Prey

I picked this up at a discount and expected to be unimpressed. I was wrong!

While not gods gift to FPS it certainly held my imagination for a while. The levels are well designed with all sorts of variation in settings and a slew of interesting and challenging dimensional puzzles to keep you occupied. The storyline could be better as is often the case with modern games but the developers have at least tried to expand on their characters and settings. Weapons are of interesting design also, appearing as living guns with cool abilities. They are however fairly run of the mil in action.

All up i enjoyed the game alot. I can only hope DNF is half as well done as Prey.

Just like the music on most commercial radio stations this game had great production but very little content. This game really looks great. The Doom 3 engine is great for atmosphere but the plot, characters and universe it's set in are just not very interesting. The enemies are not paticularly fun to kill and the weapons you use to do that aren't satisfying to use. In the end the novel physics and portal elements just can't save this game from being less than engaging.

I didn't really enjoy this game. The graphics are nice. They are solid with no noticeable glitches, and the game runs smoothly. The sound and voice acting is average and the music is great though a little epic for such an anticlimactic journey.

The level design is OK, you will find some unique puzzles due to having the ability to leave your body in spirit form to access areas you normally couldn't and also because of the ability to alter gravity and walk on the ceilings etc . You use portals to get to different areas and help solve puzzles and find secrets. Personally I thought they over did it a bit, and it became a tedious chore to move forward through the game.

Combat is enjoyable, you get a good range of weapons to use and you will find most of your enemies aren't much of a match. There is a fair variation in enemy types to fight also. There are no available upgrades, though there is a multiplayer mode as well as a harder mode you can unlock (it's no secret it tells you that you need to beat the game to unlock it at the main screen).

That's the good... The bad is that there is little variation in your environment which I find hugely boring. There is next to no freedom to explore, it's a set path. and you notice it. You get only one vehicle you can use, a flying machine that can pick up items and enemies and drop them and of course be used to shoot at other flying enemies.

You can't die in this game either, death has been replaced with a short hunting trip in the afterlife where you stand there and fire you bow at red and blue spirits (red to regain health, blue to regain spirit power) until you are sucked down a vortex to pick up where you left off, there for, this is not a hard game, and beating it doesn't feel rewarding.

Prey contains interesting concepts that were conceived way back in 1997 (or earlier). The portal system, the upside down walk floors, spirit walk and all those interesting this side up, this side down puzzles blend nicely into the game play.

The graphics artifacts looks more or less like DOOM 3, none the less, the visuals do their job just fine. Although unlike DOOM 3, graphics does not drive the game play.Sound quality is good as well. Story is interesting enough to keep you playing. AI is below average and it takes about 8-10 hours to fight your way through. The action is standard FPS stuff.

The best part of the game are the weapon models. Though most of them behave like standard human weapons, they're alien like look just blows your mind away. You can see acid dripping, short circuits, and other interesting motion effects added to your weapons.

All said and done, in the end its the concept of portals and stuff that steals the show. Give it a go when you want an easy shooting game with interesting ideas.

You've probably played a lot of shooters that are derivative - Doom 3 and Quake 4, whilst still excellent, are essentially corridoors full of biomechanical zombies. Quake's better than Doom, but you get the idea :)

Prey's... something different. Sure, you've got the science fiction shooter setting, and it's done well... but it feels quite fresh. The gameplay is compelling, the musical score is well delivered, and there is believable voice acting to couple the rather excellent story. The puzzles are just "cool," and the environments with the gravity walls and other neato physics tricks are just sweet.

If you want a good shooter - and I mean, a good one; this isn't F.E.A.R. with the samn nasty office building recycled :) - then do yourself a favour and grab this. I can't believe it's only $35! I picked it up at release but even at full price it's a good game. The visuals will stand up to what you're used to playing today.