Far Cry Instincts Predator

"The best Far Cry yet - but is it worth next-gen money?"

Far Cry, as a videogame, has gone through quite a number of changes since its March 2004 release for PC. After receiving glowing reviews from the gaming community, it was remade and revamped as Far Cry: Instincts for release on XBox a year and a half later, once again garnering lavish praise from critics and fans. An expansion pack, titled Far Cry: Instincts Evolution, would eventually follow on the XBox, featuring an all-new single-player storyline alongside a larger suite of multiplayer options.

The latest entry in the series, Far Cry: Instincts Predator, was released for Microsoft's fledgling XBox 360 console at the same time as the XBox expansion pack. FC:IP includes all of the content from both XBox Far Cry games, as well as support for the XBox 360's next-gen features, such as HDTV compatibility and XBox Live connectivity. The game boasts a total of 15-20 hours of single-player gameplay, plus a number of online or offline multiplayer modes, and an included mapmaker utility to boot. With an offering of such a large amount of content, does this iteration of the game live up to the standards of its predecessors?

Visuals:

When Far Cry came out in 2004, its graphics were clearly some of the best ever seen in a shooter. Its game world, a lush, densely packed tropical jungle, had never been done so well before, and the visuals ended up playing a major role in the game's overall quality. Since the game was entirely rebuilt for the XBox, its visuals on the less-powerful console were expectedly poorer, but the game still featured some of the most impressive looks of any console game available at the time.

FC:IP is a port of the XBox version of the game, so it unfortunately misses out on the initial game's slightly better imagery. In addition, the graphics really don't seem to have been upgraded very much for the more-powerful 360, as chunky character and weapon models and low-resolution textures abound. These flaws are even more apparent when playing the game on an HDTV, as the game was clearly not originally designed to be HD-compliant. Of course, the visuals on the XBox were near the top of the line for that console, so the problems here aren't tremendous; it's just somewhat disappointing that you can't experience the Far Cry world at its peak. One positive that can be taken away from this fact, though, is that the entire game runs without so much as a hiccup to the frame rate.

The entire game takes place from the perspective of your character, Jack Carver, so cutscenes take on a different viewpoint from what you're used to in a shooter. This quirk helps tremendously to immerse you in the game, especially during the sporadic cutscenes that play out the game's storyline. They can be a bit of a double-edged sword, though, as the visual flaws on certain character models become more evident when you're experiencing them from shorter distances; in particular, the animation movements for NPCs look very jerky when viewed up close.

Ultimately, the visuals in FC:IP don't really look like they're from a next-gen console game. Often, you can clearly tell that this is a port of a last-gen title, and this stands as a bit of a letdown, since you're definitely going to have to pay a next-gen price to buy it. Of course, this won't affect anyone's experience with the actual gameplay, so whether this is important or not will depend on each user.

Score: 6/10

Sound:

The jungle (and other) environments you will be traversing in FC:IP feature some very impressive sound effects. You'll be easily able to identify the ambient sounds made by such creatures as birds and bugs while you're in outdoor areas, giving the forest a much more lifelike feel. Indoors environments feel striking in their own right, allowing you to hear activity up ahead before you can actually see what caused the noise. Additionally, of the weapon and vehicle sound effects are spot-on.

Voice acting in FC:IP is about what you would expect from such a game. There's nothing here that will make you groan, but there really aren't any performances that are consistently great, either. Most of the voiceovers come from the generic mercenary characters, and while they usually have some funny (and occasionally, important) stuff to say, their delivery tends to be over the top, in an action-movie type of way. This manages to fit well with the direction the game's action takes.

Most of the music in FC:IP tends to be low-key, techno/rock types that occasionally mix with some tribal-type strains. The tracks pick up as the action in game gets a bit more hectic, and die off with the action as well. Again, the music here isn't anything that will make you want to jump up and start dancing, but it's good enough that it never gets in the way of your experience.

The only noticeable problem with the sound in the game is one of mixing. At times, different sounds will end up competing to be heard, and one will end up drowning out another. This becomes a problem during some cutscenes, as the voiceovers tend to be fairly quiet, and can end up almost completely silenced by background noise. Compared to the rest of the game's sound performance, this is a minor flaw, but still enough of an annoyance to be worth mentioning.

Far Cry's audio on PC was equal in caliber to the visuals, and the combination of the two is what made the jungle feel so real. That audio is basically intact in FC:IP, and aside from one quirk that still hasn't been ironed out, the game's acoustics are of an overall high quality.

Score: 9/10

Gameplay:

Far Cry's basic gameplay concept – survival in a jungle, battling against both an army of mercenaries and non-human monsters – was a successful formula, thanks in large part to its simple, cat-and-mouse setup. FC:IP plays as a perfect replication of that blueprint, allowing XBox 360 owners to experience the same hunt through the jungle as their PC and XBox counterparts.

Survival in FC:IP does not come via your typical run-and-gun type gameplay. If you want to get off the island, you'll need to use that jungle to aid you in your mission just as much as you'll need to use your weapons. The environments lend you plenty of opportunity to silently kill off your opponents, be it by sneaking up on them for a stealthy kill, or by leading them into a trap.

The XBox version of Far Cry introduced several new mechanics to the basic shooter-style gameplay of the PC game. Instead of simply wielding your guns and a knife against your foes, you are now able to set traps with either tree branches or Claymore mines, which you can lure your enemies into to quickly kill them off. These traps are very useful, and though they may be a bit too easy to use, they are still extremely satisfying to pull off.

Guns do have their place, though, and you'll get to use plenty of them before you're through with the island. Each of the weapons has its own distinct uses, and the game forces you to weigh the benefits of each by limiting you to carrying only one of each class. The feel of the weapons is a little depressed from what you would normally expect, but they'll all still bring the types of results you would expect once you've gotten accustomed to them.

Another interesting twist employed in FC:IP are Jack Carver's feral abilities. Throughout the course of the game, Jack gains the facility to (among other things) regenerate health, attack with enhanced strength, and see enemies via the scents that they give off. These capabilities lean the fighting in your favor, and they also end up being a blast to use. The game balances their use by making them drain adrenaline, which you need to recharge when you run out.

You will also employ vehicles during your time as Jack. The game features a solid lineup of transports, from boats to Humvees to even a hang-glider; unfortunately, though, they usually have little use, other than quickly transporting you around the game's large environments, or sporadically serving as mobile turrets. The fact that they are awkward to control doesn't help their cause either, especially when you consider how excellent the controls are for the rest of the game.

All of the gameplay's different facets gel together very smoothly as you play, giving the game its distinctly enjoyable feel. Whether you're stalking through the jungle, executing silent attacks on your enemies, blasting your way through a gunfight, or speeding along on a dangerous trek through enemy encampments, the game always manages to maintain its action-movie feel of excitement. It also helps that the game paces itself well, adapting the situations it puts you in to the new capabilities you've gained along the way. The game is mostly pretty linear in its progression, but it still manages to give you a good feeling of control, thanks to the different options available for handling each set of circumstances. Towards the end of the Instincts expansion portion, the areas begin to drag a bit, and you'll definitely feel as though they were stretched out to add length to the game, but by then you'll want to finish the game bad enough to push onward.

Enemy A.I. in the game is a mixed bag. Your mercenary foes will often run for cover, and will deftly pursue you through the jungle if you gain their attention. This ends up being their weakness, though, since they're never able to figure out what your traps look like, and can be provoked into tripping them easily. They do manage to hold their own in firefights, though, which is a great incentive to avoid such situations. One problem that pops up in the expansion portion of the game is that enemies will at times either spawn in next to you, or spawn infinitely in a certain section of the game; these are likely a side effect of the chapter's decreased linearity, though, and they shouldn't affect your experience much.

FC:IP does not feature any save points, instead keeping the checkpoint-style save system of the PC original. As with any game that uses this feature, it can get frustrating at times, since some parts of the story end up being more difficult than others; overall, though, the game keeps trial-and-error sequences to a minimum, and the save system does its job well enough.

On the whole of its merits, FC:IP is an exciting and enjoyable game to play. The unique combination of hunting your enemies through the jungle and engaging in adrenaline-pumping firefights and chases with them make the game experience one to remember.

Score: 8/10

Story:

As with the PC Far Cry, FC:IP starts out with Jack Carver on his chartered boat, giving a reporter a tour of a remote island in the Pacific. Soon enough, his boat is destroyed, he's thrown onto the island, and his adventure begins in earnest. The storyline has a lot of twists – the first of which being how Jack gets his feral abilities – and ends up taking a The Island of Dr. Moreau-meets-Doom direction. The story comes at you in bits and pieces, which really helps to keep you interested, and the fact that it all happens through Jack's eyes adds to the intrigue as well.

The plot in the expansion single-player campaign isn't nearly as interesting as the main game's. You'll once again take control of Jack as he gets involved with a group of mercenaries, this time thanks to a gun-runner named Kade, and the whole thing ends up spiraling into another Dr. Moreau-type situation. This second story borrows much too liberally from the first one, and since you need to play the first to unlock the second, it's not likely to maintain your interest nearly as much.

The story in FC:IP clearly sees inspiration from a number of different established properties, and manages to successfully combine aspects of each of them together to create an intriguing plot for its first chapter; however, the second chapter's storyline feels like a cheap copy of the prior plot, and ends up becoming almost a bore.

Score: 7/10

Features/Modes:

FC:IP includes a full complement of multiplayer modes, all of which can be played either via split-screen, system link, or XBox Live. There are five multiplayer game types available: Chaos (essentially a deathmatch equivalent), Team Chaos (team deathmatch), Steal the Sample (capture the flag, with test tubes in lieu of flags), Seek and Secure (a king of the hill variant), and Predator (a unique type, where one player plays as the ‘predator' with a full complement of feral abilities, while the rest play mercenaries trying to set off an alarm to kill the predator). Each of these modes can be very fun to play – especially the Predator mode – and they all stand up well against other multiplayer offerings in shooters on the XBox 360. It's worth mentioning, though, that nothing here is as groundbreaking as the single-player content.

A full-fledged mapmaker is also included in with the game. This tool showcases an incredible amount of depth, allowing gamers the option to customize almost every facet of a map that they create. In fact, the steep learning curve is really the only negative that can be found for this editor, as some amateurs who load it up for the first time will likely feel their heads spin due to all of the different aspects they can control. By and large, a means of creation such as this isn't present in most console shooters, so it is definitely a welcome presence here.

The inclusion of a deep array of multiplayer options, as well as a very well fleshed-out mapmaker system, add quite a bit of value to the 15-20 hours of gameplay already found in the two single-player campaigns, making FC:IP a game you aren't likely to finish with very quickly.

Score: 9/10

Online Play:

As with most any other game on the XBox 360, FC:IP offers full support for XBox Live gameplay, as well as all the other elements of Microsoft's proprietary gaming service. The experience of getting online to play a match is very smooth, and the game also contains a quick match option for those for don't want to search out a particular game type. Once you get into a game, the gameplay will occasionally suffer from bouts of latency, but is otherwise very well implemented. The multiplayer modes are just as fun to play through Live as they are offline, and with a decent-sized community already built up for it, you should never be without someone to compete against.

Another useful feature that shows up in FC:IP is the ability to upload (and download) created maps seamlessly through XBox Live. This definitely adds to the incentive of building your own maps, as a large number of fairly good maps are already being heavily used by the community.

Thanks to XBox Live, the multiplayer experience in FC:IP is extremely accessible. Anyone who enjoys playing the game against others will have few problems with their encounters online.

Score: 9/10

Total Score:

With over two years passed since its initial release on PC, Far Cry has come a long way. It survived – and even thrived – after a port to a console with inferior capabilities; it added a slew of multiplayer options that altered and improved the experience by leaps and bounds; and, ultimately, it found a community outside of PC gamers that enjoy its unique take on the first-person shooter genre. Now, with its appearance on XBox 360 as Far Cry: Instincts Predator, it clearly and unmistakably shows its age – but underneath the low-polygon models and low-resolution textures there is still a very deep and enjoyable game to be found.

If you're an XBox 360 owner looking to play a quality single-player shooter with an interesting storyline, but are not concerned with multiplayer, then FC:IP will be worth at least a rental for you. If you're looking for a multiplayer game to pass your time with, and you have XBox Live, then you also should rent FC:IP to see if it scratches your itch. Finally, if you have never played Far Cry, and you'd like to find out what it's all about, then you may want to try the game (and its expansion) on the original XBox, where all of FC:IP's content can likely be had for less money than the XBox 360 version.

Score: 7/10 (not an average)

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Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/06