Did anyone else play the Far Cry Instincts Demo that came in this month's OXM?

I did. With slightly dissapointing results. I have only watched the PC version be played and I couldn't quite give you a comparison. This is from a person who has never played Far Cry before.

Well, you start out with a little knife and you scramble around trying to escape from a helicopter. The physics, especially the ragdoll, are not very impressive. I stabbed my first enemy in the back, and he tumbled down the cliff very stiffly. Then I went into the bushes and set up a branch trap, chucked a rock, and then got sent flying by my branch. Taking down 75% of my health.

My enemy, alerted to my presence moved towards me and I stabbed one to death and took his gun. I tried to use stealth on my next enemy, but he whirled around and I ended up shooting him in the head. I scrambled along and found a little wooden structure. The space between the wood, allowed me to see him perfectly, but for some reason, he failed to see me.

I slithered on my back underneath the floor, and shot him in the head. I climbed back out and snatched up his pistol, the duel wield is pleasant. You can store your second pistol whenever you want, and then pull it out when you feel the need.

The enemy damage, is quite realistic, one shot to the head with any gun is an instant kill, as you may have suspected. It only takes a few shots in the chest to drop them, combined with their horrible accuracy, makes the game unsatifyingly easy.

So after that, I climbed up a slope and heard a merc radioing for helicopter support. I jumped down into a bush and attempted to sneak up on him, but he turned his head and saw me, I shot him several times and then climbed in through a window. And grabbed a radio headset. A man told me that I needed to get in the water because they were going to drop napalm on the area, I panicked and dove under the building and was turned into a tasty crisp by napalm.

I tried again and got to the second part of the demo, whis is actually quite long. The man told me that I needed to meet with Valarie, the woman I drove in on the boat, in the center of the island. I had many mishaps on th way, the island is crawling with mercinaries, when I got to a fenced-in area, I saw Valarie being kidnapped by mercs on a helicopter.

I was ordered to steal a Humvee (mighta spelled that wrong), and I ran in, and jumped in the vechicle. There were more mercs than you could believe (okay, there weren't that many), I fortunatly could fire my weapon while driving, and stop and hop into a turret on the top. I sped through a area, squashing mercs, and shooting them, dodging grenades, it was very fun. I had to abandon my humvee and get a new one, the end of the demo.

I played this through about three times,

The first time:

AI: Absoulute idiots! They ran against walls and couldn't find me even when I was stabbing them over and over again. Also some cheap moments, when they could see me through a dense bush, that only happened in this play through.

Glitches: The Humvee made no engine sounds, the game would forget to play sounds, and I actually froze at the end and had to restart.

The second time:

AI: The AI made no bumbling errors like the first time, but the Combine they ain't! No cheapness.

Glitches: Humvee still made no noise, didn't freeze up except for at the very, very end, then, it ended. The Ubisoft Logo screen lagged at the end.

The third time:

AI: No mistakes, still not the brightest things ever.

Glitches: Humvee made noise! YAY! The only glitch was, during the trailer at the end, there was an engine noise playing.

Overall-
The AI was pretty stupid, I hope they polish it up.

There were a fair amount of irritating glitches, making me wonder whether or not to buy the game.

The sound was okay, the guns were fine, the walking was pretty loud, the voice acting wasn't anything thrilling, underwater sounded fantastic! Jack would breathe painfully when running for a long time, and he would breathe unnaturally when he was trying to be quite, just like in real life! The music was supurb, VG tunes worthy! ;)

The graphics were great! Not near as good as Doom 3 in some aspects, but very good! One of the best on the Xbox! The water reflected everything. Fire, explosions and smoke looked great. High res textures on everything, enemies looked very real. Your hands are a little blocky, but oh well, it's still current-gen console! The swimming was excellent, your vision was blurry underwater, and it was blurry for a moment after you got out.

It was a shiny package overall, but there are some smudges, that partially ruin an excellent expeience.

UPDATE!

After playing it for a fourth time, I have found a few new glitches.

1. Water does not splash when you jump into it.

2. I could not get into an empty boat so I restarted.

3. I got into the boat and backed up, in the boat were two corpses which were suspended in the air after I backed away and did not fall into the water until I shot them with the gun turret.

4. I kicked the boat in shore and got in and went full throttle. I heard splashing noises, as if I were still in the water.

5. Water splashes up through the floor of the boat, as if it weren't there.

and the Humvee didn't make any noise again.

Well, I bought the real game (Xbox), and it is really good. The glitches have been smoothed out and the feral powers are AWESOME! AI is good, physics are pretty good, and graphics, are really good (for Xbox). If you have an Xbox, and like FPS, buy this game!

::eyes seriously burns out of thier sockets::

I beat it a week ago. The ending sucked. Talk about an anti-climax.

Screw stealth, your enemies have the best eyesight and hearing in any game. RAMBO ALL THE WAY!

That was one of the big issues with the pc game. You could be snipped by peeople you couldn't see with perfect sight. Overall thought it was a VERY good game. I wouldn't say the best of 04. I still put it behind half-life and neck and neck with doom 3.