New guy Mark takes a walk on the wild side…

It must be tough making an Xbox shooter that stands out from the crowd. As genres go, there's none more crowded on Microsoft's machine. And let's face it, next to the iconic system-selling Halo, there's also few that measure up.

Likewise, porting a visually stunning PC game to a less powerful platform is a challenge in itself. Making one that measures up to the original game is hard enough, but seeing the end result also compare favourably to its console competition is a rare thing indeed.

Seeing, it would seem, is definitely believing - and playing it is even better. Ubisoft and Crytek should both be commended; Far Cry Instincts does not disappoint.

Welcome to the jungle. To a wondrous, deadly, vast, isolated tropical paradise populated by machinegun-toting terrorists, dangerous animal wildlife and an array of other creatures far too horrible to mention before the 9pm watershed. The premise is simple: you are ex US Marine Jack Carver, attacked by helicopters after ferrying a journalist to a mysterious sun-drenched island. Your boat destroyed, your only choice is to swim for shore, and from there you find yourself in a vast, sprawling and ever-exhilarating action epic.

A major selling point of the original PC Far Cry, the visuals in Instincts have made the transition to Xbox surprisingly well. Colours are vibrant giving environments a somewhat artificial aesthetic, but serve to create some jaw-dropping vistas and emphasise the tropical theme. Foliage is dense, characters convincingly modelled and both water and lighting effects utterly peerless. It may lack in detail next to its hi-resolution PC brother, but the overall effect is lush, hazy and at times breathtaking. This is one of the finest visual feasts ever consigned to console.

This aesthetic achievement is mirrored by another successful transition: as with the original, areas are once again huge and varied, boasting numerous options for more inventive players. For the most part, new environments replace PC originals, but very much keep in with the same ethos. True exploration has been dumbed-down which makes the game less open-ended, but there are still multiple ways to approach objectives - an effort to streamline the game for a console audience that relieves frustration and maximises action.

Action man

And action is certainly what Far Cry does best. Using a control scheme similar to Halo players can run, gun, sneak, swipe and snipe their way through everywhere from beaches, forests, caves and cliffs to scientific research facilities and more besides. Traps can be set on trees by coiling a branch ready for an enemy to approach, and there is really no greater joy than setting a forest full of these then leading a pack of chasing enemies right towards them.

The game also treads the fine line between stealth and all-out shooting, and manages to pull it off in much the same way as the seminal N64 title Goldeneye. Indeed, by also adopting Halo's dual wielding and the first person vehicle driving of Half-Life 2, Xbox Far Cry really is a mish-mash of styles combining elements of the world's greatest first-person shooters.

Uniquely however, Instincts also contains an element entirely different both to PC Far Cry and to most other games in the genre. The subtitle itself refers to the game's eponymous Feral Abilities. Basically similar to the augmentations in Deus Ex, these run on an adrenaline bar that fluctuates throughout the game and provide the option to increase basic functions; running faster, jumping further, hitting harder, seeing in Predator-style heat vision, and eating more donuts than humanly possible. Well, okay… maybe not the last one.

In all, the combination of genre conventions and choice refinements make Far Cry both an exceptional shooter, and an extraordinarily rare commodity in gaming: a successful re-imagining of an already outstanding release. Aurally, the game even manages to trump the PC version, with tracks full of tension and spot-on sound effects. The Xbox Live mode meanwhile makes the package all the sweeter, making the most of the game's qualities with modes including Chaos (single player and team deathmatch), Steal The Sample (Capture The Flag) and Predator, in which one player with all Feral Abilities hunts down the rest before they can raise an alarm. A basic multiplayer map creation tool to boot is the final, proverbial icing on a very polished piece of programming.

There are flaws, of course, but these are few and far between. Graphics show some pop-up in far off objects, while loading times between one vast environment and another can take upwards of three minutes. However, both are easily forgiven considering the mammoth task of porting the game from PC - especially as the game runs without slowdown, and can boast massive areas to navigate for hours between loading screens.

Thankfully, the few negatives are far outweighed by the positives, and translate to the high quality of the game even within a very crowded Xbox market. Halo may be the system's premier shooter, but Far Cry Instincts deserves to be regarded as both a very worthy companion, and one of the best shooters released on any format in 2005.

GAME's Verdict

• Breathtaking visuals with massive environments.
• Intense mix of stealth and shooting.
• Impressive online mode.

• Long loading times.
• Minor visual bugs.
• More linear than PC original.

Review by: Mark Scott
Version Tested: Xbox
Review Published: 06.10.05