Predator creates an impressive value for anyone who has never played Instincts on the Xbox but ultimately provides......
Platform: X-Box 360
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Modern First Person Shooter
Age Rating: 16+ (PEGI), M (ESRB)
Release Date: 28th March 2006 (US), 31st March 2006 (EU)
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Game Score: 7.5/10
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Summary:
Predator creates an impressive value for anyone who has never played Instincts on the Xbox but ultimately provides nothing much in terms of new stuff worth hunting for.
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Back in 2005 Far Cry made its way onto game consoles with Instincts along with its sequel Evolution that was only just recently released at that time. The package includes new weapons, both storylines and the returning multiplayer content with the map editor. If you are looking for anything that is different on the other hand then sadly this is not the next gen shooter that brings to the 360.
Both storylines feature Jack Carver in a struggle against Mercenaries and Rebels that are after him and he'll also have some support and also a cute woman to have some problems with. Jack also gets injected with a serum that turns into a half human beast and he must use those abilities to his advantage in order to survive. Well there are not much plot points to these games but however the laughable dialogue and the amount of gunfights make the storyline speak for itself.
Far Cry Instincts Predator contains the two campaigns from its original Xbox release combining about 15 to 20 hours of gameplay in the Single Player. The original Instincts have about 11 Levels while Evolution has only 8 Levels which make it much shorter and easier than its predecessor. Well it's an impressive bargain to include two different campaigns together but however it's a shame that Evolution hasn't evolved much since its orginal release on the original Xbox.
One note is that you have to play through Instincts in order to unlock the Evolution story; if you want to skip the Instincts storyline then you'll have to go on the Internet and find an online code or just play through the Instincts Storyline that you already beat on the Xbox.
In the Single Player you'll traverse through forests, dark caves and seaside areas where there's plenty of bad guys to shoot down, traps which you can set up and lure your victims to, sneak up behind them and stab them in the back with your knife as well as objectives to accomplish before you'll advance to the next. Objectives include clearing out boats, avoiding sniper fire or surviving against waves of bad guys and later on monsters that keep on re-spawning. You have a compass that has a blue dot that tells you where you need to go next. These objectives are your typical FPS fare and can be cleared without too much problems but you do have checkpoints for whenever you die, that will happen quite often due to the high difficulty even on Rookie which is the games Easy mode.
There are some new weapons that are Pipebombs, Molotov cocktails and also the Blowgun. You can also gain new feral abilities as you progress through the Instincts storyline, these include speed bursting, being able to pick up you're your enemies scent, lighting up so you can see in the dark and of course being able to mow down enemies with your bare hands with a homing charge attack. You can also heal yourself by staying out of fire and the feral ability will recharge your health slowly to full. New moves include being able to remove a turret from its stationary place and also in feral mode you can actually climb up which is helpful. Jack also has the ability to wield dual weapons and also you can only carry up to three different weapons and you can swap them at any time. The amount of arsenal and new abilities add up to the carnage of multiple ways to kill in the game.
While the controls with Jack work great with the controller you'll also have to deal with the terrible vehicle sections and true to form they are as annoying as they were on the original Xbox. While there are some new ones but however controlling them becomes a pain because accelerating is mapped to the same Analog Stick as steering and also you will struggle to drive and shoot at the same time as this can lead you to bumping into walls and to your death. Thankfully these sequences are very brief and they only moment of it that is worthy is that you can change driver position to a turret to pick off enemies. Thankfully when you get the speed and jump high abilities you can put nearly all the vehicles besides the boat to shame.
The A.I can also hinder your experience, most of the time your enemies will just stand there waiting to receive a bullet to their face or get punched and also times where they'll just act plain stupid.
There are also some achievements to unlock as well and they are about 35 of them to unlock so at least there's reasons to replay it again.
On top of the Single Player you can take up your predator skills in the Online Competitive Multiplayer. There is also a Map editor which can custom made maps within minutes and it's easy to use as it was before and you can share it with friends online. There are about 5 different gametypes that are Chaos, Team Chaos, Predator, Steal the Sample and Seek and Secure. Unfortunately for me since I'm reviewing an old game today, I was only able to check out the Steal the Samples which is its take on the Capture the Flag game. Other than that I wasn't able to see what the other Multiplayer modes were like.
While all the Multiplayer modes remain intact there really isn't much new stuff for any designers leap to the 360. Far Cry Instincts gameplay remains the same as it was in 2005 and it's still engrossing to blast through and multiple ways to fight through adds more gameplay to it.
Far Cry Instincts Predator's graphics are mixed, while there is some improvement and looks good on 360 but however it doesn't look as good as it was on the original Xbox. The improvements mostly go the watery effects which show off more detail and also reflect a little better. The models also do look somewhat better and there animations are still great. The downsides to the details are that the Leafs on the trees look really badly pixelated, the lighting effects look very dismal and also the framerate has a few hiccups when the action is getting frantic.
The music track is okay and fits well for the Jungle and Tropical Island setting, the sound effects are great which makes every gun worth firing but also the voice work is pretty much laughable and also has plenty of F-Bombs placed in.
It's not a sequel to the series but somewhat of an improvement on some terms of gameplay but doesn't do much for anyone who's already moving onto the 360 when they already played through the original Instincts or cannot get their copies to work on their 360 due to incompatibility issues. If you've never played the two games then it's an impressive value to introduce the series to new gamers but to anyone else, only get this if you can't make your original version work on your 360.
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The Pros:
1. Two Campaigns in one disc and plenty of multiplayer to experience
2. Multiple ways to kill off your enemies
3. Still one of the finest shooters for anyone who had not played this back on the original Xbox
The Bads:
1. Evolution doesn't stand out too much
2. Graphics that are good but not nearly as good as the original
3. Same weak vehicle sections
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (BlaZer91)
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