Prey
Tommy and his girlfriend Jen gets sucked in an alien spaceship. Now Tommy must save Jen from aliens and in his quest should destroy the spaceship to save Earth.
Tommy and his girlfriend Jen gets sucked in an alien spaceship. Now Tommy must save Jen from aliens and in his quest should destroy the spaceship to save Earth.
The initial idea behind this game was born in the year 1997. But then was dumped due to other unfinished projects. Then last year a new developer took on the challenge and used the best available engine of that time(DOOM III) and developed Prey. And if you ask me the wait was worth it.
The game kicks of as you being Tommy the central character (who doesn’t really care about his heritage and wants to leave, with his love Jen, his native place) rehearsing few lines in a restroom. You end up in a bar with your grandfather, Jen and two other drunk goons where you are convincing Jen to leave with you. But before you can do that the two goons start teasing Jen and then you start beating shit out of them. And that’s just about the slowest point of the game. After that it’s a complete thrill ride. As soon as you are done with them there is an alien invasion and Jen, you and your grandfather get sucked into an alien spaceship. Even before you realize where you are, some friendly forces help you escape and from then on your quest is to save your grandfather and your girlfriend, and yes.. the earth.
The game has some of the best level designs I have ever seen in a game. New tricks, Interesting puzzles, Beautiful graphics, and an Amazing game play. And then there are portals. Not to forget gravity. This game gives a whole new meaning to the gravity combined with portals. The combination of these two leads you to some interesting and fun puzzles. Even the smallest of rooms becomes fairly large due to gravity as you can walk to the walls as well as the ceiling and a 100 yard room becomes more like a 600 yard puzzle. The portals are everywhere in the game. From a standard portal you have portals on walls, on ceilings, in a box, on the floors and since your enemies have designed the portals they use it to their advantage against you too. They don’t follow you around. Infact they teleport themselves in front of you. At first looks, the game looks like DOOM III but what is different is that the levels are all lit and the enemies rarely creep up behind you.
The game is relatively easy but if you manage to die in the middle of a dog fight you surface on your native’s sacred land where you can shoot down spirits with your bow and arrow to get back to life. Did I say spirit? Yes you have spirits in the game. Not only others but yours too. And then there is spirit walk(You can leave your body to perform tasks). Not only it helps you to kill enemies but also plays a major role in finishing up majority of puzzles. When you are spirit walking you can pass through force fields, turrets can’t see you and you have one powerful arrow with which you can kill multiple enemies. All in all Spirit Walking + Gravity + Portals = Insane fun.
Coming on to the graphics, I was expecting everything from them after all the game is developed on the DOOM III’s engine. Over here the game designers didn’t turn me down. Some of the best graphics are there in Prey. The environment gives you a very refreshing feeling. You actually feel as if you are in a space shuttle and last but not the least the portals are done beautifully. Not only you can see through them but you can also shoot through them.
On to the weapons the game lacks punch this side. The weapons are fairly common what we see in other games and they lack punch. Also the ammo for every weapon is very freely available. And on top of that AI is pretty weak and enemies are even easier to kill(Two shot kill). And finally to top it all you have the death mini game where when you die you shoot down spirits to increase your health and your spirit health for 10 seconds before coming back to life again. I very rarely used quick save feature while playing prey because to be honest you don’t need it. Weapons were a downer for me except for the rechargeable gun which you can recharge within the space ship. This particular weapon can be recharged through different chargers as a freeze gun/shock rifle/laser gun. All the other weapons lacked punch or sounded week.
On to sound and game does pretty decent job at this department too. The in game sound is pretty decent and as soon as you enable spirit walk the game sound changes to a mythological music which according to me is pretty creepy. Also at places you will be able to catch up a US based radio show which is pretty funny to hear. Do hear it out. Some of the best radio shows wont be able to beat that.
I am not reveling the whole plot of the game as it is pretty weak and is more like a B grade since fiction novel but the graphics and the puzzles makes up for all the downers in the game. Another major downer in the game is the length of the game. I almost finished the game in 8+ hours, which according to me is not justified for a full single player game. I haven’t yet tried the multi player but I hope it to be really good for the money spent on the game. Come to think of it HL2: Episode One for $20 looks pretty long compared to this for $50. But of course this has multi player which I hope (fingers crossed) to be excellent.
In the end I would like to recommend this game to all the members not cause of the story or graphics or sound or anything but for the puzzles. After original half-life this game some of the most pleasing puzzles. Although fairly simple but the execution of puzzles are just about perfect. If only the game was a bit long. I would give the game a good 9.3 out of 10. A must play.
Review Rig:
AMD Athlon 64 3700+
1 GB DDR 400 RAM
X1900 XT
Minimum Req:
AMD Athlon 3000+
512 MB DDR 400 RAM
GF 6600GT
2GB Free HDD Space
Recommended Req:
AMD Athlon 3200+
1 GB DDR 400 RAM
GF 6800GT/X800 Pro
2GB Free HDD Space
Decent Headphones/Speakers
Pics will be added later tonight. Let me know how you like the review.
.. brr.. why didnt you post your own pics , dude ? 6+hours ? better than Half Life 2:EP1 
, in terms of longevity 
hyeah: 
. After this point the game gets really tough