“Looks to me like you indulged in your usual overzealousness.”

On the same day that Far Cry Instincts: Evolution was released for the Xbox, Instincts: Predator came out on the Xbox 360, the brand new system which had only been on the market for a few months. Despite a mild improvement in graphical quality on the newer system, there’s nothing new to see here—Predator is simply a combo disc that features both Far Cry Instincts and Evolution in one package. As such, those hungry for a true sequel to the original Far Cry had to remain on the lookout and would be waiting two and a half more years for the release of Far Cry 2. But considered in isolation, Predator is a very good product—the two games it contains are both solid shooters and with the burgeoning Xbox Live community it became one of those really memorable multiplayer experiences for a handful of gamers (there were a few new things added to the multiplayer but by now the online community is long gone). Today, it’s probably the easiest way to play the two games it contains, unless you’ve still got an OG Xbox and want to purchase two discs.

I was only thirteen when Instincts was released. I have vivid memories of my older brother playing through the first level on the original Xbox release and pouting because I was only allowed to watch. So, even though I’m twice that age now, I was pretty excited to pop in Predator for a chance to finally play through the game properly. The initial moments matched my memory much closer than I was expecting—I recalled the opening cutscene on the boat, where Valerie Cortez jets off on Jack Carver’s jet ski. I remembered the helicopter wrecking Jack’s boat. The thrill of your first butterfly knife backstab; the tree whips; stealthily crawling underneath a hut and shooting up through the floorboards with a silenced handgun. It was a real thrill to bring those memories to life even though I’ve played many better games that were released in the intervening years.

The disc’s two campaigns are certainly fun. The intense combat, stealth mechanics, and vehicular arsenal are engaging and the B movie plotlines are juicy enough to keep things moving along without asking you to take them seriously. But while Instincts was a good game, tacking Evolution onto it and smoothing out the graphics does not make it a next-gen product. And so even though the games remain fun, they don’t feel like the step forward that should have occurred when moving to the new console. I hesitate to call it a cash grab, but it isn’t anything more than a port, and it’s best to consider it as one. It allowed Ubisoft to get their franchise on the new console, but it is not a next-gen Far Cry; it is merely the opportunity to play the last-gen Far Cry games on the Xbox 360. It would have made far more sense for the original Far Cry to be ported to the 360 (perhaps even along with these two games) as it was initially modified into Instincts because the original Xbox lacked the processing power required to run it.

It would have been really nice if they had updated the AI for the 360 port and given them some additional sense-making abilities. The borderline incompetence of the AI on the original Xbox was basically in line with what other games were offering at the time, but with the jump to the 360, it would have been a nice improvement. Instead, your enemies are just completely laughable if you take the time to observe their actions. Like, you’ll shoot one guy in the face from a concealed location, his buddy will come and check on him, verify that he’s stone cold dead, and then return to his post like nothing is wrong.

I’ve already dug into the individual titles presented in Predator, and I don’t really have any further analysis to add here. But this disc is how I experienced Evolution for the first time, and seeing as it’s pretty cheap to buy now, it is probably the best way to experience both games. Though it would be surpassed pretty quickly by a steady dosage of stellar FPS games on 360 and doesn’t quite stack up against the OG Far Cry, Far Cry Instincts: Predator was briefly one of the premier shooters on the system. It is hampered by the fact that Ubisoft chose to more or less directly port rather than enhance and because many of its potential fans had already played through Instincts a few months prior, but for those who have not played either game included here, it’s a good deal.