wow, so much hate for HOMM4 all over the HOMM fanbase in general. I'm probably the only one who thinks it was by far the best HOMM game. I tried the HOMM5 demo and it just felt like a more accessible, watered down Warcraft3-looking version of HOMM. HOMM for Kids. Hated it.
anyway last weekend I blasted through Prey. Some of the gimmicks were amusing, particularly the gravity stuff... but once the novelty wears out you're trapped in the typical FPS grind. You just run right up to the bad guys and shoot them. You've seen it all before. I'm still waiting for Bioshock to come out and Save the Single Player FPS World from its current stagnation.
Although one aspect of Prey that got me thinking was how it handled death. You can't die in Prey... you're just taken to this mini-game for 20 seconds before you "respawn" right where you left off. While it removes the aspect of risk from the game, it's still better than the other typical alternatives when you think about it -- quicksaving every 3 steps a la Half Life, or being forced to replay parts from a checkpoint over and over and over again a la Far Cry. Then again it's rather silly when a boss "kills" you 20 times and you just keep come right back with all your heath restored, picking up right where you left off in the battle. The bosses should be screaming "omg hax!" after your 3rd magical resurrection.
