Far Cry Instincts: Evolution

Sometimes I wonder how the XBOX survives. Is it necessarily a great system? Does it justify the praise and high attention it gets? Is it really worth purchasing? As I've said before, my XBOX now serves as a pseudo-media center PC, not so much of a console as it used to be. So, when I sit down to play what many consider to be a hallmark game of the console, I'm looking for one whole hell of a lot- and I usually don't find it. This time around, I ran across a game that seems like an outcast to the system- Far Cry Instincts: Evolution- a game that has been essentially cast into oblivion considering the fact that it's elder brother, Far Cry Instincts: Predator for the XBOX 360, already trumps it in any way.

But what's interesting about this game, and the reason I played it for this review, is that it by far shows what happens when Ubisoft tries to play the field- the “If this fails I'll have this backup” mentality, which somewhat is the same concept as if I dated a beautiful girl and an extremely ugly girl just in case the beautiful girl dumped me. And, as would happen in the example I mentioned, they ended up screwing over Far Cry Instincts: Predator and making it something to the equivalent of a poor XBOX port with no real pluses minus some small upgrades.




Let me break this down, just to give you an idea of how this series works. The original Far Cry was outstanding, primarily because the graphics were just beautiful- the Micronesian island setting, the large soaring islands and the beautiful glassy water- making the game something that everyone with a new PC just had to try out. While the game itself was somewhat stupid and boring (Primarily because the engine itself was somewhat bland), Far Cry is still one of the biggest high-tech shooters out there just because of what it can pump out. Then came Far Cry Instincts, which was an XBOX port, with very cut down graphics (But the same engine. Actually, it's stupidly easy to port a PC engine to a XBOX engine, but I won't go there). It was relatively popular and not that bad, but it still somewhat demonstrated why the XBOX was never truly made to generate graphics of that caliber.

And, now we have two simultaneous games- Instincts: Evolution (For the XBOX) and Instincts: Predator (For the XBOX 360). Both games are somewhat the same- as Jack Carver, you go around the Micronesian islands and stuff happens. Long story short, enemies pop out of freaking nowhere, and it's up to you to shoot at them, kill them, and get to some bland objective. If you think I'm oversimplifying, you're quite wrong- the whole game ends up being simply a trek through the jungle, much like the other games.

Far Cry Instincts: Evolution is basically just like any other XBOX shooter. Shoot with the triggers, hit things with the B button, reload with the X button, and even some Halo-2-ripoff Dual Wielding if your other hand is feeling lonely. However, Far Cry Instincts: Evolution forgot to steal the more refined parts of Halo 2's control scheme, as within playing this game I quickly found out it plays like Jack Carver not only carries his own pogo stick (Which accounts for why he can leap 50 feet into the air), but he also has cement tied to his feet (Which makes him SLOW) and ties weights to his hands (Which explains why it takes so much effort to get my gun to move anywhere but directly forward). While I got used to this somewhat slow control setup after a while, it still left me wondering why Ubisoft didn't spend more time fixing these issues- especially the fact that Jack Carver can't even get off the top rung of a ladder. He can dual wield P90s and toss pipe bombs across a 50 foot lake, but he can't manage to lift himself up a foot from the last rung to the floor.




Far Cry Instincts: Evolution tries this strange way of entering the game, which also loses it some points. I turned on the game for the first time, kicking back with a soda and some popcorn, which I'm glad I had- because for the next 10 minutes, I was FORCED to sit back and watch a gameplay movie before it let me actually start my game. Not a cut scene, not CG- I mean literally watching a video of someone playing Far Cry Instincts: Evolution. If I want to see someone play the game, I will play the game, I do not want to see someone play the game, nor do I want to see little graphic effects scroll around on the screen while I see someone play the game. A 10 minute opening cut scene is not a good idea, it is called torture.

When you finally get into the game, you have to sit through ANOTHER cut scene, this time trying to justify why Jack Carver is a “Bad Dude”. It opens up with Jack in a bar, saying stereotypical things to a stereotypical bartender with a stereotypical accent serving Jack what he considers to be not alcohol. A hardened girl walks in in a stereotypical way and hits on Jack with stereotypical lines that not even a street hooker would use, and then I'm greeted with a screen where she's putting on her clothes in bed. If I wanted to see bad acting with horribly over-bump-mapped characters hitting on each other in bad ways, I would go watch the latest movie that MTV plugs, not Far Cry Instincts: Evolution. Needless to say, this kind of acting and overall horrific mess continues for another 5 minutes, until I finally get to the gameplay. Time spent watching horrible cut scenes and not playing game: 20 minutes.

The game itself is changed from the original Far Cry in only one key way, and that is the Feral mode. Feral mode is, just like about 99.9% of all shooters that have ever been made, a bullet time ripoff, and only manages to make the screen blurry. What's really odd about Far Cry Instincts: Evolution's Feral mode is that Jack just drops his weapons and goes in to punch the enemy, which makes the enemy fly off in an affront to ten years of work in realistic rag doll physics (Note: This whole game has no rag doll, considering not only could I kill an enemy by clipping him in the shoulder, but he just grabbed his stomach and fell over). This is somewhat fun, but also incredibly stupid, because it feels like you may as well just run around with your bare fists hitting anything in sight instead of using guns like a normal angry Micronesian boat pilot or whatever they call him now.

Speaking of blurry, the graphics, which were absolutely spectacular on the PC (and they are on the 360, too), are horribly ugly on the XBOX. This is somewhat understandable, but I could very easily noticed where the people at Ubisoft cut corners to save the system from completely frying. For example, all of the textures have been cut down significantly. Also, while the view has not been limited by a fog system, the average draw distance of anything OTHER than the landscape is something like a relative 5 feet or so. By looking down and jumping, I could literally see where the “Grass” stopped generating and it became this blurry ugly texture. As well, the trees were significantly cut down for the XBOX release, and draw at something like 30 feet, which is somewhat nice, but still irritates me (“Surprise! There's a big boulder there! You can't move that way, even though it looked completely clear from 10 feet away!”). That being said, this game has long load times as it is, which can be saved (For those of us with modified XBOX systems) by taking your DVD and copying it onto your hard drive, which loads faster. Of course, I don't mean to go download it illegally, but by circumventing the insanely slow DVD, you save yourself a lot of heartache.




Also, as I noticed, Far Cry Instincts: Evolution also contains something that it considers adrenaline. Much like Adrenaline in the Unreal series (Okay, they just ripped em off), Adrenaline manages to make you faster and a little bit more agile. That's actually somewhat cool, because it feels like Jack Carver SHOULD feel- without the cement shoes and whatnot. The problem with this, however, is that it blurs up your screen on occasion, which just managed to make me nauseous, and much less entertained.

But, not all is bad about Far Cry Instincts: Evolution. If you can get over the single player mode, there is a lot to be had in the Multiplayer mode, as it is just as fun as any other kind of multiplayer game on the XBOX. It supports system link (For those of us using third party services), as well as your standard grade XBOX Live and four-controller setups. The multiplayer games always end up being much more fun, because everyone on there acts like real people and exploits the games aged and buggy engine (That's what happens when you shove an already bad game engine onto a system that can't handle it), and it's just fun to see how people love shoving all of the boats into the sand and forcing everyone to swim. I know it's foolish and childish in a way, but hey, if it's entertaining, I don't care.

The game also features a map editor mode, which is okay, but considering the only maps in the game are all islands and jungles, there really isn't anything to do so far as different areas. The nice thing, though, is that when you do make a map, you can set it up virtually any way you want in the small play space it gives you, so a lot of innovation could come in (Like, maybe, everyone swims to get to the one small patch of land or something). In no way is this as extensive or as interesting as some map editors, but considering this is a cheap console port of the PC game, it's somewhat understandable.

The moral of this whole game is “This is what you get for trying to go cheap, Ubisoft”. It's very obvious this game is just a cheap port of the Far Cry engine to the XBOX, and just adding in a faux bullet time system and changing all characters to look like they lost all muscle mass and have random dents in their body to account for bump mapping. The team that was left to this was obviously the bottom of the barrel at Ubisoft: Montreal and Crytek, and I really hope this game ends any and all port attempts on the XBOX from here on out. Compared to it's much-better-looking and somewhat better running brother, Far Cry Instincts: Predator, this game rides the short bus home and earns itself a low rating. The only time I would ever recommend purchasing this game is that if you are extremely hard up for a good XBOX Live game, and this game may suffice, for probably an hour.

2.5 star(s) out of 5

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