Far Cry Instincts shows that it's a competent shooter with some decent replay value.
Instincts is basically a reboot of the Far Cry franchise. You play as Jack Carver, a simple mercenary who gets himself in trouble thanks to a girl named Val Cortez. After Cortez scopes out a nearby island, she gets captured by a guy named Crowe, to serve as bait for Carver to save her. After a while, Carver gets captured himself and is secretly injected with some strange animal serum that gives him new powers. Now he must save Val, kill Crowe and his right-hand man Krieger, and save the day. Pretty simple plot for a first-person shooter like this.
Far Cry Instincts is a by-the-numbers shooter. You find enemy grunts, shoot them until their limp bodies collapse into ragdolls, pick up their guns and repeat. For variety, you can approach them stealthily with a knife, or surprise them with tree traps and claymore mines. Or you could just shoot them in the face with an MP5, which seems to work just as well. In fact, the whole stealth element goes out the window about half-way through the game, attempting to trap enemies at that point is an exercise in futility. You can pick up three types of weapons: a handgun, a mid-range gun like a submachine gun, shotgun or assault rifle; and a large weapon like a machine gun, sniper rifle or rocket launcher. Some of these weapons can be wielded dually, and you can throw grenades with the left trigger if you have a free hand.
To spice it up a bit, Instincts reintroduces the vehicles that were prevalent in the PC Far Cry. ATVs, Humvees, and even the hang glider are viable travel items, but they handle relatively clunky. Sometimes it's hard to drive or fly a straight line with it, and while you can move and shoot at the same time, which is pretty cool, it makes these segments a bit more frustrating than they should be. Worst off, you cannot use vehicles if they're turned over or on their side. There's no "flip vehicle" option like there is in Halo. Most of the time when this happens, you'll have to either continue the rest of the vehicle thrill ride on foot, or hope you find another vehicle conveniently nearby.
Once Carver gets injected with the mutant serum, he gains new abilities. He'll be able to see enemy "scent trails" while in the dark, be able to move at very fast speeds, and the best ability of the bunch: lunging at your enemies with the B button, resulting in an instant kill. It's one of the satisfying items the game has, as nothing is more fun than jumping at several enemies, seeing them fly through the air and scream like women.
Other than that, the game basically goes for the "kill dudes before they kill you" style of gameplay. You mostly kill simple mercenaries, mutant monsters that remind me of some Ratchet & Clank enemy, infected humans who try to be bad asses by holding their P90s one-handed gangster-style, infected super-grunts who wield machine guns, and infected grunts that try to slice you to bits. The problem is that you don't see most of these new enemies until after you start gaining your special mutant abilities, or very late on in the game. The result is a very repetitious style of gameplay. Outside of a strange large one-armed monster that you fight five times (mind out of the gutter, reader) and the final boss, there are very few boss fights. But what fights they throw in tend to break up the action a bit.
The enemy A.I. seems to work more strongly in sheer numbers, rather than intelligence. Rarely did I see them react to their allies being sniped by the player, or try to flank me. Far Cry Instincts likes to throw about 6, 8, sometimes dozens of enemies at once. Enemies that will plink down your health to zero very quickly, resulting in constantly having to reload checkpoints. Worst off, there are times where the game doesn't let up on this difficulty curve, even after dying multiple times in the same area. This game has no skill levels, so it makes the game tougher than it really should be.
Now if there was a game I'd say that could loosely pull itself off as an Xbox 360 title, this is one of those games. Instincts looks gorgeous, lighting and shadows look spectacular for the system. Voice acting is competent, if not corny, and the music seems to go for very industrial-jungle style music. It fits in some areas, and there were a few catchy, if repetitive music tracks.
Once you beat Far Cry: Instincts, you can dabble in the game's multiplayer. It's simple deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture-the-flag like modes. I'd elaborate more on this, but... well, I lack Xbox Live. So I can't go into exact detail. But you can play this with up to four players, so it's better than nothing.
What I can mention is that Instincts has a map making mode. Taking a page from the PC Far Cry, Instincts has a robust map-making feature that adjusts the terrain, the buildings, the trees, and it's all pretty decent. However, these only work in multiplayer, you can't make singleplayer custom maps for random skirmishes. It would've been nice to add features like that to give the player some replay value, but the maps you make can be used in split-screen and online sessions. The map making itself doesn't take very long to do, and the custom maps are built for endless replay value. It's probably the strongest element of the whole game.
Technically I shouldn't have reviewed Far Cry: Instincts. Logic dictates you must finish the game and play everything you know about it. But to be honest, even though I've never played multiplayer, I will admit I was periodically having fun with the singleplayer. Outside of some tough parts, the game had a few redeeming features. If you got an Xbox, you should look into this, it's pretty cheap nowadays. Or if you got a 360, get Far Cry Instincts: Predator, it has this game and the Evolution follow-up with a next-gen spit shine polish. Far Cry: Instincts may seem "generic," but it's a good kind of generic. It does a few new things and has a good sense of action. And that's all I need.
Pros: Animal abilities, damn good graphics, cool map-making.
Cons: Poor driving segments, idiot A.I., map-making is multiplayer only.