Far Cry Instincts Evolution review

Jack Carver is back on the Xbox, after his tropical island nightmare that left him with feral super powers he’s now working as a mercenary in the vain hope that one day he’ll make enough money to replace his beloved boat. To this end he takes what looks like an easy job riding shotgun on a weapons shipment, but with the luck he has it soon descends in to the kind of hell he’s more used to.

Before he knows it, his attractive young employer has dragged him into the middle of some sort of civil war. From here on in things just go from bad to worse, it’s not long before his old ‘buddy’ Doyle puts in an appearance and he’s falsely accused of the murder of a government official and hunted for it (thanks buddy) and if that’s not bad enough before he can catch his breath he’s fighting a one man war against a whole army of feral mutants and there evil leader. But what is Hell for Jack Carver is a little slice of heaven for us gamers.

Return to Paradise

As is usual for a Far Cry game you start off in a tropical island paradise , but this time round you aren’t some poor schmuck running pleasure cruises for tourists. From the off you are armed and ready for action, and not just with guns, you have all the feral powers you had thrust upon you in the last game.

Speed, strength and that wonderful feral vision that’s like a cross between night vision and scent tracking are all yours to be used as before, but there’s a couple more uses for them that you didn’t have last time round. In addition to using them to trace, chase and lay some serious beat down on the bad guys, they can also be used for tracking down special plants that keep your feral powers topped up, and to climb certain surfaces that can only be spotted using your feral vision due to the DNA traces left by other ferals climbing the walls.

These climbing sections being almost puzzle like platform sections to the game, which adds a little variety to the gameplay, but can be a little frustrating from time to time if you miss time a jump and end up falling down a ravine to your death. As well as new uses for your feral abilities Evolution also throws a couple of new weapons into the mix.

Sure there are standard grenades but you also get Molotov cocktails, perfect for when you’re in more of an incendiary mood, and pipe bombs, which come with a remote detonator so can be used like mines. Then there’s the blow pipe that you pick up off the forest dwelling ferals, this isn’t so much an offensive weapon as a strategic device, being that the darts are tipped with poison that nullifies feral abilities, very useful when you’re being swarmed by a bunch of ferals super jumping all over the place.

Going Sightseeing

As in the original, the lush jungle environments push the Xbox to the limits making for a truly beautiful looking game, but things don’t stop there this time, Jack is forced out of his usual locale by his predicament and heads off to the mainland. This leads to more varied backdrops, mountainside fishing villages, water processing works, tree top villages and the games finale in a mountain top castle.

These may stray from the franchises usual island bound setting, but they are all rendered with the same level of detail. Character models are just as detailed, but lack the variety the scenery presents. Apart from Kade, the beautiful gun runner who employs you, Doyle and the feral leader you get two basic types of bad guy, mercenary and feral. Each has a few variations of model but a a little more wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Vehicles are pretty much the same as from the original game, you get the quad bikes, armoured cars, gun mounted pick up trucks, jet skis and boats all found in the original and they still look just as good. Sound also adds to the visual excellence making for a more absorbing and atmospheric experience. Some truly great voice acting makes the characters believable, with Hollywood heavyweight Stephen Dorff reprising the role of Jack Carver.

The other characters may not have the same big name talent behind them, but are all of a similar standard. The ambient sound is also of a similarly high standard, be it waves lapping on the shoreline, tropical birds in the forest or the buzz of industrial machinery you can close your eyes and easily imagine yourself there. Vehicle and weapons effects are all pretty standard fare, good but nothing outstanding. Overall though, the visual and audio presentation is all of an extremely high standard.

Holidaying with friends

Unfortunately the single player campaign is extremely short, weighing in at around 5-6 hours playtime, around half the length of its predecessor, but it more than makes up for it with it’s excellent multiplayer.

A whole slew of new maps comes as standard with the multiplayer as well as a new game mode. Adding to the takes on FPS standards of Far Cry’s versions of death match, capture the flag and the great predator mode comes ‘Seek and Secure‘, which covers the missing version of ‘King of the Hill’ that was missing from Far Cry Instincts.

The new maps are more varied than before reflecting the single player games locales, but of course you aren‘t limited by them as the game sports a new and improved version of it‘s map maker. Here you are only limited by your imagination, given the building blocks to make the level designs of your dreams. Not only that but also incorporated is the ability to import maps from Far Cry Instincts, meaning you can play through all those maps you spent hours on last time and add to them to adapt to the new game mode and extra weapons.

Wish You Were Here?

What we have here is a worthy successor in the Far Cry franchise, the small single player game reflects is budget price, but the awesome multiplayer makes it more than worth the price tag. If you own the original though the length of the campaign may be a little off putting and some may feel that even at the budget price it’s a little steep for the gameplay you get, being that the multiplayer only has slight improvements over the original. But if you’ve never played the original, or loved it so much that you just want more of the same, then this is a recommended purchase.