Prey is a FPS with imaginitive thinking and creativity but sadly fails to live up to a potentially great game.
The storyline to Prey begins on earth where you take control of a cherokee called Tommy who wants to move out of his homeland with his girlfirned Jen (who is reluctant to leave her roots). Tommy doesnt care about his heritage (which his granpappy keeps banging on about) and just wants to leave. All is forgotten quite quickly though as UFO's start beaming up people all across the globe with Jen, Tommys granpappy and him along with the whole of the bar they were sitting in!! You then find yourself being transported around a ship hearing blood-curldling screams along the way, you somehow manage to escape though, thanks to a mysterious helper. It is then up to Tommy to rescue Jen and his granpappy back from these weird alien beings. The storyline is not exactly great but it does feel like you are actually on a mission rather than walking round aimlessly during the game.
You soon run into the aliens themselves after seeing your granpappy being killed and manage to get hold of some weapons. The weapons in the game are your usual rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher and although there isn't a huge variety they have been themed to suit the alien ship from where you picked them up from and are quite amusing.
One of the best gameplay elements of the game is the portal system from which aliens will suddenly appear from and if they stay open you can go through them. Basically its like a rip in the game where you can just walk through a portal and end up somewhere else on a ship. The gameplay is pretty linear though and although the portal idea is great, you won't be wondering too far without having to go a certain way all the time. Another good aspect of the game are the gravitional walkways you will run across and you will find yourself walking along ceilings quite early on in the game and it is a bit disorientating at first, especially when aliens start warping in while your upside down. These are good ideas which makes Prey different to all the FPS you have played before.
Even though your granpappy dies very early on in the game, he is still important to the game. Tommy finds himself in the spirtual world early in the game where his granpappy is now residing. Here he gives Tommy a special "death-walk" power where his spirit can detach away from his body and can walk through things Tommy can't, such as force fields and fire. This has a huge effect of the puzzle elements of the game and most of them are based around this. One interesting feature that this power gives Tommy is that when he dies he goes to the spirtual world where you play a mini-game to keep him alive. However well you do, you will return to where you died and continue on with the game making it impossible to die. This makes the game feel a bit arcadey and also quite easy when you don't have to worry about starting a level again.
The variety of aliens is noticable too with only about 6 or 7 in total and it gets a bit monotoneous during the latter part of the game. The game itself should only take about 5 - 6 hours to complete and never really gets challenging even on the hard level. The game uses the Doom engine and therefore graphics are good quality but the sound could of been made a bit scarier.
You can also play Prey on Xbox Live with up to 8 players in one game, when I tried it, it was a bit choatic and quite laggy with the maximum amount of people but it was addictive fun. Not much variety on live, its either deatchmatch or team match, although to be fair, this game suits deathmatch more than any other game type and any more options would of been pointless. The achievement list is pretty simple as well and you can rack up around 800 points by finishing the game on both difficultly levels and the rest are gained through xbox live.
All in all, Prey is a bit of a weak FPS and although the portals and gravity walkways are great ideas, they fail to live up to their potential and therefore the downsides of Prey are more noticable.