Far Cry Instincts Predator Xbox 360
  • Publisher: Ubisoft
  • Release Date: Mar 28, 2006
User Score
6.2 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 66 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 41 out of 66
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 66
  3. Negative: 20 out of 66

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  1. MikeS.
    Dec 3, 2006
    4
    This game is lackluster to say the least. The graphics are terrible and the A.I. is borderline retarded. The controls are extremelly clunky. If you thought the P.C. version was good and that's your reasoning for getting this game, you will be sorely dissapointed. The P.C. version vs. this xbox360 port is basically no contest. The P.C. version almost seems like it was done by a completely different developer all together.… Expand
  2. TimB.
    Dec 13, 2007
    0
    There is much to like about this game, but it's all smashed to giblets by the things it does wrong. The good things include a fun storyline, attractive (if sub par for next-gen) graphics, and cool animalistic powers. Now, the bad. I got my X360 about a year ago. This game was the first I bought. I have yet to finish it, because each time I've tried to play through, I've been utterly frustrated in short order and inspired to pick up something else. Since I began Far Cry, I have completed Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 (all several times, on normal and hard difficulties), Dark Watch, Gun, BioShock, Red Dead Revolver, Viva Pinata, Overlord, God of War, God of War 2, The Simpsons Game, Crackdown, Prey, Dead or Alive 2, 3, and 4, Guild Wars, Half Life 2 (my second time, on hard), Conan, Kameo, James Bond Nightfire, Tomb Raider Legend, and a fair amount of World of Warcraft. My latest attempt at Far Cry just ended, and is likely my last. I'm playing at normal difficulty (Hunter), but the game is too hard for several reasons: First, there is no quick save feature and the game relies on automatic save points. That in itself isn't bad (the Halos use auto-saves to good effect, for example), but in Far Cry the saves are too far apart, and there's no way of predicting where the next one will be. So if you play a while, but need to stop soon, odds are you'll need to quit before hitting the next save, and may well lose all you've accomplished in that session. Also, all too frequently, I've spent a good deal of time getting through a treacherous area, only to have a moment of bad luck which kills me and puts me right back where I started, at the last save. I've lost up to a couple hours progress to this nonsense at times. Next, the clunky controls all by themselves can create those moments of bad luck. Maybe you accidentally throw a grenade when trying to hold your breath for a tricky sniper shot. Maybe you inadvertently leap to your feet from a stealthy crawl, in plain site of the enemy, simply because you brushed up against a weird angle in the ground. Maybe you tried to use one of the various vehicles in the game, which have the sloppiest freaking controls I've ever used for vehicles in a game, and which are usually a sure ride to your death. As noted by many reviews, the AI is unpredictable, often stupid and not very aware, but sometimes eagle-eyed and more aware of their surroundings than is humanly possible. You're left with no true sense of what you can and can't do in approaching and dealing with the enemies, or what tactics will be effective. Worst of all, the game CHEATS. You're presented with an illusion of choice in where you go and how you approach challenges, but in fact you're very obviously herded along on rails, straight into forced confrontations in which you are funneled by the landscape into inescapable fights with the enemy. Sure, we're all used to that, and even the best of games often play that way. But in this game, you're in a jungle, on a large island, and to be stealing along through the leafy wood only to suddenly find that there's a wall of leaves to one side that looks no different than the growth you've been moving through, mirrored by a similar leafy wall a short distance to the other side, is really destructive to immersion, becoming bluntly frustrating as both invisible walls grow closer and closer, funneling you directly into your enemies. And don't bother scouting out where the enemies are with the binoculars and sniper scope the game gives you, or making cool tactical plans on how to approach these dangerous situations, because you'll just get annoyed when the time and effort turns out to be pointless. This is the kind of game in which you can locate all the mercs in an encampment, kill them all, and then be attacked as you move through the camp by a fresh horde of them springing from absolutely nowhere. It's like looking in a closet as you search a room, finding it empty, then suddenly being attacked by five bad guys who leap out of the closet. It's ridiculous, and it makes your strategies and tactics completely moot and a waste of time. I wish I could play through this game. I'm intrigued by the story, and I want to play more with the feral powers. But, alas, no; life is way too damn short. Far Cry Instincts Predator could have been great, as I understand its PC predecessor to be. But the developers designed it to constantly kill any sense of fun the game might manage to create. Go to a game store and throw a rock in any direction and you'll probably hit a better game.… Expand
  3. RolfH.
    Apr 2, 2006
    1
    A lackluster port of the xbox version coupled with a tiny add on pack marketed as the 2 games in 1 is ridiculous .Reused textures an player models look slightly better then the xbox version not by much though not much good to say about this game at all. hey! the waters nice looking ... zzz zzz zzz so the continuing disturbing trend of ports keep flowing onto a console thats surpose to be "nextgen" how very disapointing.… Expand
  4. WalterR.
    Apr 21, 2006
    1
    Where do I begin with this game? No seriously, where do I begin with this game. I enthusiastically bought the game after having played the demo of the original on the PC thinking how good it will be on the 360. One minute into the game and I'm stuck in total darkness unable to see where to go next. Then I stumbled through a supposed door and got stuck again. All the while a message saying find ladder to climb, but where could it be.?! Five minutes into the game and I frustatingly turn of the console. I doubt I will ever play this game again... here's another $69 (Canadian) well spent.… Expand
  5. MattN.>
    Apr 11, 2007
    0
    While this is my favourite title ever on PC and I was assuming it would be of a lower quality on any console other than PC. Even I was amazed by how bad this was, graphically it's okay but it's the massive reduction in enemy AI that really disappoints. Also the sound and feel of the weapons is extremely poor, this was really highlighted by having just finished Rainbow Six-Vegas. Which was everything I expecting this version to be in terms of the fire fights. I gave it 0 because after all this time and technology they've managed to make every aspect of the game not just less (which I could have lived with) but actually suck. Even the pacing of the game seems to be off reducing the tension tremendously. If you liked this on the 360 try it on a top end PC it'll blow your mind. Sad effort.… Expand
  6. TimB.
    Dec 12, 2007
    0
    There is much to like about this game, but it's all smashed to giblets by the things it does wrong. The good things include a fun storyline, attractive (if sub par for next-gen) graphics, and cool animalistic powers. Now, the bad. I got my X360 about a year ago. This game was the first I bought. I have yet to finish it, because each time I've tried to play through, I've been utterly frustrated in short order and inspired to pick up something else. Since I began Far Cry, I have completed Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 (all several times, on normal and hard difficulties), Dark Watch, Gun, BioShock, Red Dead Revolver, Viva Pinata, Overlord, God of War, God of War 2, The Simpsons Game, Crackdown, Prey, Dead or Alive 2, 3, and 4, Guild Wars, Half Life 2 (my second time, on hard), Conan, Kameo, James Bond Nightfire, Tomb Raider Legend, and a fair amount of World of Warcraft. My latest attempt at Far Cry just ended, and is likely my last. I'm playing at normal difficulty (Hunter), but the game is too hard for several reasons: First, there is no quick save feature and the game relies on automatic save points. That in itself isn't bad (the Halos use auto-saves to good effect, for example), but in Far Cry the saves are too far apart, and there's no way of predicting where the next one will be. So if you play a while, but need to stop soon, odds are you'll need to quit before hitting the next save, and may well lose all you've accomplished in that session. Also, all too frequently, I've spent a good deal of time getting through a treacherous area, only to have a moment of bad luck which kills me and puts me right back where I started, at the last save. I've lost up to a couple hours progress to this nonsense at times. Next, the clunky controls all by themselves can create those moments of bad luck. Maybe you accidentally throw a grenade when trying to hold your breath for a tricky sniper shot. Maybe you inadvertently leap to your feet from a stealthy crawl, in plain site of the enemy, simply because you brushed up against a weird angle in the ground. Maybe you tried to use one of the various vehicles in the game, which have the sloppiest freaking controls I've ever used for vehicles in a game, and which are usually a sure ride to your death. As noted by many reviews, the AI is unpredictable, often stupid and not very aware, but sometimes eagle-eyed and more aware of their surroundings than is humanly possible. You're left with no true sense of what you can and can't do in approaching and dealing with the enemies, or what tactics will be effective. Worst of all, the game CHEATS. You're presented with an illusion of choice in where you go and how you approach challenges, but in fact you're very obviously herded along on rails, straight into forced confrontations in which you are funneled by the landscape into inescapable fights with the enemy. Sure, we're all used to that, and even the best of games often play that way. But in this game, you're in a jungle, on a large island, and to be stealing along through the leafy wood only to suddenly find that there's a wall of leaves to one side that looks no different than the growth you've been moving through, mirrored by a similar leafy wall a short distance to the other side, is really destructive to immersion, becoming bluntly frustrating as both invisible walls grow closer and closer, funneling you directly into your enemies. And don't bother scouting out where the enemies are with the binoculars and sniper scope the game gives you, or making cool tactical plans on how to approach these dangerous situations, because you'll just get annoyed when the time and effort turns out to be pointless. This is the kind of game in which you can locate all the mercs in an encampment, kill them all, and then be attacked as you move through the camp by a fresh horde of them springing from absolutely nowhere. It's like looking in a closet as you search a room, finding it empty, then suddenly being attacked by five bad guys who leap out of the closet. It's ridiculous, and it makes your strategies and tactics completely moot and a waste of time. I wish I could play through this game. I'm intrigued by the story, and I want to play more with the feral powers. But, alas, no; life is way too damn short. Far Cry Instincts Predator could have been great, as I understand its PC predecessor to be. But the developers designed it to constantly kill any sense of fun the game might manage to create. Go to a game store and throw a rock in any direction and you'll probably hit a better game.… Expand
  7. Raynes
    Dec 18, 2012
    2
    This is a great game that was ruined by outrageous and pointless difficulty. There is almost no skill to this game. Almost every major battle consists of you finding out what precise spot to stand where you wont be instakilled by a sniper or blown away by a rocket launcher. Enemies take bullet after bullet without even flinching, and even if you run with the speed ability they can get you with every shot. Doesn't matter how fast you move. There almost never anywhere to take cover, since bullets magically come through the walls, rocks, and containers spread throughout the game. Enemies materialize out of nowhere, usually from behind you in an area that you cleared literally seconds ago. They surround you and push you into a corner. You can use the precise same guns as they do and it can take a whole clip in the chest to kill them, yet they can decimate you with 3-4 shots. And YOU are the one with the powers! I enjoyed parts of the game, but they were massively shadowed by the horrible parts. The worst part of the whole game is the aiming. There is a massive lag between when you push the stick to one side and your cursor actually moving. The auto-aim helps with this, but you are still benefitted by getting head shots. When you're surrounded by 30 enemies and 4 shots from any one of their rifles can kill you, and snipers and rocket launchers can instakill you through a keyhole in a door on the other side of the island, headshots are typically out of the question. Auto saving is very uneven. Sometimes it autosaves immediately after a big battle, others 3-4 big battles. The most frustrating parts of the game involved me having to die 8-10 times in order to figure out where the enemies would materialize out of thin air and where I could hide to keep them from instakilling me, and I typically had to spend anywhere from 10-20 minutes between respawning and getting to those points. I feel like this game takes the dirtiest possible route of making it challenging, and the moments of fun I had were eclipsed by frustration at being cheated out of a good time. This is not hard. This is ridiculous. I'm all for a challenge. I've played Dark Souls and I've never felt like a game hated me this much before. At the time I'm writing this, I'm at the final two battles with Crowe and Krieger. Crowe is sitting on a cliff with a unhinged previously mounted machine guy while mutants who take a clip each to kill unless I can manage to accidentally shoot them in the head (which still takes half a clip) tear at me with guns and instakill me with their bare hands if I don't happen to see them come up on me on my radar surround me, and I have to kill them first through a couple of waves. Next, he starts lobbing grenades at me that are more like homing missiles and shooting at me with his machine gun. When he start shooting at me with the machine gun, I get instakilled by something even if I have 100 life and 100 armor. You can shoot him while he is lobbing grenades if you want, but if you're within 3 miles of the magic grenade it'll blow you up. And most of the instakills are while his back is turned, so I guess he is shooting me with his sniper rifle machine gun backwards. Anyways, I think the game is great but that they went way overboard with the cheatish difficulty. It has sapped every bit of fun out of the game for me and left me wishing I had never bothered with it. Cheap shots don't make a game fun.… Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
78 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 46 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 46
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 46
  3. Negative: 0 out of 46
  1. Yahoo! Games
    80
    Plenty of Bruckheimer-style action, a decent suite of multiplayer options, strong visuals, and a variety-packed single-player mode. Derivative it might be, both of past Far Cry games and other FPSes, but there's still no arguing with the quality of this offering.
    Read full review
  2. TeamXbox
    79
    The map editor has gotten a nice boost in functionality and the online multiplayer modes are sure to keep players busy for months, but how long do we have to wait until there is a true sequel for Far Cry?
    Read full review
  3. IGN
    83
    Killing things with feral powers is always enjoyable, and the expanded multiplayer options help to keep this game entertaining long after you blaze through the new single player content.
    Read full review
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