Do you remember the original Prey? Get this: I don't.
Or didn't until yesterday anyway.
In fact, after spending some time with this game called Prey - supposedly a reworking of the 2007 game called Prey - I remained pretty sure I'd never played the original. I thought that was weird, because I'm a sucker for a first-person romp, and it seemed like the sort of puddle into which I'd have furiously mashed my frond.
In the interests of due diligence, I went onto YouTube to double-check... and then it came flooding back: I had played the previous Prey, and it isn't much like this new version at all. I've no idea why I'd forgotten it, but maybe it has something to do with this: unknown reasons.
In fact, aside from both being first-person games, and both being set on alien-infested space stations, they've virtually nothing in common.
Why bother remaking a game that nobody remembers, and then changing more or less everything about it? It's not like alien-infested space station is a massively original and unique pitch. It's like remaking Pac-Man into a game where you play a tax inspector, and have to audit a small, family-run, bakery called 'Yeast Region'.
Anyway. This is the sort of game that Prey is: one of those ones where it's not quite a first-person shooter, not quite an RPG. You know: like Deus Ex, or the classic System Shock. You spend as much time upgrading your abilities - you're one of these cybernetic people they have nowadays, see - and reading the personal diaries and emails of the station's former inhabitants, as you do shooting at things.
Which is just as well, because shooting at things in Prey is Not So Great.
Or didn't until yesterday anyway.
In fact, after spending some time with this game called Prey - supposedly a reworking of the 2007 game called Prey - I remained pretty sure I'd never played the original. I thought that was weird, because I'm a sucker for a first-person romp, and it seemed like the sort of puddle into which I'd have furiously mashed my frond.
In the interests of due diligence, I went onto YouTube to double-check... and then it came flooding back: I had played the previous Prey, and it isn't much like this new version at all. I've no idea why I'd forgotten it, but maybe it has something to do with this: unknown reasons.
In fact, aside from both being first-person games, and both being set on alien-infested space stations, they've virtually nothing in common.
Why bother remaking a game that nobody remembers, and then changing more or less everything about it? It's not like alien-infested space station is a massively original and unique pitch. It's like remaking Pac-Man into a game where you play a tax inspector, and have to audit a small, family-run, bakery called 'Yeast Region'.
Anyway. This is the sort of game that Prey is: one of those ones where it's not quite a first-person shooter, not quite an RPG. You know: like Deus Ex, or the classic System Shock. You spend as much time upgrading your abilities - you're one of these cybernetic people they have nowadays, see - and reading the personal diaries and emails of the station's former inhabitants, as you do shooting at things.
Which is just as well, because shooting at things in Prey is Not So Great.
PREY TELL?
Prey is a frustrating game. For everything it does well (its head-spin of an opening, for example) it does something real bad (slipping into generic monsters-on-spacestation narrative).
It bowls novel concepts at you - such as the Gloo Gun, which shoots out a foam that immediately hardens - then doesn't really offer opportunities to use them in clever ways. It gives you an intriguing setting - basically an alternate history space station version of Bioshock's Rapture - then keeps you at arm's length from it with some of the most clumsy and unrealistic object-handling physics seen in decades.
It invites you to try different solutions to obstacles - stealth, brute force, hacking - but makes some of these approaches needlessly tougher than others.
It's also weirdly imbalanced; the opening few hours are maddeningly difficulty, as you flail a wrench at the aliens who insist on jumping all over the place, dying and dying and dying again. Then, far later, makes you virtually indestructible thanks to your psychic powers, so most of the challenge evaporates.
If you can overlook all that, there are good things to be said about Prey. The basic facehugger-like enemies, Mimics, can assume the form of any object. Given that you need to recycle objects to turn into ammo and gear - and you never know which object is going to try to kill you - that helps maintain tension.
If you like reading emails from strangers then you'll have a great time - indeed, much as I often hate reams of text in a video game (video games seemingly ignore the storytelling rule adopted by almost every other narrative medium: show don't tell), they do a pretty good job here of establishing the world.
As does the world itself; sprawling and open, and full of secrets to discover. In fact, returning to previously-visited areas to reach new locations using previously-unheld abilities, gives it almost a Metroid-like feel.
Also: you can, later on, transform into a roll of toilet paper, if you do so desire.
Prey is a frustrating game. For everything it does well (its head-spin of an opening, for example) it does something real bad (slipping into generic monsters-on-spacestation narrative).
It bowls novel concepts at you - such as the Gloo Gun, which shoots out a foam that immediately hardens - then doesn't really offer opportunities to use them in clever ways. It gives you an intriguing setting - basically an alternate history space station version of Bioshock's Rapture - then keeps you at arm's length from it with some of the most clumsy and unrealistic object-handling physics seen in decades.
It invites you to try different solutions to obstacles - stealth, brute force, hacking - but makes some of these approaches needlessly tougher than others.
It's also weirdly imbalanced; the opening few hours are maddeningly difficulty, as you flail a wrench at the aliens who insist on jumping all over the place, dying and dying and dying again. Then, far later, makes you virtually indestructible thanks to your psychic powers, so most of the challenge evaporates.
If you can overlook all that, there are good things to be said about Prey. The basic facehugger-like enemies, Mimics, can assume the form of any object. Given that you need to recycle objects to turn into ammo and gear - and you never know which object is going to try to kill you - that helps maintain tension.
If you like reading emails from strangers then you'll have a great time - indeed, much as I often hate reams of text in a video game (video games seemingly ignore the storytelling rule adopted by almost every other narrative medium: show don't tell), they do a pretty good job here of establishing the world.
As does the world itself; sprawling and open, and full of secrets to discover. In fact, returning to previously-visited areas to reach new locations using previously-unheld abilities, gives it almost a Metroid-like feel.
Also: you can, later on, transform into a roll of toilet paper, if you do so desire.
DUNNO OSMOND
Unfortunately, there's no escaping the fact that Prey isn't as good as it nearly is. There's little here that's truly original - except the Mimics, perhaps.
Surely, abandoned space stations have been done to death now? Even the light Art Deco, retro-futuristic, styling of Prey's environment has been seen before. We've all experienced the zero gravity thing, the psychic powers upgrading, the hacking... and as much as its clumsy handling and weird imbalances disappoint, so too does the unoriginality.
I dunno. I'd really been looking forward to Prey, but the whole way through I couldn't stop feeling like a council estate car tyre: let down. There's something archaic about it, and not in a wholly good way. It never feels quite as slick or as polished as it could've been, almost as if its ambitions reached beyond its budget.
Or, at least, as if every good idea was let down by some bad implementation, every clever notion countered by a weird choice. And that's a shame, because there's a good game in here struggling to get out.
If you like Dishonred, Deus Ex and Bioshock... this is more of the same sort of thing, but (while not a disaster) not as pretty, polished or fun as any of those games.
It's a shame, because it would be nice if Prey was sufficiently great enough to inspire a rabid fanbase, as I've thought of a really good nickname for those people: Preyholes.
SUMMARY: A game you've more or less played before, even if you never played the original Prey.
SCORE: 5.2812312312 out of 10.51235555
Unfortunately, there's no escaping the fact that Prey isn't as good as it nearly is. There's little here that's truly original - except the Mimics, perhaps.
Surely, abandoned space stations have been done to death now? Even the light Art Deco, retro-futuristic, styling of Prey's environment has been seen before. We've all experienced the zero gravity thing, the psychic powers upgrading, the hacking... and as much as its clumsy handling and weird imbalances disappoint, so too does the unoriginality.
I dunno. I'd really been looking forward to Prey, but the whole way through I couldn't stop feeling like a council estate car tyre: let down. There's something archaic about it, and not in a wholly good way. It never feels quite as slick or as polished as it could've been, almost as if its ambitions reached beyond its budget.
Or, at least, as if every good idea was let down by some bad implementation, every clever notion countered by a weird choice. And that's a shame, because there's a good game in here struggling to get out.
If you like Dishonred, Deus Ex and Bioshock... this is more of the same sort of thing, but (while not a disaster) not as pretty, polished or fun as any of those games.
It's a shame, because it would be nice if Prey was sufficiently great enough to inspire a rabid fanbase, as I've thought of a really good nickname for those people: Preyholes.
SUMMARY: A game you've more or less played before, even if you never played the original Prey.
SCORE: 5.2812312312 out of 10.51235555
RSS Feed
