Game Review: Prey — TWL Forum Archive

2006-08-12 10:43

It's here! Hell is about to freeze over! No, I'm not talking about Duke Nukem Forever, though we may see that game in our collective lifetime; I'm talking about the other legend in the gaming world: Prey. Perhaps part of its legend is that it's been in production almost as long as I've been gaming. For 11 years of development, let's see if it lives up to the hype.

Getting into Prey, I was worried the visuals wouldn't be as stunning as they could be. Knowing it was based on the Doom 3 engine, I was hoping the developers would use more than 3 colors (grey, black, and white) to fill out the game. They did, and in the process made one of the most visually stunning environments I've ever seen in a sci-fi FPS. When I say that, I'm certainly not trying to compare Prey to F.E.A.R. or Far Cry, because these Earth-based games certainly show visually accurate environments. Prey, on the other hand, makes you believe you are on a truly alien ship, surrounded by strange things, not knowing whether or not you will be eaten by whatever bulkhead you are staring at. Prey does a great job of scaring the player into watching where they step, and I'm glad to see the Doom 3 engine in full color.

Another big part of the visual department was the work on the character modeling, and here I wish the developers had spent a little more time on the human models. The main characters were detailed enough, but every human I encountered looked the same, all sans clothing (save for the tightie-whities they all wear), and all with the same blank look on their faces. It bugs me that the developers couldn't spend a little more time on them - it would have greatly extended my fear of what may lie ahead, especially when the characters are huddled up in an otherwise perfectly scary dark corner with a Vomiter spewing human body parts. Maybe I'm spoiled by Oblivion, but characters deserve a high level of detail.

In the plus column, I developed a crush for Jen, and was hoping the nudity mentioned on the box referred to her. Alas, it did not.

The visuals also aided when it came time to solve the many environmental puzzles in the game, which will be described in depth later. My only complaint with the required symbols is how easy it is to figure out what you need to do next to complete a level. While I enjoy the occasional hint, a huge road sign telling me to turn left isn't what I want.

Given this much eye-candy, I was surprised Prey played as well on my system as it did. I was further surprised when it auto-detected my meager system (Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton 333mhz), 2 GB Single-Channel PC2700 DDR SDRAM, Radeon X850 XT, Audigy 4) as able to withstand the 'high' setting at 1024x768. Bumping the resolution up to 1280x1024 didn't damage FPS much, but during high intensity battles the hit was noticeable in places. Luckily, those were few and far between at first.

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The sounds in Prey are truly a mixed-bag. If you enjoy an incredible score, then Prey combines theme-setting music with some rock hits to greatly enhance the experience. If you want great sound effects, you may want to try something else. With my Audigy 4 and Zalman 5.1 surround sound headphones, the sound effects still seemed a little washed out, especially in regard to the guns.

The musical score was simply amazing. The music did have a 'Jaws'-like effect, so you knew when some baddie was coming after you, but it was also able to incite fear exactly when it meant to. In all parts, the music was spot-on with the action and truly instrumental in moving the story along. Without the upbeat "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" music, I doubt I would have been as gung-ho when surrounded by 15 or so high-level baddies.

As far as the environment sound effects go, they were quite good, and set the mood of doom and despair rather well. Creeping through the entire ship at a slow pace was unnerving, especially when every sound spelled doom. The entire ship sounds like it's out to get you, and that's quite frightening when you are alone with only the sounds of human screams to keep you company. However, the bad part is that I think the 'human scream' sounds they used were simply a one minute track looped over and over, and while it's a minor complaint, it does detract from the terror that should be creeping over your character. In the same breath, there are points throughout the game where you pick up radio broadcasts from Earth, and it was an efficient way to move the story along without spending too much time on cut scenes.

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The storyline isn't the age old "bad guy grabs biological weapon and threatens world," it's the other age old story line, "aliens are coming to rape our horses and pillage our women" or some such. At least, that's how it begins. There is a great depth to the story in Prey, and it certainly opens the door for many sequels (I hope). I didn't expect much for a story line, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Besides aliens with a pubescent need to pick a fight, the game also revolves around the main character's struggle with his Cherokee religion. Throughout the game, this becomes more and more apparant and is central to the gameplay. My only complaint about the storyline is there really aren't any choices the character can make; much like the game mechanics, the story is quite linear.

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I have some beef with the user interface, but it could be as much my use of the Nostromo N52 as it could be the interface. Truth in reviews, I guess. When selecting different weapons, using the mouse wheel didn't always give me the weapon I desired, and most of the time I ended up with the wrench when I really needed the rocket launcher. In most games, using the mouse wheel to select weapons doesn't change much, but in Prey, you must be able to switch weapons quickly and get exactly the weapon you need. The Health and Spirit indicators are efficiently done, and there's hardly any need for a true "heads up display." The ammo meter is console-ish, showing a bar indicating ammo strength, but in this case, it helps the game rather than hinder it.

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Prey introduces a game mechanics that can literally make a person sick: the ability to change orientation along any given path using a gravity switch or wall-walking. Down becomes up, or left, or right, and bbbbbbbbbbbbbbleeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh, someone in the audience pukes. I really stopped trying to figure out whether I was facing up or not after the third time I dropped and literally fell back the way I came. It's a very unique mechanic, and helps replayability quite a bit. Nausea notwithstanding, of course.

Nausea aside, I was quite impressed with the use of "gravity walking" (changing the orientation of gravity, where down becomes up, or left, or... you get the picture), "wall-walking" (using special paths where down becomes up and so forth), and "spirit walking" (using your "soul" to navigate areas your body cannot get to) in the game. Each of the three are frequently seen together and, although the puzzles are a bit linear, it's amazing to see all of it work together and still maintain a cohesive game.

The least understood part of the game for me was when I crawled into a box and fell upward, which really didn't seem possible. The developers were stretching the idea a little bit, and while it was kooky (as if being in the middle of a live alien ship were sane), it was still a lot of fun.

Did I mention they even included a vehicle? The "shuttle" included in the game is your everyday spacecraft, probably restrained in its movement by a limitation in the engine, but still enjoyable to fly around in. Even more enjoyable is how your standard bad guy can jump in a shuttle and become just as lethal as you are in it.

Dying in Prey is very similar to death in Star Wars: Republic Commando; you have the opportunity to "deathwalk," where you can shoot creatures in the mystical world and regain your health by killing them. In later levels, it becomes even more important to shoot as many enemies as possible, as you are thrust right back into the situation you came from when you are sucked back into the living world. This is a great mechanic and a nice alternative to saving often and reloading.

Also in the saving/reloading department, the game saves often enough that it's rare to need to save one's game, though I recommend you do it more often as you level up, in case you want to try different techniques of defeating boss monsters.

Anxious to play Prey since I heard about the unusual features, I was hoping the gameplay would be long enough for me to enjoy it. It was, but only barely. I do pride myself on taking my time through the levels, so when I finished the game in just over 9 hours, I was shocked, and just a bit saddened. The elements introduced in Prey are begging for more content to be added, especially in the area of environmental puzzles. As I've touched on before, the game is very linear.

There are games where a person would need a map to navigate, but in Prey, the door simply doesn't open if you are heading in the wrong direction. This was bothersome in the "realism" department, since there's only one direction to head in, but at the same time it helped during the levels where I just couldn't figure out how to beat the puzzle. Normally, thinking, "Ok, since it let me go this far, there must be something here" sufficed and the puzzle was solved.

The AI used in the game is first rate. The enemy's ability to take cover and return lethal fire is superb, and makes conserving ammunition even more important. The Hunters I encountered were quite adept with their sniper rifles, but also knew when to duck. It wasn't contrived, as these things often are; rather, it felt real. If I ducked behind cover, I could expect a crawler grenade to find me. If I sniped, I could expect them to duck when they saw my beam. Moreover, the Hawk that became my companion diverted their attention just as it should have. This was very useful in the later levels where 5+ enemies were expected at any given time. The higher level enemies also included the ability to flank the gamer, especially disconcerting when you are looking "up" at the ground and one of them comes beside you on the ceiling.

Prey's replayability is only hampered by the simplicity of the level puzzles. Once you've figured them out, there's no way to "make them tougher," as the difficulty settings only allow you to fight super-alien monsters, and plenty of them. The normal setting supposedly adapts to your skill level, but if it did, I didn't notice. The "Cherokee (hard)" setting removes the ability to deathwalk, providing the game some replayability in the realm of enemies.

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Where have you been all my life!?!? This is exactly what I've been waiting for, and exactly what I wasn't expecting. Out of the Doom 3 engine, I was expecting something between Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake 4. What I received was some of the former, but none of the latter. It has weapons reminiscent of the Unreal Tournament series, but combining spirit walking, gravity buttons and wall walking turns Prey into something really special.

Being the game browser nazi that I am, I was particularly interested in Prey's game browser. While they have yet to filter servers by country (come on, it's 2006!) the rest of the server browser is coded quite well.

There really isn't enough I could say about multiplayer, except if your sole reason to buy this game is for multiplayer, then you need to go pick it up, right now. It is that good.

My only complaint centers around the fact that there isn't a "run" control built into the game. Multiplayer is fast even without it, but there are a few spots where I feel very vulnerable when I can't run. For the UT veterans, it isn't quite as fast, but still very manageable.

Otherwise in MP, there are your standard deathmatch (DM) and team deathmatch (TDM) modes, though I would like to see a Capture the Flag mode. Hopefully it will be forthcoming.

The sweetspot for TDM should be 4v4 to 6v6, with 8v8 being a very crowded place. DM sees a lot of action with 4 players, so I'm anxious to see how the larger scales play out.

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Overall, Prey is a must-have for any FPS gamer, and is certainly capable of bringing hundreds of hours of gaming enjoyment to multiplayer games. I think its ability to provide such a varied experience in multiplayer makes up for the rather short single-player campaign, and certainly makes Prey worth the $49.99 price tag.