As one of the least hyped games over the past few years of the 360's reign, Prey was a game I was actually looking forward to. Of what little hype there was at the time, I knew that my expectations of a "different" shooter would be fulfilled. Having said that, being a seasoned gamer, I was still somewhat skeptical, as I am with every game I play. After finishing the game, however, I realized that it totally lived up to its hype of gravity/portal based puzzles mixed with a suspenseful but somewhat cliché storyline. Not to say that cliché is a bad thing; if people didn't like the elements of an antagonistic hero braving the wild of the evil baddies to save his beloved, then it wouldn't be clichéd to begin with.
The main issue that I do have with prey's storyline is that at many points there is so much gameplay and so many puzzles it takes too long to get back to the nitty gritty humankind vs. alien dynamic. I found myself getting so lost in the enormously overthought and time consuming gravity puzzles that I completely forgot my character's motivation and found myself wonder "why am I here again?" However, the best part about its storyline is that when you find it again it is well acted, well scripted, and the plot has very few holes. It seems that with a little more balancing work the storyline would have had me thinking more about the people in it and not just "oh look, another room with randomly spawning bad guys with telescopic shoot-you-in-the-head vision."
Another issue I had with the game was its resurrection system where you don't just die; you go to a spirit world where you have to play a target practice game to return to the land of the maiming. I don't really dislike this aspect of the game, but found the balancing to be a little skewed. It seemed like the odds stacked against me were always so innumerable that in one firefight alone, due to the weakness of the character, I found myself playing this spiritual target practice nearly three times just to get through one encounter. Another issue with this resurrection system is that once you realize that you are basically invincible, the game stops being challenging and scary and death becomes more of a punishment for being a bad shot and tries to rectify this problem by having you practice your aiming skills back in the spirit world. In theory this seemed like a pretty innovative idea until I realized I can repeat this infinitely. Since I never have to worry about the consequences of my actions, I can take advantage of this to run blindly at any enemy firing as much lead into him as I can without paying much attention to any sort of planning or strategy.
Having that said, the gameplay is surprisingly a tight handling system that plays somewhat like the engines in such fun games as Doom 3, Bioshock, and Unreal Tournament and the only complaint I really have with it is that the environments are a little to large for the weapons you're given to be truly effective. The wrench, once picking up your first rifle, pretty much gets tossed out because the enemies you face are either down the range 50-60 feet or a few hundred yards away, popping you with a sniper rifle before you've realized what plane of gravity he's on.
Looking back on my adventure with Thomas and his pet hawk, I found the game a very entertaining expedition into a fresh, new style of FPSs that I think tried something different and original that more games should try to emulate. This game for what its worth, is high on my recommendation list and anyone looking for a fresh take on the shooter genre would be well pleased to pick this one up. There's nothing perfect under the sun and that's even more true for the gaming industry, but since you can pick this game up for around 25 bucks I have to give it a high recommendation.
The main issue that I do have with prey's storyline is that at many points there is so much gameplay and so many puzzles it takes too long to get back to the nitty gritty humankind vs. alien dynamic. I found myself getting so lost in the enormously overthought and time consuming gravity puzzles that I completely forgot my character's motivation and found myself wonder "why am I here again?" However, the best part about its storyline is that when you find it again it is well acted, well scripted, and the plot has very few holes. It seems that with a little more balancing work the storyline would have had me thinking more about the people in it and not just "oh look, another room with randomly spawning bad guys with telescopic shoot-you-in-the-head vision."
Another issue I had with the game was its resurrection system where you don't just die; you go to a spirit world where you have to play a target practice game to return to the land of the maiming. I don't really dislike this aspect of the game, but found the balancing to be a little skewed. It seemed like the odds stacked against me were always so innumerable that in one firefight alone, due to the weakness of the character, I found myself playing this spiritual target practice nearly three times just to get through one encounter. Another issue with this resurrection system is that once you realize that you are basically invincible, the game stops being challenging and scary and death becomes more of a punishment for being a bad shot and tries to rectify this problem by having you practice your aiming skills back in the spirit world. In theory this seemed like a pretty innovative idea until I realized I can repeat this infinitely. Since I never have to worry about the consequences of my actions, I can take advantage of this to run blindly at any enemy firing as much lead into him as I can without paying much attention to any sort of planning or strategy.
Having that said, the gameplay is surprisingly a tight handling system that plays somewhat like the engines in such fun games as Doom 3, Bioshock, and Unreal Tournament and the only complaint I really have with it is that the environments are a little to large for the weapons you're given to be truly effective. The wrench, once picking up your first rifle, pretty much gets tossed out because the enemies you face are either down the range 50-60 feet or a few hundred yards away, popping you with a sniper rifle before you've realized what plane of gravity he's on.
Looking back on my adventure with Thomas and his pet hawk, I found the game a very entertaining expedition into a fresh, new style of FPSs that I think tried something different and original that more games should try to emulate. This game for what its worth, is high on my recommendation list and anyone looking for a fresh take on the shooter genre would be well pleased to pick this one up. There's nothing perfect under the sun and that's even more true for the gaming industry, but since you can pick this game up for around 25 bucks I have to give it a high recommendation.
