Prey is one of the most innovative and subtly annoying games I've ever played on the 360. It shows both brilliance and age.
What I know of Prey is that it is an age-old project finally brought to life by its developers. I recall seeing a preview of it at last year's E3 or someplace important.
Everybody was treating the authors with much respect, so I was interested in looking forward to the game. But I completely forgot about it and it wasn't until about an hour into the game that I realized where I was.
Prey is the creepiest game I've played in a long time. It's the slimiest world I can recall being in, and the alien biotech is truly alien. I finished the game and I still don't have names for the creatures and weapons.
The use of gravity in this game makes its style of play and the environments extremely unusual. It makes you wonder why nobody else has done anything like it. It makes me want to say that Prey is really the first thoroughly 3D game in the industry.
In the world of shooters this innovation is totally unique, like the psychic powers of Psy-Ops and the unusual skills of Riddick in the Escape from Butcher Bay game. There is nothing to compare with the cool of standing sideways on a wall, aiming to the left and watching an enemy fall up.
Prey's fleshing out of the game is juvenile. There are really no humans to interact with that add to the creepiness of the overall storyline. Maybe it's because I'm fresh from several months of playing Oblivion but the human, even the beastial element of the AI is pretty lousy.
It's not mucked up completely with idiot boss battles (there are only about four), but for a would be Cherokee warrior, your protagonist is never called to do anything but destroy every living thing in this world.
The environments are spectacular. They go from the DOOM-like dark and claustrophobic, to the intricate three-dimensional mazy, to the double gravity system of twin asteroids.
The dialog sucks, period. The game could use a whole lot more humanity and voice acting. In the beginning, things were very compelling because it appeared that there would be a lot of humans that you would encounter in the space ship that would assist you through various parts, but that never materialized.
Article comments