Far Cry Instincts Evolution – Review

The first-person shooter genre is in dire need of an overhaul where originality is concerned; game after game, it’s nothing but more of the same. The odd Halo here and Half-Life there don’t really fill the void of fulfilment left by the whole host of also-rans that simply end up cutting the cheese rather than the mustard. The original Far Cry (PC/2004) easily fell into step with the likes of Halo and Half-Life and certainly received heaps of critical and consumer praise. The same can be said of its 2005 Xbox iteration, Far Cry: Instincts, which was similarly bestowed with considerable adoration. Both games thoroughly deserved their fair share of the FPS plaudits.

With Far Cry Instincts: Evolution on the Xbox, gamers unfamiliar with Far Cry: Instincts can jump straight into the shoes of heroic protagonist (with claws), Jack Carver, and enjoy the feral powers forced upon him during Instincts without having to ‘evolve’ through the process first. Whereas those players already well versed in the Far Cry universe can slip back into Carver’s predatory skin and shred, sprint, leap, and tear their way through a brand-new storyline while packing all the usual weaponry and driving all the usual vehicles and killing all the usual dumb bad guys. In short, Evolution is really little more than an expansion pack for the original Xbox version of the game, and, in principle, there’s nothing wrong with that—in principle.

Here in Evolution, Jack finds himself firmly back in jungle-bound peril when the dangerous but charming Kade (non-playable female character in a similar vein to Instincts’ Val Cortez), has Jack fly her out to a tropical island where a distinctly dodgy deal is about to take place. Of course, the deal goes horribly wrong, Kade is predictably kidnapped, and Jack is left alone to rescue her and fend for himself. Yawnsville. Actually, to be fair, some of the narrative tedium is alleviated thanks to Jack already being equipped with fearsome feral abilities, and, from the outset, hurling mercenaries, leaping chasms, and tracking enemies via scent is certainly entertaining. However, the environment is almost identical in aesthetic delivery to that experienced in Instincts (though obviously the specific villages, bases, waterways, etc., are all different), and, as a result, Evolution feels in no way fresh or appealing beyond shallow and repetitive carnage.

In terms of minor details, Ubisoft has thrown in a few pieces of new hardware for Jack to play with, which include Molotov cocktails, a stealthy blow gun, claymore mines, and remotely detonated pipe bombs—which are especially satisfying to use when tossed at the base of sniper towers within mercenary encampments. Everything else first experienced during Instincts falls comfortably beneath the banner of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, and the general sense of gameplay in Evolution follows the semi-free-roaming dynamic set down so well in both Far Cry and Far Cry: Instincts. The feeling of scope is certainly evident, especially while scanning appreciatively across a massive vista that took the best part of 10 minutes to navigate or whizzing along countless winding canals and waterways on a jet ski. The game is still on rails, of course, but they’re laid so far apart that (like all genre-leading titles) sometimes it’s easy to forget amid the immersion.

Graphically, Instincts looks and feels just as sumptuous as Evolution, which isn’t especially hard seeing as they both draw from the same creative well in terms of environment. The water effects are beautiful, jungle foliage is dense and realistic, vehicles are well rendered, explosions are vicious and believable, and character animation is thoroughly decent—though Jack’s feral attack on witless bad guys does cause hurled rag-doll physics that not even a herd of charging elephants could provoke. More worryingly, there’s a noticeable upturn in visual chop throughout Instincts that subsequently damages the player’s suspension of disbelief—and which was certainly not in evidence during Far Cry: Instincts. The game’s expansion pack nature, and its reduced price point of £19.99 may mean that Q&A during development was not quite as stringent as usual—though the rest of Ubisoft’s polished presentation only further drags attention to the occasionally wobbly transitions and jagged processing.

The multiplayer facet of Evolution has been upgraded since Instincts, and it comes with a brand new game type called ‘Seek and Secure’, which plays similarly to the classic ‘King of the Hill’ mode, and Ubisoft has been kind enough to bundle in eight new gamplay maps too.
They’ve also tweaked the map editor so that players can now undo their last actions, place up to six zip lines, and those pesky-to-place ladders now snap snugly onto surfaces without undue fuss.

Deaf gamers can follow Jack’s attempts at rescuing Kade and uncovering the bigger, more ominous reasons for her kidnapping via the implementation of full subtitles. Sadly, the game’s emotive soundtrack and meaty effects will be lost in the aural ether, but the overall gameplay remains unsullied and the subtitles go some way to keeping those with hearing difficulties connected to the game’s flow.

For girl gamers it’s the same old set up in Evolution: butch, wise-cracking, heroic, feral-imbued, human-beast-hybrid meets attractive, wise-cracking, dodgy-dealing, dangerous female who ultimately can’t take care of herself and is whisked off to who knows where by the sudden appearance of very bad men. Cue testosterone-fuelled male (who barely knows said woman) embarking on a one-man death spree to kiss her sleeping form back to the land of living, climb her golden hair, break the deadly spell, and generally perform the role of ass-kicking prince charming. For girls, it’s likely becoming as dull as dishwater. Some of us men certainly sympathise.

Ultimately, Far Cry Instincts: Evolution offers nothing especially new to those gamers already familiar with the series; though the 12-15 hours of gameplay are typically frantic and beautifully laid out. However, those new to Far Cry are given the opportunity to enjoy all of Carver’s ‘special’ abilities without having to accomplish any of the legwork that went before in what really amounts to little more than a glossy add on. There’s nothing overtly wrong with Evolution, but it does exists as a series addition that somehow cheapens the overall effect Far Cry has had on the first-person shooter genre. Created in a similar sense as Half-Life’s expansions, Far Cry, as an ongoing product, just doesn’t quite achieve an equal standing in terms of ‘genre oomph’ to pull off Evolution; it’s a solid attempt but also somehow under whelming as an oddly attractive blemish on the Far Cry name.

Review by Stevie

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