I've probably been playing a bit too much of the military shooter genre recently (as a matter of fact I've got green camo paint on my face as I'm writing this) so I thought I'd take a small break and take a trip to horror/puzzle Island.
So...Prey, the sci-fi shooter that requires a stomach of steel and a basic grasp of shapes and space.
One thing I will start by saying that this game made me feel sick on at least 12 occasions, something I have not experienced in a game since I played Cold Fear (the constant rocking of the ship brought back too many memories of uneasy voyages). The constant changeing of gravity and orientation will make it nessercary for most casual players to keep a bucket on hand, combine this with long distance falls, portals and knowing that the floor will change location at least 3 times in the space of 20 seconds (we haven't even gotten to the fact that some walls seem to have acid spewing arses sticking out of them every now and then and that there is a level of darkness that could rival DOOM 3), this would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that this meant I couldn't play this game for longer than half an hour before having to get some fresh air and a bag of ice for my head.
The gameplay is alright (it reminds me at times of what I thought Turok was going to be like before I actually got it), it's a return to form with run-and-gun style combat and awkward piloting sections. With that, there is one major issue that cripples this game in both the horror and action aspects of the game, Immortality. At some point around the second level you gain the power to come back to life whenever you die (there is the wraith shooting minigame you can do for more health and spirit power but in the greater scheme of things its not vital), this causes the same problem here that it did in Bioshock ie: nothing can truely kill you so you have no real reason to be careful or be afraid. Theres no limit to the number of times you can do it either, I, on one occasion just kept jumping into a bottomless pit for giggles. Another problem that is present due an inability to die is that weapons don't have to be upgraded in response to new threats, throughout the game you will more or less only use the rifle you get in the second level and the leech gun you get on the third since every other weapon either doesn't have many uses or has ammo thats so hard to aquire (or so easy to use up) that you'll need to save it for that big fight at the end.
Another attempt at seperating this game from other shooters is the idea of going into a ghostly 'spirit form'. Anyone who has played Second sight will soon realise that this works exactly like projection other than the fact that you can't posess people, for those of you who haven't played Second sight (do it now), you have an 'out of body' experience where you are basically free to run around and do as you like so long as you don't push your luck by brushing past guards. This would have been a good way to introduce stealth segments if they didn't make the following mistakes:
1. Despite being ghostly, guards seem to have absolutly no problem seeing and identifying you as that Indian fellow with the leather jacket, on one occasion I set off the alert just by walking into a room (despite the fact that you are supposed to be invisible unless you attack someone).
2. The only weapon you get while in ghost form is a bow (why do I get images of Turok 2 in my head?), again, this would have been fine if it didn't raise the alarm the second you fire it (whether you hit or not) meaning that there is absolutly no point in trying to be subtle in the first place.
3. There is often little call to use the ghost ability since pulling out the leech gun proves to be far more effective about 98% of the time.
The puzzles are a large let down in that the first 5 or so may prove to be difficult but beond that the game becomes a mental walk in the park since they repeat the same 'shoot the gravity changing switch on the ceiling' chore in what might as well be every other room. The only time I got stuck in this game was after solving another puzzle centred around switches on ceilings and dispatching a small horde of gibbering minions, it didn't occur to me that the game wanted me to backtrack a good 5 minutes back, I only figured this out by calling a friend who had completed this game before me (who was also stumped by this segment). As you could see, the problem wasn't that the puzzles or combat were too much for me, it was simply that it wasn't made clear enough as to where you go next (made even worse by having a lighter that dies every 30 seconds) leading to unintentional backtracking.
Before I begin to sound like I utterly despise the game, let me say otherwise, some of the concepts and ideas in the game are brilliant and this game would have been the stuff of legend if they'd done what my english teacher kept telling me to do and 'look through it again and try to find 10 things wrong with it', there are some ideas (like the immortality system and the idea of going into ghost form) that if more effort and creativity had gone into them would have made this game the unique mind-bending experience it was trying to be. As it stands at the moment, it makes a somewhat bland game with somewhat noteworthy features.
The story of the game is by far one of the few things that kept me slugging through the levels (with the very generous achievments being the other). We begin by meeting Tommy, an Indian (as in native American) mechanic who is in constant turmoil over the love of his life (Jen...also an Indian) and her refusal to leave the reservation they are both stuck on (I probably should have mentioned the location earlier). Good news is all the wishy-washy romance elements of the plot are thrown out of the window at about the same time that you brain two drunks with a wrench at the begining. Bad news is that most of the parts of the story concerning the aliens and the ship you've entered is inexplicably confusing, it stays that way until the end of the game when (SPOILER warning, jump down the page until you see the word GROOVY in capitals if you actually care)
it turns out that the aliens placed us on Earth as cattle so they could come back later to harvest us as...it was a major let down that the writers pulled out the same plot that Body Harvest and at least 4 films had (at least Body Harvest had kick-ass gameplay to compensate for the weak story).
GROOVY, multiplayer (or multiprey as they say in the instruction booklet...whichever you like better) has only one thing I can say about it, no-one plays it. Look at my achievement list for Prey and you will see the 'Rank One' achievment for winning a ranked match, how did I get that? I had to organise a match with a friend, I'm not sure whether its just me, but I've noticed that other than Halo 3, CoD4 and Gears of War, it is almost impossible to find matches in some games, other victims of this being: Turok, Timeshift, Quake 4, Farcry and the Darkness. This is fine if you only have Halo 3, CoD4 and GoW but for others who have (and enjoy) not so mainstream games this is a disappointment since they useually have to throw their favorite game on the heap in favor of yet another team snipers match in Halo 3.
Overall, I wouldn't reccomend Prey to most people. While I can see what the developers tried to do (and admire them for it) it seems that they had a few screws loose when it came to the creativity department. On top of that, the time 3D Realms put into making Prey could have been put to better use by...working on the new Duke Nukem?
As per useual, please leave feedback on what you thought (bits you did/didn't like, ways I could improve, things I could leave out etc.).
-Iron Mal
So...Prey, the sci-fi shooter that requires a stomach of steel and a basic grasp of shapes and space.
One thing I will start by saying that this game made me feel sick on at least 12 occasions, something I have not experienced in a game since I played Cold Fear (the constant rocking of the ship brought back too many memories of uneasy voyages). The constant changeing of gravity and orientation will make it nessercary for most casual players to keep a bucket on hand, combine this with long distance falls, portals and knowing that the floor will change location at least 3 times in the space of 20 seconds (we haven't even gotten to the fact that some walls seem to have acid spewing arses sticking out of them every now and then and that there is a level of darkness that could rival DOOM 3), this would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that this meant I couldn't play this game for longer than half an hour before having to get some fresh air and a bag of ice for my head.
The gameplay is alright (it reminds me at times of what I thought Turok was going to be like before I actually got it), it's a return to form with run-and-gun style combat and awkward piloting sections. With that, there is one major issue that cripples this game in both the horror and action aspects of the game, Immortality. At some point around the second level you gain the power to come back to life whenever you die (there is the wraith shooting minigame you can do for more health and spirit power but in the greater scheme of things its not vital), this causes the same problem here that it did in Bioshock ie: nothing can truely kill you so you have no real reason to be careful or be afraid. Theres no limit to the number of times you can do it either, I, on one occasion just kept jumping into a bottomless pit for giggles. Another problem that is present due an inability to die is that weapons don't have to be upgraded in response to new threats, throughout the game you will more or less only use the rifle you get in the second level and the leech gun you get on the third since every other weapon either doesn't have many uses or has ammo thats so hard to aquire (or so easy to use up) that you'll need to save it for that big fight at the end.
Another attempt at seperating this game from other shooters is the idea of going into a ghostly 'spirit form'. Anyone who has played Second sight will soon realise that this works exactly like projection other than the fact that you can't posess people, for those of you who haven't played Second sight (do it now), you have an 'out of body' experience where you are basically free to run around and do as you like so long as you don't push your luck by brushing past guards. This would have been a good way to introduce stealth segments if they didn't make the following mistakes:
1. Despite being ghostly, guards seem to have absolutly no problem seeing and identifying you as that Indian fellow with the leather jacket, on one occasion I set off the alert just by walking into a room (despite the fact that you are supposed to be invisible unless you attack someone).
2. The only weapon you get while in ghost form is a bow (why do I get images of Turok 2 in my head?), again, this would have been fine if it didn't raise the alarm the second you fire it (whether you hit or not) meaning that there is absolutly no point in trying to be subtle in the first place.
3. There is often little call to use the ghost ability since pulling out the leech gun proves to be far more effective about 98% of the time.
The puzzles are a large let down in that the first 5 or so may prove to be difficult but beond that the game becomes a mental walk in the park since they repeat the same 'shoot the gravity changing switch on the ceiling' chore in what might as well be every other room. The only time I got stuck in this game was after solving another puzzle centred around switches on ceilings and dispatching a small horde of gibbering minions, it didn't occur to me that the game wanted me to backtrack a good 5 minutes back, I only figured this out by calling a friend who had completed this game before me (who was also stumped by this segment). As you could see, the problem wasn't that the puzzles or combat were too much for me, it was simply that it wasn't made clear enough as to where you go next (made even worse by having a lighter that dies every 30 seconds) leading to unintentional backtracking.
Before I begin to sound like I utterly despise the game, let me say otherwise, some of the concepts and ideas in the game are brilliant and this game would have been the stuff of legend if they'd done what my english teacher kept telling me to do and 'look through it again and try to find 10 things wrong with it', there are some ideas (like the immortality system and the idea of going into ghost form) that if more effort and creativity had gone into them would have made this game the unique mind-bending experience it was trying to be. As it stands at the moment, it makes a somewhat bland game with somewhat noteworthy features.
The story of the game is by far one of the few things that kept me slugging through the levels (with the very generous achievments being the other). We begin by meeting Tommy, an Indian (as in native American) mechanic who is in constant turmoil over the love of his life (Jen...also an Indian) and her refusal to leave the reservation they are both stuck on (I probably should have mentioned the location earlier). Good news is all the wishy-washy romance elements of the plot are thrown out of the window at about the same time that you brain two drunks with a wrench at the begining. Bad news is that most of the parts of the story concerning the aliens and the ship you've entered is inexplicably confusing, it stays that way until the end of the game when (SPOILER warning, jump down the page until you see the word GROOVY in capitals if you actually care)
it turns out that the aliens placed us on Earth as cattle so they could come back later to harvest us as...it was a major let down that the writers pulled out the same plot that Body Harvest and at least 4 films had (at least Body Harvest had kick-ass gameplay to compensate for the weak story).
GROOVY, multiplayer (or multiprey as they say in the instruction booklet...whichever you like better) has only one thing I can say about it, no-one plays it. Look at my achievement list for Prey and you will see the 'Rank One' achievment for winning a ranked match, how did I get that? I had to organise a match with a friend, I'm not sure whether its just me, but I've noticed that other than Halo 3, CoD4 and Gears of War, it is almost impossible to find matches in some games, other victims of this being: Turok, Timeshift, Quake 4, Farcry and the Darkness. This is fine if you only have Halo 3, CoD4 and GoW but for others who have (and enjoy) not so mainstream games this is a disappointment since they useually have to throw their favorite game on the heap in favor of yet another team snipers match in Halo 3.
Overall, I wouldn't reccomend Prey to most people. While I can see what the developers tried to do (and admire them for it) it seems that they had a few screws loose when it came to the creativity department. On top of that, the time 3D Realms put into making Prey could have been put to better use by...working on the new Duke Nukem?
As per useual, please leave feedback on what you thought (bits you did/didn't like, ways I could improve, things I could leave out etc.).
-Iron Mal
