Far Cry Instincts Predator is a 360 port of both the Xbox’s Instincts and Evolution chapters in one handy package. I’d have thought most people buying this game would have played Instincts through so I found it kind of strange that you have to finish Instincts before you can play Predator – but it’s a darned good game (apart from the final boss battle, which is, to be blunt, Kerrrapp) so there’s no real harm done.
The events that happened during Far Cry Instincts changed Jack Carver's (that’s you that is) life forever. Thanks to nutty professor Krieger's unique brand of folk medicine Jack became a semi-animal and had to fight for his life as he found his way across the beautiful Jacutan Archipelago islands in search of revenge.
Back home after his exploits Jack thought he had finally found paradise. But when a gorgeous woman enters the beach bar he’s drinking at things quickly go down hill. Hunted for a murder he didn't commit Jack is drawn into another adventure
and must draw on his most savage instincts in order to make his hunters his prey.
Anyhoo, during Instincts Jack Carver (that’s still you) gained feral abilities which allowed him (still you) to run faster, jump higher and further, track enemies by scent and see better in the dark – you have all these right from the start in Evolution… and I have to say it kind of sullied the experience for me – the best bit of the Instincts story was the way you gained these abilities and learned to best use them and combine them with traditional combat. Being this powerful beast from the start makes things a little easy, and simplistic – on the default setting you can just about charge through the entire game running up to and slash/punch attacking enemies or using sprung tree branch (Rambo-style) traps – meaning the many weapons (shotguns, sniper rifles, machines guns, pistols, grenades and the new pipe bombs, molotovs and blowgun) are almost redundant – you use them more for your amusement than your protection or because you need them.
The game’s gorgeous tropical settings seem to have opened up a little and there seems to be more than one way to get through most of them. Cryo really seem to have taken the criticism of Instincts’ linearity on board and the second level (set in a small group of islands) allows you a remarkable amount of freedom and lets you explore the huge play area as long as you wish and achieve the three objects in any order you want – this lack or restriction is very good to see, and very cool to play. Later levels diversify quite well and mean that although shorter, Evolution is a more varied experience than Instincts, and the entire Predator experience shows that Cryo’s game engine can do more than just draw beautiful palm trees and water.
Whilst this was a pretty game on Xbox, and some of the panoramic tropical views are still impressive and pleasing to the eye, graphically this is without doubt a letdown on the 360, without even the usual texture overload to make you think the developers spent any serious time on this port. Yes, the water looks lovely (apart from some edges and one particularly awful fast-moving stream section), everything looks a bit more solid and moves more smoothly, but the basic character models (love interest Kade looks deformed) and aged ragdoll effects spoil the overall look, and numerous glitches give the game an unfinished appearance – sticky scenery is a real problem (steps-up into buildings that you stick on and ditches and gaps that you can get stuck in, meaning suicide or reloading your last save) and on one map I spotted a line of sandbags surrounding a machine gun nest floating 18 inches off the ground – graphical proof if needed that the new maps were hurried and poorly tested.
Worst is Predator’s aiming, which far from being finely tuned and instinctive, seems to lack the subtlety of the Xbox game as the reticle lurches from one target to the other - I found myself continually over-correcting, like I was driving a car that was poorly set up. You can alter the sensitivity but this just makes you do the same thing only slower or faster, and adding aiming aids doesn’t really seem to better the experience. I don’t know what happened in the port of the game or whether it’s an issue with the 360 joypad (which isn’t exactly a favourite of mine), but aiming is way trickier than in any of the other 360 shooters, first or third person.
The enemies and their AI, as in Instincts, work convincingly, to a point; enemies will react when friends are hit, hide and call for reinforcements to hunt you, and can’t see you if you’re hidden well or are being stealthy enough, but still manage to act incredibly dumb at times or appear to be psychic at others, they see you through trees and just won’t be led into some traps. Other sections see enemies spawn continuously (so you may as well just run away and leave them to it), and they sometimes appear out of thin air should you wander off the beaten track to somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. The poorest examples of the dodgy AI are of the supposedly highly evolved mutants (like you) that leap hundreds of feet to attack you but fall to their deaths – funny, but disappointing in equal measure.
The game now has three difficulty settings and that’s probably just as well because, on easy, hardened Far Cryers will probably run through Instinct and see off the Evolution story mode in one sitting, with only a few secrets to make you want to replay the levels. Thankfully Evolution has the same excellent multiplayer gameplay as the Xbox game that allows you to run and gun, sneaky-snipe or charge about using vehicles or your feral abilities like road-rager or a wild animal, and the enhanced map editor that will hopefully add greatly to its lifespan. New multiplayer maps, a new game mode and new map editor features (including new buildings, vehicles, weapons and a new Oil Refinery brush set) are all compatible with Instincts ones, so you can import, update and edit all those maps you made last summer, and hopefully didn’t delete yet. An impressive total of 23 varied multiplayer maps will keep you playing for a long time, and of course the ability to download other player-created maps or make your own means that you need never get over-familiar or bored with any of them. A few sessions of Evolution saw it finally displace Halo 2 as the 360’s best online shooter; even with only a maximum of only 16 players this is way more fun than Perfect Dark Zero, Call of Duty 2 or Recon and has enough options (game types, optional dedicated servers, private games, number of players, voting, allow ‘join in progress’, specified maximum health, armour, radar and weapon sets) to keep everyone happy, only a co-op campaign mode could have added the multiplayer options.
Xbox Far Cry Instincts was a very popular game at Gamecell last year and the new chapter included with this 360 port does a good job of extending the franchise’s life without actually evolving all that much. More of the same but still different enough to merit a purchase, even with annoyingly tricky aiming the game plays fluidly, manages to be engaging and fun, and even squeezes in a revengeful climax. If you liked Instincts and have sold your Xbox then you really can’t miss Jack Carver’s second outing and need to get this, if you still have your Xbox then I’d recommend buying the Evolution standalone datadisk – it might not be as pretty but it plays better.
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