hold you over for the summer
First let me start off by saying that this review will not completely bash this game in anyway or will I completely undermine the fact that it had short comings. In all honesty this review at times will sound like Game spot’s review except I actually liked the game. Now let’s get to talking about this seven hour trip.
Prey is one of the few games next to Half-Life 2 that I think has a very well thought out story. Basically you’re Tommy and you don’t really like the fact that you are Cherokee and you want your girlfriend, Jen, to leave the reservation with you. This is what you, Tommy, would like to do. After beating two sexual harassment offenders in Jen’s bar and one too many you are abducted by aliens. That’s all you’re getting out of me for the story. Honestly I thought this had a very intriguing story line with some cool twist and turns and very odd points in it. At times though you will feel there isn’t a story but if you pay attention to the voices in your head you can figure out what’s going on.
Another high point in this game is the overall sound and musical score features 3 hours of listening. I won’t buy the soundtrack but it engrossed you into the game a whole lot more than some other games I have played. While the ambient sound is also good in its own aspects and the guns all sound like they would completely annihilate something from existence which they do. Not only do the guns sound cool but they are also some of the most unique weapons I have seen. Having three-legged insects legs be used as grenades and then another weapon that I swear looks like it is shooting some type of alien fetus at you will make you wonder what exactly was going through the developers minds. The musical score is what is going to keep you going through this game. Although ,at times you may or may not want to turn down the volume it depends if you like having a very creepy female/alien/was human laughing in your right ear and causing it to bleed.
Game play in a game is always an important factor to have. Well at first I wasn’t sure if I would like the portals. Now that that I have beaten the game I can say that not only is this game unique in the use of portals and gravity it’s also very intense. The one flaw in this really is while being invincible is cool it doesn’t add much to the game, after a while it gets kind of repetitive. When I say invincible I mean you die and go to the spirit world where you battle spirits to regain spirit health and normal health. It was interesting the first few times. Now then I’m going to be as bold as to say I had more fun with this game than Doom 3 or Quake 4 for the very reason it is intense, quick, fast paced, and fun. Plus the awesome weapons you really couldn’t do much wrong. Puzzles in the game actually require some thought at times and sometimes they are fairly easy. Since puzzles could involve portals, gravity, or blowing something up it really is unique in that fact also. Basically the developers new what they were doing when they brought portals like this into gaming. I may also need to mention you do get use some sort of alien space craft during the game which it is fun and breaks up the run and gunning of the game.
Now I don’t seem to be focusing on graphics much. While they are important to me it is the Doom 3 Engine. We should all know it can render beautiful and disgusting (in a good way) environments. This engine worked well with PREY to render some of its fantastic worlds. While some people may say it is more of a Mod. Honestly it isn’t. People said that about Sin Episodes Emergence but you need to look more closely at it to see it does have its own art style of sense of its own in the engine. While there is one enemy that looks very identical to one from the Doom universe most of the Aliens and creatures seem to be more inspired from movies such as Alien or the latest installment Alien vs. Predator.
The only thing I think the developers did wrong was one, it is short it actually only took me seven hours to beat, and you can’t die which gets rid of a feeling of anxiousness and worry when your close to death. So I give them thumbs up for doing something new and making it work very well. It probably would have been better if it was longer. If you want something to keep you busy through the summer drag I would definitely suggest this game. It is also worth replaying through one more time maybe two more times. This game gets 9.0 out of 10 for me.
