An interactive SyFy adventure worthy of the big screen.
STORY.
9/10
You play as Tommy, a Cherokee mechanic who doesn't care much about his heritage, and who's only goal is to leave the reservation along with his girlfriend Jen in search of something else, something better. As faith would have it, both of them, along with his grandfather are abducted by aliens and taken to a spaceship, a bio-organic living entity where they soon discover they're not the only ones taken, but after a mechanical accident occurs, Tommy finds himself free from his restraints, and must now find a way to rescue Jen and his grandfather, and in the process, save the world.
There is some slowdown in the storytelling about half way into the game, making the action seem a bit tedious and repetitive, but after it picks up again, you're in for a very solid and quite entertaining adventure, worthy of the big screen.
CONTROLS/GAMEPLAY.
9/10
The controls have been tweaked to near perfection for a FPS, which is usually where most of them fail in their console versions, I found the aiming to be quite easy to use, the weapon selection is very good, but not great, the fact that you don't die in this game (well, you do, but then you're taken to the spirit realm for a short mini-game where you can fill up your life bar and return where you left off) makes the weapon choosing a bit less important than it could be. In some areas you'll be in control of a ship, which should take you very little to get used to, but navigating through some narrow tunnels might get a bit tricky.
There's some nice puzzles added to the mix to keep things fresh and interesting, a couple of them might take some time to figure out, but nothing that requires a rocket scientist degree, some, involve the use of portals (like in Stargate) that will take you to other areas, some of them not accessible otherwise, gravity walkways are another vital part of getting you from point A to point B, once activated, these walkways allow you to walk (think magnetic boots) on walls and ceilings, this makes for some interesting firefights, and then there's the spirit walk, this allows your "spirit" to temporarily leave your body and cross forcefields, activate switches and scout ahead for enemies and other dangers.
GRAPHICS/SOUND.
8/10
We all know by now that Prey uses the Doom 3 engine, and this might make the graphics seem outdated to some, the term used is "graphics whore" I believe, and guess what?, I'm not one of them, I find the graphics to be very good, or at least they look good on my HDTV, the humans do look cheap compared to everything else, the skin textures are just awful, some walls also look kinda bad.
The voice actors give solid performances, and the dialog is very fitting, sound effects are quite good, all the bells and whistles are here, it should be enough to make just about everyone happy, but they lack that certain wow factor, on the other hand, the music score is awesome, it fits in just right, when you're playing the game, pump up the volume, you'll see.
REPLAY-BUY/RENT.
7/10
If you played the game on the Cherokee difficulty, then you're probably done with it, I think difficulty is not that big a factor because as stated before, you really don't die in this game, but like a good movie, those who liked it, might want to revisit it again, some sooner rather than later. IMHO, it's a great title to add to your collection, one that I'll be playing again, but if you're even a little bit curious about it, then definitely rent.
FINAL WORD.
8.5
I love sci-fi, and I found this title to be more of an experience, or like the title says, an interactive adventure, about as enjoyable as a really good movie.
Let's face it, if this game had the perfect graphics and the perfect sound and the perfect control, you'd still get bored if you didn't care about the story, in this case it's probably best when viewed as a whole rather than separating what's good and what's bad about it.