Articles
By Nonny
Published: Mar. 4, 2007 8:34 PM
Late last year Ubisoft released Far Cry Instincts on the Xbox and the game proved to be a huge success and a showcase for what the aging platform was capable of. Though the game paled in direct graphical comparison to its PC counterpart the console version proved more than enough eye-candy for many and sported many additions including a reworked (and arguably much improved) storyline and an amazing map-maker which is still unparalleled in console circles. At the time though many were left wondering about the timeliness of such a release and with Xbox 360 just around the corner, were fervently looking forward to a next-gen version. Well here it is; the mouthful that is Far Cry Instincts Predator. This standalone title includes the complete original Instincts storyline coupled together with a brand new chapter titled Evolution. This new chapter was released as a separate game on the Xbox so for newcomers to the franchise the Xbox 360 version really does prove real value for money, for fans of the original though there may be very little extra on offer in comparison.
The storyline surrounding Instincts followed Jack Carver through the process of obtaining “feral” abilities. These were super-evolved animal-like senses which made him the perfect killing machine. Chronologically, Evolution picks up right where Instincts left off, with Jack having all these abilities available to him straight from the beginning. Strangely, to those who have played through the original storyline, Ubisoft wants you to do it all again as the Evolution campaign is locked by default. Luckily if you neither have the time or patience for this (like this reviewer) you can unlock it using the cheat code “GiveMeItAll”. So back to the new content, Evolution starts off with our hero Jack being seduced and “persuaded” by a mysteriously woman called Kade who hires Jack for a transport mission (involving illegal weapons) which of course goes horribly wrong pretty quickly.
All up in comparison to the original Instincts story Evolution is a much, much smaller beast. With only eight new maps in total, of which the first three comprise the first level leaving very little extra for those fans who’ve already played through Instincts beforehand. That’s not to say its all bad though as these new maps are far less linear and expansive which afford the player more options on how to complete missions, but really at the end of the day it is just more of the same and the end feeling is one of being left shorthanded.
Worse still is that in terms of gameplay very little has changed since the Xbox incarnation and unfortunately one major factor has even made this game less fun to play than before, namely the aiming controls. I am not sure whether the controls have been implemented like this on purpose, or whether this is something missed during the QA process but the aiming controls in Predator are less accurate than either of the Xbox versions in direct comparison. For some unknown reason the dead-zone of the analog sticks has increased and the gradual sensitivity curve of the analog movement has been lost making the ability to track an enemy with your cross-hair almost impossible. Unfortunately this isn’t something that can be rectified within the control settings of the game so it is literally a case of putting up with it. The biggest shame though is that such a small issue can have such a big impact in how the game actually plays. When your accuracy becomes impaired it immediately limits the amount of fun that can be gleaned through playing through any of the game modes on offer, multiplayer alone becomes an exercise in futility as most players try to compensate for this issue by moving their character instead of their reticule to line up shots.
Singleplayer though has further issues coupled to this due to the fact that the AI is pretty much dumb in every aspect of the word. Though they will sometimes re-group and defend on random occasions for the most part on any difficulty setting the AI enemies just stand there rooted to the spot or charge your position making them cannon fodder, provided you can aim successfully. This changes the very dynamic of the gameplay as well, whilst the storyline will sometimes conjure up places where stealth kills, traps and tactical play could be used the reality is there is little opposition to restrict the player to just resort to basic run and gun tactics throughout. Given this is mostly a direct port from the Xbox version you would hardly expect it to stand up in comparison to the current cream of the crop on Xbox 360 but such a flaw is now made glaringly obvious having experienced some other true next-gen titles such as GRAW or COD2.
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