A fun shooter once through, so long as you don't pay more than $15 to play it.
In Prey you are a young Cherokee man named Tommy who lives on a reservation with his grandfather and his girlfriend, Jen. Beware, he is a lame hero and all of his toughness comes in the form of a dirty vocabulary. About 10 minutes into the game, you are abducted by aliens. You then go through a fairly long interactive cutscene that is basically a tour of the aliens mothership, named the "Sphere," and then you see a man who plants a bomb, which sets you free. Now you are stuck in this living, breathing ship, with nothing but a wrench... oh yeah, and some spirit powers that basically make you invincible. Yes, that's right folks, Tommy can not die, ever. Everytime you health bar is depleted, you go into the spirit world and shoot at dark spirit with you're spirit bow. The red ones give you health, and the blue ones give you spirit energy. Sounds fun? It is, the first 10 or so times, then it jst becomes boring like the rest of the game. The game uses a rinse-and-repeat play style that makes for some tiring gameplay after the first 3 hours. But thats ok, since only another 3 hours will get you to the final boss fight, which is easy enough for a blind quadriplegic to complete. Basically the game turns into hide-and-seek with obstacles. Go into a room, look for a button, press it, go into the next room, fight an enemy (which is drawn from a list of about 6 varieties), and repeat.
Now for some good points. The guns are cool, and each one is progressively more destructive, as you would expect. The all, however, are just derived from you're typical FPS weapons. There is the wrench you start out with, an assault rifle with a sniper scope, a shotgun that fires searing hot mustard, a machine gun with a grenade launcher attachment, a rocket launcher, and my favorite; the leech, which is the only unique gun in the game. If you are expecting this game to be creepy, it is... for about 30 minutes... when you are killing spirit children.
The thing that sets this game apart from the other is its puzzle aspects. You have to use a combination of you're spirit abilities and the ships laws of physics to get through. However, they are used in massive blocks, making them feel unnecessary and annoying sometimes. For instance, you can go through a whole level maybe using your spirit walk once, the next level same thing, then you stumble upon this puzzle that uses everything at once, and then back to the same old same old.
The graphics are done well, nothing that really stands out though. Same with the sound. There is some music in the game and it usually appears in the more intense parts of the game and does a good job of setting the mood.
All in all, this is a solid game, but I want more than solid if I'm about to pay $60. Worth renting since you can beat in a day, and no, the multiplayer doesn't add any value to the game either.