Far Cry Instincts: Predator (2006)

Call me crazy but I prefer this over the original Far Cry. Much easier on the eyes, wider weapon variety, and the difficulty curve, while still pretty steep, isn’t absolutely absurd like the OG game was. The enemy AI is still a little too good but again, not totally ridiculous. The controls take a while to break into but to be honest I think this just adds to the experience. This is Far Cry in its purest, rawest form: isolated with nothing but your bare hands, any weapons you manage to pick up, and will to survive. They really nailed laying the foundation for what future installments would desperately attempt to mimic (the only one that truly perfected it was 2 in my opinion). Like the main character, you are forced to adapt to each situation, to evolve. Every successful firefight feels like a satisfying culmination of strategic planning and operating under pressure, because the enemies DO NOT flinch, despite the terrifying force of nature you are. Let’s talk nature on that note. After about an hour of facing near impossible odds, you get... the ability to uppercut enemies into the stratosphere, among other things. What’s nice is these mechanics are slowly introduced so you don’t have everything from the start and have to, once again, adapt to the changes. Unfortunately the expansion campaign (Evolution) not only keeps these changes but also adds nothing to them, so you can pretty much quite literally speedrun through the whole thing. Story-wise, you get a retelling of the OG game which, I think, is a vast improvement, mostly due to the revised character of Jack Carver. Not sure if it was just the VA, but in the OG game he’s a total dork that I found pretty annoying. In this game he’s your typical Bruce Willis-esque badass with a shot of whiskey in one hand and a full auto machine gun in the other, and I love it. He’s no Geralt obviously but if you play Far Cry for the character development you might need to have your head checked. In totality, this is a solid retelling of the first Far Cry that I would infinitely recommend over the original game. It is by no means perfect game but it has lots of early-2000s FPS charm and laid a beautiful foundation for the series to come.