Been playing more of both Prey and Remnant: From the Ashes.
Starting with Remnant.
This game is really strange. It's like Souls meets Diablo 2. Randomly generated maps that have different zones tied to them, that may/may not spawn that iteration. Specific bosses tied to those subzones, with unique loot. So if you are trying to get a certain bit of gear, you will be rerolling the maps in Adventure mode, to try and get the right events to spawn. It's strange, to be feeling that D2 spawn churn while playing a souls game. Otherwise, it's fine I guess. I'll give it that it has an interesting cross section of NPCs to talk to, and interact with. I've got like 10 different npc's that I can talk to, compared to like zero in other games of a similar design. The plot feels more defined as well. Mechanically it's still a breadcrumb trail like most of the "Go to Location A and do Thing 1, there you will learn to go to Location B and do Thing 2" repeat. I found a sword/ring combination that makes melee combat really funny. The sword will inflict the burning effect on the enemy for 10 seconds, can stack 3 times, and the ring will inflict bleeding on the enemy for 30 seconds, stacks 3 times. Both effects are triggered by doing a heavy attack, which I usually do, so I'm just letting my enemies die from dots, and it's amusing. I also have a hammer that I sometimes use, that has an aoe smash effect on heavy attack....which will cause everyone in the blast to be inflicted with bleed...and it stacks 3 times so...yeah it's kind of hilarious.
Prey:
So that clipping on terrain bug I mentioned before, has literally killed me twice now. Snuck into an area through a vent, got spotted by the aliens as I tried to sneak around and explore, couldn't get through the gap to escape, got squished. That's REALLY fucking annoying. I rarely experience bugs that severe, where they are more than just graphical, or audio gliches of some kind that make for odd/funny moments. This...this makes being a sneaky bastard a less appealing strategy, simply because I can't reliably count on a safe mode of travel.
Also, the amount of switchbacking this game forces you to do, to try and learn about some of these side missions, is really starting to grate on my nerves. To open this door in Location A, you need a keycard from someone that works in Department X, however nobody from Dept. X is alive, and none of them are anywhere near this zone. They're all over in Location G, however to get into location G, you need to have a keycard from someone in Dept. 37, and the closest one of THOSE assholes is currently dead, and floating in space, in an area that you can access, because of a hull breach...that you need to have Hacking 4 to get to, or Repair 3...and you also need to have this other thing. It's just...this increasingly frustrating nesting doll of barricades in my way, to try and do the fucking missions they put in my face. I like the game on a lot of levels, but in others, it's a rather frustrating cluster of obstacles, for no reason that I can see, other than to just force you to wander all over.
Also, a feature that I find neat, but also kind of frustrating, is the fact that various aspects of the automation of the station, happen at fixed time stamps, determined by IRL time on your computer. Like how if you want to get into the morgue, you can just wait until the top of the hour for one of the Operator bots to go in there to do it's job, and follow it inside. Neat, that's really cool, and rewards the player for reading emails and learning that. I suspect there is something similar to an area that is currently blocking my entry, but the time stamp indicated is something of a problem...it's only ONE time. Basically, the area I need to get into, shows a sign clearly indicating "Official Stuff Happens at 7pm" So, given the precedent established by the morgue thing, I assume that at 7pm, some robots will come through, and I can sneak in with them or something. The problem is...I can't guarantee that I'll be playing at that time on any given day. So it's hard to try and literally schedule my Prey time around that one time stamp, when I have 2 cats that seem bred to demand my attention the SECOND I press "Start Game" on any video game, a wife, and other things that draw my attention. So yeah, it's a bit of an annoyance. The game is still really good, and I enjoy how much it reminds me of Thief and Deus Ex, but it's also got some janky funk as well.
Like, ok so now that I think about it, there are a few other things that are definitely bugs that are detrimental, and one that is just weird. Several times I've encountered invisible flames. There is, based on the audio cues, a gout of flame burning away out of a nearby pipe....but the visual element didn't load in. This would be fine if it was just an audio glitch but it's not. The flame is real, and will cook your little butt. Also, I had a corrupted operator, who, based on his alertness bars, did NOT know where I was, somehow, magically zip across the map at full speed, to the spot I was hiding in, and instantly agro and become alerted. I have zero idea how he got to that state, but it was incredibly annoying.
