights etc... These are probably some of the best graphics you will see for an X-Box FPS.

Controls
8/10

Essentially, its just Halo controls, but with some minor changes. IMO Halo has perfect controls for a consol FPS, and this game should've had the exact same controls (or almost exact). But, lo-and-behold, they screwed some things up here too. I'm not really going to go into detail about the controls, but this game would have been a ton better for the PC, just because you can do different things, rather than having one button to 3 things.

Replay Value
2/10

This section is going to be short, but this game really has no replay value. sure, you might go and play a few levels over again, or go through to find hidden weapons, but really, once you beat the game, all its worth is multiplayer (which I'm not going to talk about).

Conclusion

Worth a rent, definitely worth a rent. But another month delay could be enough to give this game a much higher score. Just remember, I'm reviewing this under the assumption that you are only going to be playing single-player, from what I've heard, Multiplayer is FANTASTIC, but hey. I don't own live, so I have no experience with online play. Odds are, that you wont finish this game in one rental, but it isnt worth it, the end is stupid hard. heh, the only reason that I finished it in one rental is because I have no life what-so-ever ^_^;

STORY ----------4
GAMEPLAY ----- 7
SOUND --------- 9
GRAPHICS ----- 9
CONTROLS ----- 8
REPLAY VALUE - 2

Minimum - Replay Value
Maximum - Graphics & Sound
Score - 39/60 = 65%
Grade - C
Average - 6.5

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/05