When I found out that Far Cry was to be ported to the consoles I couldn't help but be slightly sceptical. I thought the graphics were bound to suffer, but it was the wide open landscape I was more concerned about. After all, the two features Far Cry is best known for are its looks and its massive island!

And so it was just four hours after arriving back from the Costa Brava I was once again on the road, well train, travelling down to Microsoft's offices in London to play Far Cry Instincts. At least the Virgin Pendelino train that I was travelling down on didn't suffer turbulence every five minutes unlike the flight a couple of hours earlier.

Today was going to be a very long day...

9:32am: Runcorn Station
I never feel sorry about leaving Runcorn, (if you want to know what where I live is like watch the BBC's Two Pints of Lager & a Packet of Crisps) the place is a real dump. Anyway, I don't quite know what's making my stomach turn; lack of food, breathing Runcorn's excuse for air after a week on the Costa Brava in Lloret de Mar (I highly recommend it), that dodgy Chorizo baguette I ate at Gerona Airport the night before, no sleep for 23 hours or that it would be my first time in London since 1998, and the first time ever there by myself, not to mention the fact I'd never been on the underground. Whatever it was, it couldn't stop me from looking forward to the Far Cry Instincts community event being hosted by Ubisoft at Microsoft London.

12:30pm: Piccadilly Circus
I now understand the jokes about putting giant ice bags on the underground trains to cool them down; how the hell is it so hot when you go to walk onto the platform you have a massive rush of cool air? It's like its trying to escape... oh well, either way; I was standing next to the fountain at Piccadilly Circus admiring the massive neon billboards that adorn the building across the road. After meeting up with OXM's community expert, and a good friend of mine Luke Newcombe, we headed off towards Great Putney Street, or GPS as regular visitors fondly refer to it.
After jeering at Sony's London offices on the way (unfortunately I'd just been the toilet at Euston so no luck there) we arrived at Microsoft's offices, got my pass, and headed into the building.

12:35pm: Microsoft London
When you remember that you're heading into Microsoft's London offices, you can't help but hope you might just get a glimpse of the 360; no luck there though, the room where Ubisoft were holding the event was right off the foyer.
Anyway, heading into the room I was met by 8 or so TV's of various sizes to the right of me, all Single Player, and down in the lower part of the room there was 16 TV's set up for two of the games many multiplayer modes.
After being introduced to Chris Easton and Ian... I managed to sit down and play Far Cry's version of slayer. Now I'm far from the world's greatest player (my running over of CGS Badboy in the later competition bears testament to my lack of skill) but I think I did respectively finishing around 4th consistently.
Not long after getting to the event the Pizza's arrived; all 45 of them. After a break chatting to Luke, Lisa (XboxGameZone) and CGS Badboy we headed back in and had a go at the Predator mode.

3:00pm: Microsoft London – Competition Time
Now as I said before I'm ok at games, but my performance in the team competition was nothing short of the finest grade of crap. We lost 3-0 after failing to defend the sample, me shooting Lisa and then running Badboy over. Anyway, the real honours go to both teams who reached the finals, ‘Team C' and the winners, ‘Frag Ash' (try saying that when your drunk, you'll slip up a few times...).
After a hard fought competition which resulted in a draw; but only one team could be victorious and turned out to be ‘Frag Ash', winning the team deathmatch 25 kills to 21. Who said fighting never got you anything? After that hard fought fight, the team members of ‘Frag Ash' all won a copy of Far Cry Instincts courtesy of Ubisoft.

5:00pm: The Pub
A blur, nah unfortunately not, because alas, I had to travel home at 6:30pm to make sure I got back to Runcorn, to go to lovely sunny Hull the next day. After more incessant flirting with the Fragdolls by OXM's Ben Talbot (yes Ben, we have photographic evidence, you may be the sexiest man in Wales but she's too young, now behave, just kidding mate), we headed down the pub. Now there is nothing like going down the pub after a community day. Why? Because the great guys at Ubisoft pick up the tab, yeah!

It might sound corny but I really did have a fun day, even though I did spend the day working... yes playing games is work for me, well someone has to do it. And with that I almost fell asleep on the train, nearly missed my stop and then crashed into bed when I got home... 39 hours without sleep and counting... zzzzzz.

XboxGameZone attended the commmunity event, please check out there coverage of the event by clicking here!

Article by Ben Furfie (Auzdafluff)