Far Cry Instincts Predator is a repackaging of the Xbox game Far Cry Instincts and its stand alone expansion Far Cry Instincts: Evolution. There are some minor differences between the two, such as improved graphics, but this is more or less the same game that came out months earlier on the original Xbox. It is important to make that clear right away so there is no confusion over what exactly you are getting.

For the main campaign, Far Cry Instincts Predator puts you into the shoes of Jack Carver, a retired Navy commando who now pays the bills by taking tourists out on his boat. After being hired by a woman to take her to a mysterious tropical island, Jack finds himself on the receiving end of a helicopter gunship. With his boat destroyed, Jack must find a way to rescue the woman and get off of the island. Of course that sounds a lot easier then it actually is. You will discover that there are some odd things going on deep inside the jungle, something that an army of mercenaries don’t want you to discover.

The game’s setting is probably the most important part of the game. The entire main campaign takes place on one huge lush tropical island. This setting opens the game up to some interesting gameplay. For most of the game you must rely on Guerrilla warfare since you are almost always outgunned. Hiding in the jungle and sneaking around is a big part of the game. It is possible to sneak up on enemies and perform stealth kills by stabbing them in the back. You can also set branch traps on trees, and then throw rocks to lure unsuspecting enemies to their death. There isn’t much that is more satisfying then taking out whole groups of enemies without any of them ever seeing you. While stealth is more of a suggestion rather then a strict requirement, you will have a much easier time covertly taking out as many mercenaries as you can then if you run in guns blazing.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a ton of gunplay to be found in the game. The firefights can be pretty intense at times. There is a pretty good selection of weapons, though they are pretty much what you would expect to see. You have your assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns and more. Jack can carry three weapons at once: a pistol, a medium weapon like an assault rifle, and a heavy weapon like a rocket launcher. This doesn’t include grenades or claymores that you can use as well. You can also dual-wield many of the games smaller weapons.

Your most effective weapon in the game though is definitely your own two hands. Not too far into the game, Jack becomes a victim of one of the strange experiments going on (this is written on the box, so it’s not really a spoiler). The experiment gives you “feral abilities” like super human strength and speed. Early on you can essentially rip enemies apart with your own bare hands. As you progress through the game, you are constantly getting new tricks. For example, you will gain the ability to pick of sent trails from your enemies, or run extremely fast and jump incredible distances.

You can also take control of a few vehicles in the game. These range from ground vehicles like ATVs to water craft like jet skis. There are even a few hang gliders in the game which you can use to fly around the huge environments. While you can shoot while in the vehicles, driving and shooting is pretty difficult. The awkward vehicle physics can make a lot of the vehicles frustrating to control. You will mostly use the vehicles simply as a way to travel across the big levels.

There is also a pretty good variety in the environments. While most of the levels take place in large outdoor jungles, there are a few underground levels as well as a volcano fortress to mix things up a bit. This keeps the levels feeling pretty fresh throughout since looking at a bunch of trees the entire time could get a bit boring. On the PC, Far Cry featured very open ended levels, where you could pretty much pick your own path through the island and tackle objectives in a variety of ways. This seems to have been scaled back for the console game. The underground levels, which last for a good amount of time, are completely linear. The outdoor levels do offer you more freedom then most first person shooter, but they feel pretty linear compared to the original Far Cry game. Perhaps this was due to technical limitations of the first Xbox, but it is unfortunate that one of the best features of the original game has been watered down.

Once you have finished the Instincts campaign, which should take you around 12 hours or so to complete, there is the Evolution campaign for you to tackle. It is no big surprise that it is actually pretty similar to the main campaign. It is an expansion after all. This time around however Jack Carver is hired by a woman (again) to help her with some illegal gun-running. As you would expect, things don’t go as planned. Shortly after delivering the weapons, rebels attack, stranding Jack on another tropical island. While the expansion is still a good amount of fun, it doesn’t manage to meet the same level of excitement as the first campaign. This is mostly because it doesn’t manage to feel as fresh.

Since this game is set in a tropical island very similar to the last one, the game plays almost exactly the same. There are, however, a few changes in the level design that are worth mentioning. On the good side, some of the levels feel a lot more open ended this time around. For example, early on you will have multiple objectives across a few smaller islands that you can tackle in any order you want by using boats to travel between them. On the bad side, the game has some very annoying jumping puzzles later on that seem to simply be there to extend the length of the game. Also, sometimes there are infinite amounts of enemies that spawn in. It may take a while to realize what is going on and that you are supposed to just move on.

There is one bug that shows up pretty often during both campaigns that deserves mentioning. The bug involves locking onto enemies to use your claw attack. Similar to the sword attack in Halo 2, when you target an enemy to attack them with your claws, the game automatically has you fly in a straight line towards your target until you hit them. The problem is that it is extremely easy to get stuck on objects while flying towards your victim. When you do, you will be unable to move until the game gives you back control. The problem is that it takes way too long for the game to realize that you are stuck and give you back control. There will be many times when you will die because of this, and it can be extremely frustrating at times.

There is not much else to say about the expansion campaign. It’s pretty much just more of the Instincts gameplay with a new storyline. But that is not necessarily a bad thing since Instincts was pretty fun. The Evolution campaign should take most players around 6 to 8 hours to finish. After finishing both campaigns, there is still the multiplayer left to check out.

Far Cry Instincts Predator has great Xbox Live support. It is one of the few games to feature an easy to use map editor. It’s surprisingly easy to create your own levels. Most of the map editing is point and click, so you can very quickly develop and test your own ideas. When connecting to a game running a custom map, it is automatically downloaded. The custom map editor combined with a good number of retail maps and game types makes the multiplayer experience pretty solid. You could easily spend a good amount of time playing this game online.

Overall, Far Cry Instincts Predator is a pretty good game. It is a complete package that features a ton of content and is definitely the best version of Far Cry to date. That being said, if you already own Far Cry Instincts on the Xbox, there is not enough here to warrant buying the game again. You would be better off just buying the expansion separately. But if you have yet to play Instincts, this is the best version to play.

On a side note, I have to take issue with some of the other reviews for this game out there. Review sites such as Gamespot gave Far Cry Instincts a significantly higher score then Far Cry Instincts Predator. Considering Predator contains Instincts and Evolution as well as some minor upgrades, it is definitely the better version of the game and in my opinion deserves a higher, not lower, score then the original. The gamplay is no less fun today as it was when the game first came out on the Xbox. The lack of true next generation content (such as a major upgrade to the graphics) does not make the game any less fun then it already was.

Wow, I have been starting to wonder if we would ever see another update. These backwards compatibility updates are way to few and far between. Still, it’s good to know they are working on it, even if this new update consists of mostly mediocre titles.

Here is the list of new and updated games:

• Aggressive Inline
• Aquaman: Battle of Atlantis
• All Star Baseball 2003
• All Star Baseball 2005
• Burnout 3: Takedown
• Catwoman
• Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Kart UPDATED
• Counter Strike
• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
• Dead to Rights
• Digimon Rumble Arena 2 UPDATED
• ESPN Major League Baseball
• Fatal Frame 2
• Ford vs. Chevy UPDATED
• Freaky Flyers
• Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows
• Tom Clancy´s Ghost Recon - Island Thunder
• Half Life 2 UPDATED
• The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer UPDATED
• IndyCar Series 2005
• Kabuki Warrior UPDATED
• Lego Star Wars II
• Links 2004
• Magatama UPDATED
• Maximum Chase
• Mortal Kombat: Deception UPDATED
• MTX: Mototrax Featuring Travis Pastrana
• Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection
• MX vs. ATV Unleashed
• Outlaw Tennis
• Over the Hedge
• Sid Meier’s Pirates
• Richard Burns Rally
• Rogue Trooper
• Serious Sam
• Shincho Mahjong
• Smashing Drive
• Sneakers UPDATED
• Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run
• The Legend of Spyro: A Beginning
• TAZ: Wanted
• True Crime Streets of LA
• The Suffering
• Trigger Man
• Torino Winter Olympics 2006
• Vietcong
• Wrath Unleashed
• X-Men II: Wolverine’s Revenge

The only game on that list that I would have cared about would be Burnout 3, but I have since bought Burnout Revenge for the 360. Hopefully they will get The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay on the list soon.

A recent thread on Gametrailers has got me thinking about the best video game villains in any game. There are a lot that I personally like a lot, but one definitely sticks out when compared to all the others.

SHODAN from System Shock 1 & 2 is probably one of the coolest villains ever created and is by far my favorite. She is just so menacing. I don’t think any other villain has ever gotten under my skin as much as her. I think this quote says it best:

“… But what really sucked me in was SHODAN. In most games, you saw the villain in a few key cutscenes, and then you faced him or her at the end, dispatching the cad with a rocket launcher or two or with a few well placed jumps on the head. But SHODAN was different. She taunted you, she threatened you, and sometimes, she even seemed to fear you.

I clearly remember approaching a set of computer terminals on the first level that I was supposed to blow up. As I readied my weapon, SHODAN told me, in so many words, that if I destroyed those terminals, she would have me torn into very small pieces. I hesitated. And then I thought ‘Nuts to you SHODAN’ and blew up the terminals, whereupon she sent a small army of cyborgs to, well, tear me into very small pieces.

I then knew that Shock was something different. Here was a foe who talked to you, who watched you, who cared about you. She wasn’t on vacation on some Caribbean island, only to return for the final battle. She was there, and she was ready to rumble.”

– Ken Levine, Irrational Games

She placed number 4 on IGN’s Top 10 List:

Make sure you treat your computers well. Don’t hack them, don’t abuse them, and certainly don’t assert your dominance, because if they’re anything like SHODAN, they’ll kill you if they’re having a bad day. They’ll also taunt you the entire time they’re doing it. Whether on a space station or a starship, SHODAN’s virtual omnipotence meant that everything from communications and security cameras to video terminals were under her control to do as she saw fit. Plus, she loved sending mutants, robots, and cyborgs of tortured victims after you, all the while ridiculing your insignificance. Each time she called you an insect or an irritant, it actually felt like a slap across the face.

And also made Gamespot’s top list:

Looking Glass Studios’ 3D action role-playing game System Shock is the closest thing to a cult hit on the PC, with its relatively small but ferociously loyal contingent of fans who insist it’s one of the best games ever made. At the center of its story lies SHODAN, the arrogant artificial intelligence bent on thwarting or toying with your character, a hacker who is evidently the lone survivor of the computer’s wrath. Being both invisible and omniscient, SHODAN makes her power and presence obvious through a combination of her disdainful, modulating voice and her knack for anticipating exactly what you’re thinking. As you uncover evidence about SHODAN’s intentions, she seems to be one step ahead of you all the while and taunts you every step of the way.

She may lack the modesty of 2,001’s HAL 9000, but she is every bit as dignified and even more self-aware than that soft-spoken machine. SHODAN is conscious of being the product of fallible human hands and ambitions and is all the more resentful toward her makers for that reason. She threatens you continuously, revealing full knowledge of your supposedly secret intention to dismantle her.

System Shock was a game in which a villain like SHODAN could thrive. Your character had to sneak through installation corridors (and even cyberspace), leaning around corners, standing on his toes to see over ledges - and yet such stealth seemed pathetic or entirely futile in the face of a computer opponent that was not limited by fallible senses. Fortunately or not, the conclusion of System Shock did not mark the end of SHODAN, as she was also alluded to in Origin’s Crusader isometric action games, as well as in the action-adventure Bioforge.

Well, Valve has pretty much ruined the game for me. They decided to “fix” the radar system. Apparently they don’t believe in the saying “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”. The new radar system is absolutely awful. First, it looks extremely bad and too complex. I have never seen such an awful looking radar system in any game.

But what is worse is that they changed the way the radar works. They added what they call “enemy detection”. Basically, if you see an enemy, even for a split second, it gets added to your and your teammate’s radar. After a few seconds it disappears, but this is absolutely unacceptable. It completely breaks a core mechanic of the game (stealth) and completely negates the need for communication in a lot of situations.

Say you are hiding behind a door with a silenced weapon guarding the bombsite. Some dumb player comes in and you kill him in under a second. The problem is, all of his teammates now have you on their radar for a few seconds. Assuming those are skilled players, you now have zero chance to take them out. They will probably just unload on you through the door, since they can see you on the radar. Valve has pretty much built in a wall hack. Check out this screen shot that was posted on the Steam forums:

The guy who got killed was shot by someone who was all the way over in the paper room. Something like that used to only be possible if someone was cheating. But now, because of the radar, expect to see bullshit like that happen all the time.

This makes me want to go back and start playing CS 1.6 again. This looks like a good time to take a break from Source. Hopefully this awful radar system will be fixed. If not, I might not play that game any more.

Well probably not. Chances are I will learn to deal with it and continue to play. But I seriously think this new radar was a big mistake.

I decided to add a print button for some more printer friendly posts. Hopefully everything works correctly, but if you have any issues just let me know. The print button is located after the comments button at the end of each post.

Well, I have not posted anything recently so I figured I might as well post about Sage. I know a lot of you out there use Firefox (and if you don’t, you really should). But I also know a lot of you don’t use RSS feeds. Or if you do, you are only using them as live bookmarks. There are a lot of feed readers out there, but I personally like the Firefox extension Sage. It’s extremely easy to use and works pretty well:

All you have to do is add the feeds for each website you like to follow into the Sage Feeds folder in your bookmarks. Pressing Alt + S will open Sage. Then with one click, it will check the feeds for each site and automatically highlight those with updates that you have not read yet. Clicking on a website will show you the most recent posts on the site. It’s a pretty helpful tool if you want to stay updated on multiple sites. You can grab the extension here.

Now that the last release schedule has come to an end, Microsoft has announced the new titles to hit marketplace. There will be a break in the action though. This weeks release is new picture packs for Cloning Clyde. After that the games pick back up. Check them out:

August 23 - Texas Hold ‘Em
August 30 - Time Pilot
September 6 - Scramble

And what is even more interesting is that Texas Hold ‘Em will normally be available for 800 points ($10), but Microsoft has announced that it will actually be free for download for the first 48 hours. So be sure to download it quickly.

Microsoft announced plans to make entry-level development with XNA available on the PC for free, and on the Xbox 360 for a yearly fee of $99. As many of you probably know, GarageGames is involved with Microsofts new XNA Game Studio Express. They announced that they will be releasing an XNA-compliant version of its Torque game development environment, which consists of the Torque Shader Engine for 3D development and the Torque Game Builder for 2D development. The Microsoft hosted Gamefest 2006 kicked off yesterday, and with that, a few new videos from Garage Games. They both look pretty cool (but are boring due to lack of sound). One video featured two character models doing some familiar animations. The second video shows off more of the Atlas terrain engine, skiing and a new weapon model we have not seen before.

Shacknews also got an interview with GarageGames’ CEO/CTO Joshua Williams and President Mark Frohnmayer:

Shack: On that end user side of things, does GarageGames have any new games in the works, or are you guys pretty full up with work on your development tools right now?

Mark Frohnmayer: For games? We do have a couple things that we can’t talk about just yet. [laughs]

Joshua Williams: We got a couple things brewing.

Mark Frohnmayer: We’re about to release our first actual legimitate casual game that we developed in house. It just went into beta last week. We’re about to release a new set of levels for Marble Blast Ultra on Xbox 360. We did a whole new set of multiplayer maps that are actually a lot of fun. Then we have another game that’s in the early stages of development that’s going to totally rock. We will give you much more information on that as we get closer.

Shack: Anything related to Tribes? I’m sure you guys get asked that every day.

Mark Frohnmayer: It actually is in a lot of ways a gameplay homage to Tribes, but it’s a very different genre.

Joshua Williams: It’s going to be cool.

Mark Frohnmayer: It will be cool.

The full interview can be read here.

A recent blog post by an Official Playstation Magazine Editor has got me thinking about exclusive games for the next generation. Apparently she wants to go out and buy an Xbox 360. Why would an editor at OPM be publicly endorsing the Xbox 360? The answer is the $600 price tag and lack of exclusive content

It’s not that I find the concept of a $600 console insulting. Inflation happens, and it’s natural that eventually inital prices will be higher than they used to be. But when I know that a console’s direct competitors cost two-thirds or half of that price, it becomes harder for me to justify shelling out that kind of money–especially when I can probably get the Wii and the 360 combined for the cost of a PS3.

$600 might be worth it if there were several huge titles on the near horizon that were PS3-exclusive. But for the first year at least, there are very few big titles that are PS3 exclusive. GTA4 and Assassins will be available for the 360 at the same time. And most of the big guns–FFXIII, MGS4–won’t be hitting for quite some time after the launch.

- Dana Jongewaard (OPM Editor)

Console exclusives have always been an extremely important selling point for a new console. Last generation Sony had a good number of high profile exclusives (though some were only exclusive for a time) which basically sold the console. This time around, things look very different. I wanted to find out exactly how many titles were currently in development and how many exclusive titles each console has so far. Luckily, Simon Phoenix over at Technophilia already did the work for me. This appears to be fairly accurate. I believe the Wikipedia list of games was used to create the graphs.

A full list of the specific titles can be found over at Technophilia.

After doing a research project where I wrote a 20 page paper on video game violence and its effect on children, it really bugs me how people constantly misrepresent the truth of the issue. I am getting pretty tired of people claiming that the issue has been settled and that there is enough research to prove that video game violence harms children. From my research on the subject I have learned that those studies are far from conclusive. The fact of the matter is that for every study that says there is some sort of relationship, there is another that says there isn’t. Even those studies that say there is some sort of link never claim that it is a cause and effect relationship. For the most part those studies could just mean that violent children prefer violent entertainment. There are even some good studies that show violent video games could be beneficial to children. Surely these politicians must know this, but they ignore all of the evidence to the contrary. I think a main part of the problem is that it is a generational issue. The simple fact is that those in office are for the most part ignorant when it comes to video games. The whole idea of playing a video game is alien to them. They have no idea what it is like and they can’t be bothered to try it out. I am willing to bet that once that generation is out of power, the whole issue about video game violence will pretty much disappear as it has before with comic books and rock music. But until then, feel free to laugh at how absurd they are:

If you are looking for some well written information on the subject, I suggest you check out these books. I found them to be extremely useful and persuasive.

• Killing Monsters Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence by Gerard Jones
• Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson
• What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee