Well after my hands-on preview of Far Cry: Instincts, it’s my pleasure to play the full game and tell you if the game really lived up to its potential. FC:I is essentially Ubisoft’s last flagship title to come to Xbox, with only two months of our beloved console’s life left (before we all buy the 360 at least) and they’ve definitely saved one of the best until last.

Imagine a tropical island, located in the crystal clear waters of polynesia. The sun is shining, birds chorus and the beaches are left untouched. Well that’s aside from the odd boat wreck anyway, which your boat – the Lady Karma – has just been added to, as you rush to the shore to escape the attacking helicopters on your tail.

You’re Jack Carver, ex-US Navy serviceman turned fisherman, who has just been attacked without provocation while escorting a journalist around the Jacutan Archipelago. And so begins the excellent story line behind Far Cry: Instincts, one of survival and the unlocking of your primal instincts.

Gameplay

As Jack (voiced by Stephen Dorff) you must find a way to survive on the island, which is generally by introducing some mercs to a few lumps of lead, or luring them into some nasty tree whips. But this would get boring after a while, right? Well Ubi thought so anyway, so they introduced the feral instincts. After being captured, and used as a test subject by Dr. Krieger, Carver undergoes some changes. He becomes superhumanly fast and strong, able to leap great distances and track his enemies by scent. The gameplay then shifts, with Jack turning from the prey to the predator.

This is the mechanic that drives the single player mode, and keeps the player going at quite a pace throughout, apart from the odd rest for recovery. This allows the game to have huge levels, but that last only a short while as the player runs through, taking out everyone they can as they go. Unfortunately the gameplay can be somewhat rushed, with a lot of the sections seeming pointless, there are plenty of levels which you can just rush through, on a vehicle for example. It can also be really easy, especially with the more powerful weapons, to just dominate – even before you become endowed with all your powers.

Multiplayer has all of the closeness and adrenaline pumping gameplay that you got in single player mode. Now you can test out your survival skills against your friends, in Chaos (Deathmatch), Team Chaos, Predator (Cat and Mouse) and Capture the Sample (CTF). All of these modes are excellent, exceptionally so with Predator, and will cater for everyone’s needs (except for those fun people who only play king of the hill).

Instincts also has an extremely powerful map editor, that could easily rival anything that you can currently get on the PC. Rather than being block based, like many console editors, CryTek has used a brush system. This allows you to shape your terrain excellently and effortlessly, creating majestic mountains or vast lakes for players to traverse. You then can then place five-hundred trees/bushes, two-hundred brushes (anything from buildings to a rock) and a bunch of vehicles and pick-ups. These maps can then be distributed over Live by hosting a game with your custom map, which players in the lobby will download (and at less than 600kb that won’t take long). One slight hitch is that you have to be signed in to Xbox Live to design a map that you can use on Live, which could be a problem for some.

Control / Playability

The controls in Far Cry: Instincts are what we know as the standard for Xbox FPS, using the triggers for shooting/grenades and the face buttons mapped with various actions. As you’d expect, these all work fine and you probably won’t even need the manual. There are unfortunately a few clipping issues in Far Cry, especially with vegetation, which isn’t a big issue, but it will really aggravate you when you’re trying to circle strafe and you get stuck on a blade of grass.

Vehicles are an absolute nightmare to drive. At first it all seems rosy, with a first-person view and acceleration controlled using the left stick. Unfortunately it’s also used to turn, whereas the right stick aims your weapon. This means that if you turn round to shoot someone, you’ve got no chance of steering your vehicle. It’s annoying, especialy in multiplayer – as it essentially means that, unless you have a buddy, you’ll be using them solely for getting from point A to B.

Xbox Live

Ubisoft has plenty of experience with Xbox Live, from being one of the first to use the technology to creating some of the best online experiences we know today. Instincts does a reasonable job, using the PC style of listing servers along with various information such as map, number of players and game type. Personally I would have liked a better optimatch, similar to Halo 2, as in FC:I its essentially just a glorified filter.

The gameplay on Live is excellent fun, with well designed maps (and the excellent custom map functionality). Predator mode is especially good, which is essentially a game of cat and mouse, and is already very popular on Live. Its a shame that the game is dogged by lag however, even with those people on high-speed connections (and I’m talking very stable ISP connections here) can have problems above ten players.

Graphics / Presentation

As explained earlier, Far Cry was originally a PC game, so we can’t really go through this section without any reference to the other platform. Let’s admit it, the PC has far surpassed the Xbox now, so we can’t really expect our beloved black box to compete, mind your CryTek did a great job for the Xbox version. The game has some excellent fluid and refraction effects for the bodies of water (which are rather extensive). Yeah, the textures are rather disappointing and people’s legs shouldn’t go through walls, but it’s no worse than anything else on the market (and quite a lot better than many).

The game also plays very smoothly and there is virtually no slowdown, which could have potentially dogged the gameplay. You’ll also see plenty of different types of light and shadow, from the early morning and dusk to the midday sun and starry nights.

Far Cry Instincts Xbox Sceenshot

Far Cry Instincts Xbox Screenshot

Far Cry Instincts Xbox Screenshot

View all Far Cry Instincts Screenshots in the XBS Gallery

Audio

The sound in Far Cry: Instincts is excellent, with a wide variety of sound effects, from your feet crushing the foliage beneath, to the explosion of a grenade ringing in your ears. The music isn’t really that great however, in fact its often really inappropriate, but the ambient jungle sounds are a comforting complement to lead hitting flesh. The voice acting is also excellent, which is good considering how much Ubisoft probably paid for the recording of it, with Jack Carver having the typical gruff, rebel without a cause tone.

Replay Value

It’s unlikely that you’ll ever play the single player again after completion, as it is a rather linear affair, unless you want to play on a higher difficulty. Fortunately the excellent multiplayer will keep this in your collection until you purchase your Xbox 360, and the map editor will literally take days away from you (should you like that kind of thing).

Overall Score

Overall Score: 8.9/10 [not an average]

Additional Comments

Far Cry: Instincts is an excellent first-person shooter, with plenty of innovation to clear it of being a simple PC port. This game has already proven itself popular on Xbox Live, and I’ve already spent the equivalent of days playing the predator mode. This is probably one of the last games you’ll want to buy for your Xbox pre-360, and you can always trade it in for some store credit when you need that extra boost to solve the dilemma of whether to buy Perfect Dark Zero or PGR3.

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