Prey is a wonderful game in terms of graphics, gameplay, sound and innovation. But what it lacks is a smarter A.I. and
Prey is probably the best FPS for the year 2006, unless S.T.A.L.K.E.R or something else comes out and beats this one.
[medium spoiler] You play Tommy, a Cherokee Indian who tries to deny his roots when suddenly he, his grandpa and girlfriend
are sucked into a tractor beam and into a space ship. Feeding off the amazing Doom 3 engine, this game delivers an excellent
lighting and sound condition and tolereble physics (compared to rag doll physics, of course). If you put Doom 3, Quake 4 and
Prey in comparison, Prey would come up 1st, Quake 2nd and Doom 3 3rd (that doesn't neccesarily mean Doom 3 is a lousy game,
personaly i think Doom 3 was more fun than Quake 4, but according to official reviews, quake 4 wins this one). I was very
amazed at the way they managed to make you fell as if you are the character Tommy. Almost every new thing done, seen, felt,
or heard is reported by your own monologue. [minor spoiler] For example, when on board the ship you escape, later you will
see others who have escaped but are driven mad by the blood. When you see them curled up in a corner muttering to themselves,
your character will be asking in vain to cool the f*** down. They just continue, so hitting them on the face with a wrench
(causing them to... you know... die...) will get your character to say something like, "well, your better off this way".
Secondly, along the way, I encountered a small door. But when I stared into that small door i saw another room,
completly different than the one i was in. But that wasn't the freaky part (trust me it wasn't), when I walked 'round back
that small door, I saw the room i was in right then (For a more clearer reference, read Steven King's Dark Tower, the drawing
of the three, which has a simmilar encounter). This wasn't cool enough for the developers apparently. Later on I pressed a
button (forgeting that curiousity killed the cat...) which shrunk and transported me into a jar containing a tiny asteroid
specimen. This asteroid was huge and resembled the moon, even had a bit of gravity. When I peered upwards, I saw a GIGANTiC
alien- soldier outside the jar, which in turn hit a button and was shrunken and teleported to a mini station on the asteroid.
They included gravity walkways too, which will stick your boots and enable you to walk on walls and ceilings as long
as your on the grav-walk. At the start of the game, you hear nothing but gibberish from the aliens and all their writings and
controls are foreing. But you will die. I totaly mean that in every sense of the word. You fall from a platform and there is
nothing you can do about it (unless you use the cheats, I think). When you died, your spirit was sent to your ancesters
lands, where you meet your recently deceased granpa. he shows you how to spirit-walk which is quite cool. Using Spirit walk,
you're able to go through forcefields and push a button to turn it off, then return to your body. Spirit walk is used to
solve puzzles mostly, but has two other main functions.
1) To kill enemies and evil spirits with your spirit bow.
2) To perform death walk.
Death walk is the process of dying in the real world. Being sent to a spirit land ( more of a spirit platform if you
ask me). And shooting blue spirits to regain ammo for your spirit bow and red spirits to get more health. While doing this
you can see your real dead body being pulled back from heaven and back into the real world. This means you are virtually an
immortal. I am dead serious, you can NEVER die complety unless your to lazy to arrow some slow spirits in death walk. It
probably sounds like fun on your end, but this actuallyu spoils a lot of fun in Prey as you never really have to try hard at
anything. In previus games, experimenting by doing stupid things that can get your character killed was a very fun thing.
Like using your bare hands to smash a hell- knight in Doom 3, or risking your life with a pistol and a crowbar to complete
the Ravenholm mission in half- life. But in Prey, its just too easy. If I wanna kill a pack of aliens with my wrench, I can.
What they gonna do, kill me?
This is definately the strongest point in the game, and probably the main thing that made me write this review at 4
in the morning right after finishing it.The Story. In my opinion, the story was just amazing, finally something to compete
with the Prince Of Persia series (even though their both different genres). It may be simple when you look at the big
picture, but when you actually play the game and live every momment as though its really happening, you can actually fell the
emotion put into the voice acting.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that the official Gamespot review said that the aliens speak English and sounded dumb
doing so. This is a mistake as their language is translated by your hawk, Talon. Someone please correct that.
Now that i've covered all the cool stuff in prey the rest is up to you. Time to get some shut eye and think about
prey 2...... hee hee hee.....
P.S. I recommend playing Prey on a mid or high end pc instead of an Xbox 360. The resolution is much better and you get a
more smoother gameplay.
Thanks to Gamespot and all the readers, reviewers and members.