The opening 10 or so minutes of Prey are some of the best gaming moments you'll ever have. The way the developers immerse the gamer in the game play world in flawless, allowing them to play with arcade games, the jukebox, change TV channels, flush toilets, use hand dryers, and beat drunken bar patrons senseless with a wrench. It's an uncanny build up to the inevitable alien invasion and makes the upcoming events creepier than they would have been had the immersion not been set so high.

From there, Prey takes players on a unique first-person alien blast-a-thon. It's immediately apparent that Prey is running on the Doom 3/Quake 4 engine. It's shooter mechanics are eerily close, so much that the game absolutely requires and extra level of detail or game play mechanic to survive. It delivers completely.

There are two different concepts at work here. One is the alien ship itself, which is not only alive, but also able to switch gravity. Never mind the wildly original puzzles wrapped around this concept; they take second place to the way it toys with the player's gunfights. This is the only time you'll be playing a first-person shooter and watch an enemy "fall" up when slaughtered. The violence here is unrelenting, creating a true "no one is safe" scenario early on as some kids are unlikely victims to the alien plot.

Completely disorienting at times, these gravity tricks comfortably find their way into every level of the game without feeling forced. When stuck inside of a room, it's time to start looking for a gravity switch. The numerous uses of this mechanism add to the outer space environment as the alien plot begins to unravel, culminating about six hours in during the final boss struggle.

This also leads to some fantastic level design, both in single player and online multi-player. Sadly, the unbearable and unstoppable lag present in a match with anymore than five (with a max of eight) people is cause enough to skip both deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. They're completely unplayable due to the lag, which warps characters randomly around the screen, stutters uncontrollably, and otherwise wreaks mayhem on a standard set of multi-player.