Happiness is crawling through the bushes, approaching your target undetected, slowly inching forward until you get close enough, then racing out of cover and smashing him 30 feet into the air with your bare hands. Happiness is attaching a spiked whip branch to a tree, pulling it taut, then waiting for a hapless guard to stumble in its path so it releases and smacks him backwards. Happiness is gawping at next-gen water on a paradise island, wishing you were somewhere other than sitting in a damp room trying to accrue enough GamerPoints to shuffle you up gaming’s online hierarchy, where social lives become irrelevant and nights of crying into your pillow are common.

Far Cry Instincts Predator contains all these moments and therefore makes you very happy. It was never going to be the hardest of tasks for what is effectively a double-game package – there’s a cute revisit of the Xbox original (Instincts) and a whole new set of missions for what effectively constitutes a sequel (Evolution). It is “two games in one!” as Ubisoft predictably shouted about on its press release. Instincts could have fallen into the trap of being yet another lazy Xbox port but having smelt King Kong and Gun’s rotting corpses at the bottom of this particular pitfall, wisely decided against it. Good job too – there are enough new moments to keep Instincts feeling just about fresh enough and the next-gen lick of paint does a good job of covering any last-gen roots. Sadly, even a year on, Instincts shows its age in ways that can’t be disguised by slapping a few extra polygons over the wrinkles. While Ubisoft probably intended for the levels to be tight, suffocating experiences, we more commonly refer to this type of design as ‘linear’ and ‘dull’. Likewise, the actual objectives are little more than a series of markers to hit as you trek your way through the FPS jungle, which isn’t all that exciting in this day and age of Call Of Duty 2’s atmospheric brutality and Quake 4’s hardcore purism. It's just a wee bit bland. And the AI? Jesus, the AI. But we’ll save that moan for later.

Still, it’s Evolution that’s the main attraction and rightly so. Ditching the genetic experiment angle of Far Cry Instincts, Evolution’s focus is Jack Carver versus everyone, as he winds up stuck on a paradise island infested with arms dealers and tries to escape unscathed. The story is very much ‘My First Videogame Plot‘ garbage but the scope during the game itself is far broader than Instincts. The views are grander, the freedom is there and you can visit just about anywhere you see. Some levels even introduce – gasp! – multiple objectives that can be tackled at any time. It’s almost as if Ubisoft realised doing mundane tasks one at a time is actually rather dull! Without the need to explain how Jack Carver gains his feral abilities, Evolution is free to concentrate on the ass-kicking as you crawl through the jungle, burst from cover, reach for the shotgun when it all goes wrong. Instincts sets up the story, Evolution dives straight in with the action. Two games in one, just as the chest-beating press release tells us. Throw in a competent mapmaker mode and strong multiplayer and you've got a lot of bang for your buck. As we all know, happiness is getting more than you paid for.

Then there are also times when Far Cry Instincts Predator will make you sad. Really sad. Watching the AI in action is probably the most depressing experience on Xbox 360 to date. Never have enemies been quite this stupid. You get the feeling that while Call Of Duty 2 was attending AI School and getting distinctions for its homework, Far Cry Instincts Predator and Perfect Dark Zero were bunking off down the local shopping centre. In fact, even if all 132 pages of this magazine were dedicated to highlighting various examples of AI stupidity, it would probably take three issues to get through them all.

So, as happy as Far Cry Instincts Predator will make you, the AI will always storm in and slap the smile clean off your face. It’s a shame because the game was shaping up to be the ultimate FPS package, but that old bugbear of lastgen – wonky AI – sneaks up and bites Far Cry right on the arse just as it gets going. As it stands, this still has plenty of action for FPS fans, just don’t expect this to tickle your FPS senses that have been shredded and sharpened by previous Xbox 360 shooters.

Ryan King