Don't prey for me. (Prey (PC))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Prey (PC)
Date:	29/08/06 (361 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solid FPS offering some neat features

Disadvantages: Nine hours gameplay for over twenty quid? Are you having a laugh?

Games come and go as far as I'm concerned and rarely do I get excited when the new release is paraded across the gaming press. The main exception to this, for me, is the First Person Shooter genre that I find quite interesting. I think it's something to do with the story-telling element and I think it works better in this genre than most others. Like other genres, the FPS one does have its own 'A-list'. On the PC, these are generally regarded as the Doom series, the Quake series, Half-Life and, I suppose, Halo.

Prey was a strange game in that it was originally announced years and years ago (possibly as far back as 1998), and then simply disappeared. However, it returned with a bang in 2006, built on the Doom 3 game engine and follows the reluctant hero, Tommy.

Right from the start, you, as Tommy, are trying to persuade your girlfriend, Jen, to leave the reservation. Tommy isn't enthralled by his heritage and tradition, pushing them away while Jen embraces it all and is reluctant to leave. During yet another late night discussion on this very topic, strange things happen. Weird coloured lights appear in the sky and before Tommy realises it, he's taken away along with Jen and his grandfather, Enisi.

Shortly after arriving on what appears to be a huge alien spacecraft, Tommy finds himself released from captivity by some unknown ally. There are only two things to do, and that's find some means of releasing his girlfriend and grandfather and then finding a way to escape the spacecraft and return home. Easier said than done…

Graphically, Prey is good. The engine on which the game is built, Doom3, is an excellent FPS engine as can be seen from Doom 3 and Quake 4, which both used it to good effect in different ways. Prey follows the Doom3 route where most of the levels are closed in affairs, rather than the Quake method that also introduced outdoor areas. I felt that this gave Prey a claustrophobic feel to the game which was crying out for some variation at times. The game does use the engine quite well, although like Doom 3, was a touch too dark for too long for my liking. I also thought that the graphics were a touch too same-y throughout the entire game and that's an issue with the game designers rather than the engine. Apart from that, and a weird design that gave Jen HUGE ears, the game does well in the graphics department.

As far as the audio is concerned, it's fairly forgetful. The voice acting is of a high standard, but I'm struggling to remember to music involved or the sound effects within the game. I suppose, that could be a positive note as if it were atrocious, I'd certainly remember it.

Performance-wise, I found the game ran well. On my PC (specifications listed below), I set the resolution to 1024 by 768 and the detail level to medium and found the game played well - it was smooth and the effects were impressive.

The designers have introduced some new and unique gameplay features which do enhance the game somewhat. On the alien side, there are portals which are capable of transporting you across untold distances (and it is fun to look and shoot through these portals, which are only visible from one direction) and often require reorientation before you can continue due to another feature of the game. It's not unusual to go through a portal only to find yourself upside down and will fall to the floor and need to get your bearings again before continuing.

The designers have included two means to defy gravity. The first are powered walkways which appear throughout the game. On them, you're able to walk up walls and even upside down, while anyone else nearby that's not on the walkway has to obey the laws of physics. This does provide challenges in that it can be hard to get your bearings while running up a wall onto a ceiling while trying to shoot some of the bad guys that might appear. It's doubly difficult if the bad guys are running for the control panel of the walkway to turn off the power, rendering you at the mercy of gravity again. These were great fun to use, though reminded me a little of some levels of the Star Trek FPS games.

The second feature is a series of switches that change the direction of gravity. These could be found all over the place, and shooting one of these switches meant that gravity would then operate in the direction of the switch. For example, shooting a switch on the ceiling would mean that gravity was reversed. Shooting a switch on a wall to your right would mean that would mean that the wall to your right would become the floor and everything in the room that wasn't nailed down, would fall in that direction including bad guys, crates and everything else.

At times, the main character does run into some problems that require a little lateral thinking to solve. Some of them revolve around the gravity switches, while others force you to use other means of solving them, such as spirit walking etc. Generally, I found the puzzles to be logical and solvable without too much frustration or hair pulling, which does make a difference from other games where such puzzles might be completely unfathomable.

The weapons are your bog standard fayre for FPSs, though are done well with decent sound effects and a good balance between the numerous types. I found myself switching between most of them throughout the game, which I've not done in a game for a long time. Usually, I find a favourite that tends to be fairly good for all situations, but in Prey, some weapons are good in some circumstances and useless in others, forcing you to continually switch.

The main character in the story, Tommy, is a Native American (Cherokee), and his mythology is explained in a little detail. However, not all the added features related to this are positives. In terms of gaming, the mythology angle introduces two features, the first of which is the ability to 'spirit walk' i.e. leave your corporeal body and walk through forcefields etc. This is an excellent feature as when looking at the world in 'spirit vision', other paths and solutions might present themselves, though is arguably not explored to its fullest potential. It's up to you to spot the clues as to when this might be.

Sadly, the second feature is a HUGE negative aspect to the game. When you die (which will be often), you are transported to the spirit world where you must do battle with the spirits of the dishonoured dead. Fighting these spirits raises your physical and spiritual health until you get sucked back into the physical world. Essentially what this means is that dying does not have an impact on your progress and you're pretty much granted 'God' status. The only negative aspect is that you have to spend thirty seconds or so in the spirit world getting as much physical and mental health as possible. In terms of gameplay, this severely reduces the lifespan of the game. In my case, it was about nine hours which is far too little for a full priced game.

The story is a strong point and is interesting, although there are several unexplained areas that seem to crop up once or twice and are never resolved, such as who or what are the ghostly children and why are they intent on killing you at every opportunity?

Additionally, I didn't have any real empathy for the main character. When faced with (pre-scripted) decisions through out the game, more often than not chose the path that I couldn't see myself taking. This does have a real impact on my enjoyment of the game because I think it's important in games such as this to be able to immerse yourself in the story and atmosphere and anything that stops your from doing that cannot be a positive.

I don't think Prey is a game I could possibly recommend with too much enthusiasm, especially at the current price of £25. It's an average FPS game with some innovative features that does help to maintain interest, but the negative aspects do hinder it at the same time and may even outweigh the innovative and fun features. It's far from a disaster, though, so if you can find it cheaper or are prepared to wait until it drops under the £20 price point, then do so as it would offer significantly better value for money.

My advice would be to try before you buy and the demo is available online at:
http://www.prey.com

Prey's recommended PC specifications:

Intel Pentium 4 2.5Ghz / AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor
1GB System RAM
ATI Radeon X800 series or comparable card with latest manufacturer drivers
DVD-ROM (Limited Collector's Edition)
2.2GB of uncompressed free hard drive space
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP with latest service pack installed
Mouse and keyboard
DirectX 9.0c (included)

My system specifications (for performance comparisons):

AMD Athlon 2500+ processor
1GB System RAM
ATI Radeon Atlantis 9600 256MB graphics card
Soundblaster 7.1 soundcard
16x DVD-ROM
Windows XP with SP2
Mouse and Keyboard
Direct X 9.0c

Summary: Fight your way out of an alien spaceship, rescuing your girlfriend and grandfather at the same time.