Tropical archipelago? Check.
Rusty old boat? Check.
Hawaiian shirt? Check.
Suspicious-yet-sexy paying passenger? Check.
Legion of heavily armed mercenaries in the employ of deranged scientist altering human DNA? HUH!?
Welcome to Jacutan. Population: several hundred. Weather: sunny to apocalyptic. Fans of the series already have an idea of what to expect from playing the PC version, but make no mistake- Far Cry: Instincts is very much its own game. A lot has changed, but all the things that make it Far Cry remain!
We could probably spend hours debating whether or not Far Cry: Instincts is just a console port of the PC game, however, since this is *my* review, I’ll politely posit that there’s enough different here to call Instincts a game in its own right. And in virtually every way, that’s a good thing. Instincts has been redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up to be a console experience; initially as a cross-platform experience, something that was subsequently dropped- thank [praise appropriate deity here]- because the PS2 just couldn’t hack it with the big boys. The result is a streamlined experience with a stronger story, intense action, and some of the best FPS graphics the Xbox has ever produced.
Jack Carver returns as the protagonist, as does his female passenger and his boat. Ditto to the hordes of ruthless mercenaries and strange creatures. Carver, a man with a, how shall we say, chequered past, has settled into an early retirement, soaking up the tropical sun and enjoying the untethered life of a man who lives on a boat. From time to time he takes on passengers to earn a quasi-legitimate (though we suspect undeclared) income. So when his boat is blown to pieces by an attack chopper and he barely escapes with his life, Carver has little choice but to swim for shore and strive to survive. Along the way he’ll uncover cover government activities, mad South African mercenaries and Doctor Krieger, for whom the badge “Mad Scientist” is a nametag rather than a pejorative term.
Far Cry: Instincts is played out entirely in the first-person perspective, and we never see action outside of Carver’s eyes. This effect isn’t anywhere near as disorienting as it was in Breakdown (XBW : 81%) yet still does a good job of immersing you in the world as Jack sees it. This is a good thing, because Crytek & Ubisoft have created a visually stunning world for you to explore.
If you had even a shadow of a doubt that the Xbox was capable of pulling off the sort of lush jungle foliage and turquoise oceans that stretched as far as the eye could see, well, you wouldn’t have been alone. But what Far Cry: Instincts manages to achieve will blow you out of the beautifully rendered water! The tropical paradise is every bit as detailed as it was on the PC, with grass and branches that bend as you walk through them, great draw-distance, and a rock-solid framerate that would’ve taken a $3000 gaming PC to maintain if you were playing it on computer. In fact if anything, Instincts shows you just how much Microsoft have jumped the gun with the Xbox 360- this game proves that developers haven’t even begun to tap the true power of the Xbox. But as we know from the likes of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (XBW : 97%), for Ubisoft this kind of thing is almost par for the course.
Far Cry: Instincts biggest change, and no doubt the key to its visual powerhouse performance, is that it is much, much more linear than the PC version. Gone is the almost free-roaming, island-hopping exploration in favour of a much tighter narrative and more structured experience. Not only does this mean the game isn’t having to load a few square kilometres worth of archipelago topography and assets, it also means a more focused story. If you never played the PC version you won’t even know you’re missing anything, and even if you have, it’s pretty hard to fault the decision to make Instincts a far more console-friendly expedition.
The problem with linear FPS titles is that they tend to feel like glorified rail-shooters. This is where the enemy A.I. becomes a crucial feature in ensuring a dynamic experience, and this is where Far Cry: Instincts starts to falter a little. It seems that the good Dr. Krieger decided quantity was more important than quality when he was shopping in the Mercenaries’R’Us cannon-fodder aisle…these guys are so stupid they make Jessica Simpson seem like a Mensa candidate! It’s hardly the worst A.I. you’ll find in a game, but compared to the ruthless and cunning A.I. in the PC version, they seem like amateurs.
It probably doesn’t help that Carver has an extreme edge over the competition thanks to the strange chemical cocktail Dr. Krieger injects him with. You see, doc K. is a bit bonkers, and like a modern-day Doctor Moreau, he’s hell-bent on tapping into mankind’s primal, animalistic roots and unleashing the beast within. So as you progress through the game, Carver will discover a variety of Feral abilities that help reverse his role in the whole predator-prey dynamic.
These abilities vary in their usefulness (as well as their integration in the game), from the super-handy Feral Strength to the virtually useless Feral Jump. Your enhanced strength can be used at any time by whacking the B-button, which lets you punch some guy hard enough to send him flying for metres. Never mind Newton’s third law of motion here folks, just enjoy the rag-doll hilarity as the hapless chap you just belted soars off a cliff or smacks painfully into a wall. Other useful abilities included increased speed, night-vision and the nifty ability to follow an enemy’s scent, which is sadly underused in the game, as it had great potential as a plot device.
Engaging these abilities drains your adrenaline bar though, so judicious use of jumpstarted genetics is the only way to play. They also have unexpected side-effects such as heightened sensitivity to sound, as well as making you more attractive to other, similarly feral creatures you might encounter. In one particularly cool sequence, Carver has to shut down a microwave tower emitting a high-frequency sonic signal that is crippling him, and the closer he gets, the most affected he becomes. By the time you reach the top of that tower, the screen is blurry and warping with strange colours and distorted sound, and you’re virtually fighting blind against whatever enemies abound. Its little touches and the attention to detail that make Far Cry: Instincts so enjoyable.
Yet even with these few weaknesses, these abilities do more than give Jack Carver the edge: they throw the whole game balance totally out of whack. Carver regenerates health, which means that all you need to do is retreat momentarily from battle and wait…the dullard A.I. will often pursue you, but they just come charging around corners blindly and virtually beg for a headshot, while your radar lets you know where your foes are- and the direction of their approach- at a glance. Couple this with your ability to set some pretty lethal traps and lure the simpletons over with a rock-throw, it hardly seems a fair fight, even if they do outnumber you by a thousand to one.
Despite being roughly as intelligent as housebricks, your enemies can provide a challenge if they’re heavily armed, en masse or controlling one of the half-dozen vehicles in the game- choppers in particular are deadly! And your foes feel pretty realistic thanks to the stellar audio and dialogue present in the game. You’ll be able to eavesdrop on some pretty funny (and surprisingly sincere!) conversations that almost wish you could sit down and reason with these brain-dead bandits and maybe crack open a beer. Stephen Dorf is great as Jack Carver, but as is often the case in the FPS genre, the protagonist doesn’t have an awful lot to say, so he never really gets to shine.
On the whole though, Far Cry: Instincts is of the high aural standards we’ve all come to expect from Ubisoft- it makes excellent use of Dolby 5.1 to really bring the jungle to life and a creepy atmosphere to certain parts of the game. The music is a bit hit and miss simply because it gravitates from wild rock beats to really subdued mood music, but it always suits the action going on in the game. There are also some audio issues that seem to depend on your own Xbox setup…some people report music being too soft, too loud, or some other niggling problem. For me, the music was so loud that I couldn’t make out certain conversations, which was frustrating. This is the kind of thing that can be overcome with the option to balance the audio yourself, but this is sadly not an option in Instincts.
As is often the case with these blockbuster first-person shooters, Far Cry: Instincts is not the longest game in the world. Short and sweet is the phrase that springs to mind unbidden: weighing in at around 10-15 hours depending on your individual skill. As intimated above, it’s a pretty easy game, though there is a couple of challenging boss-style battles that may require a few attempts. But cry not, gentle readers, because the Instincts experience by no means ends with single-player!
Not only does Far Cry: Instincts include a robust multiplayer mode, it also takes that experience on Xbox Live against over a dozen players, and it also includes quite possibly the most powerful-yet-simple to use map editor on the Xbox console. Multiplayer consists of the standard deathmatch/team-deathmatch and capture-the-flag style games, as well an incredibly fun Predator mode. Arnie fans can sit back down because neither the Gubernator nor his invisible alien adversary is making an appearance! Rather, one (or more) players are given a full repertoire of Feral abilities, and they have to hunt down mercenaries (normal players without any of the fun Feral functionality) before they can activate a sonic emitter. These games are a heap of fun, and really highlight the hunter-hunted dynamic that Ubisoft were trying to achieve with the game.
But the real kicker is the map editor included with the game: Timesplitters and Pariah (XBW : 72%) may have beaten them to it, but Far Cry: Instincts is by far the easiest and most enjoyable to use. It’s also incredibly powerful, and already there are dozens of superb, user-made maps of the highest quality online. You’re given a massive area to work with and are really only limited by your imagination. Ok, so there’s a few things you can’t do (like make tunnels or underground fortresses or add laser-wielding sharks…what gives!?), but what you can do should keep you occupied for ages. Up to 500 trees and 300 objects can be placed in the environment, and if you manage them well, shouldn’t create too much slowdown.
In fact, in a super-spiffy touch, when you drop into your map to test it (which has *zero* load-time might we add!), a handy metre in the top-right of the screen tells you how many objects you’re “seeing” on screen, and how much strain it’s causing. Multiply by a dozen derring-do players plus bullets and grenades and rag-doll corpses, and you’ve got a rough idea of whether your level is going to be playable. The actual design tools are just as intuitive in their design- bridges and buildings will snap-to for a seamless transition, and the trimming and flattening tools ensure that your level is free from rough edges. You can whip up a passable arena in 30 minutes, or spend 30 hours perfecting your masterpiece- it’s totally up to you! The map editor is a brilliant addition to the game, and makes it well worth the price of admission for any serious FPS fans out there.
 
 
 
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10-24-2005, 08:36 AM
Linear Mode
