Far Cry Instincts Review - XBX

It’s surprising that the Xbox 360 is still suffering from the whole “last-generation port” disease. Over six months after the system launch, 360 owners are still being asked to pay full price for last year’s Xbox and PlayStation 2 games, gussied up with slightly improved graphics and perhaps a new feature or two. Predator attempts to buck this trend, however, by offering a whole new episode along with last year’s Far Cry.

We Can Rebuild Him

The weird bit is that, technically, the game asks you to play through the previous Far Cry Instincts (with slightly enhanced graphics) before you can access said new content. Thankfully, a short trip to any internet cheat site will get you around this issue. Still, though, there’s no better way to remind Far Cry fans that they just dropped $60 on what is mostly the same game they bought last year than making them experience the same old content all over again.

Far Cry Instincts, despite its glossy new coat of paint, still suffers from the same good and bad points of its predecessor. The development of your feral powers later in the game add a bit of variety to the whole situation, as the game goes from a simple first-person shooter to a combination of shooting and stealthy hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, it also causes a serious difficulty curve problem, as attaining these powers near the end of the first episode actually makes the game easier as you go. Far Cry goes from a fairly challenging adventure to a cake-walk.

The issue’s not so prevalent in the second chapter, as you actually start out with all of your superhuman powers the second time around.

None of this is helped by the still crappy enemy artificial intelligence. Every enemy you come across in Far Cry will be one of two things – stupid to the point of running into walls constantly, or bearing superhuman eyesight and aim, able to see and shoot you from miles away. It’s all rather frustrating.

Welcome to the Online Jungle

The rather mediocre single-player campaign is offset by a fantastic map editor and the ability to share and play user-created maps online. Far Cry doesn’t do anything too special in multiplayer, but the game modes are just good enough that you’ll find yourself having loads of fun.

One play mode in particular has a single player using all his feral powers to hunt down the other players on the map. It’s reminiscent of the spy/merc multiplayer style found in Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell series, and really a great way to take advantage of the game’s single-player plot points.

Manimal

Far Cry Instincts: Predator isn’t the most impressive looking or playing game in the Xbox 360 library. The relatively large levels still suffer from the same level of pop in found on the old Xbox version, and some of the textures are downright ugly.

That said, if you’re looking for a solid multiplayer game, and love to tinker around with map editors – especially when you can show off your handiwork to other players – you can’t go wrong with Predator.