Prey

Now if I were raring this game based on originality, I wouldn't be able to as I don't think there's enough negative numbers to convey how unoriginal this game is. Fortunately, it has a ton of excellent references for inspiration that it borrows from tactfully for this to be largely forgivable.

The most obvious inspiration for this game (so much so that arkane studios will freely admit it) is system shock 2, this is mainly from the space station setting to the atmosphere and even some of the mechanics it rips from that game. There are also elements from doom iii (mainly with jump scares and at the time cutting edge graphics) BioShock (heavy reliance on using audio logs which the devs one up that game with by randomising the code combination on locked doors to avoid sequence breaking the game) and even the original system shock with the multiple twists that the story has. One thing unique to this game is the diverse cast, now don't worry, this was made when diversity wasn't forced into everything, meaning the game takes time to establish these characters which come from different ethnic backgrounds as well as one or two of them being lgbt in a way that isn't ham-fisted into the story. For the simpletons reading this, this game ISN'T woke just because you play as an Asian scientist or that there's audio logs of one of your female comrades hooking up with another woman and there's certainly none of that cringe Californian dialogue that has taken over the world as of late. My only complaint with the writing is that it was clearly written exclusively with a male protagonist in mind, despite the fact you can choose the gender of your character when starting a new campaign. The only changes in the campaign are the voice actor of your protagonist and the pronouns people refer to them as (again this predates the mainstream obsession with neo pronouns so it's either he/him or she/her) which I feel is lazy because I'm used to games that have a different campaign based on the gender of your character. Other than that, this game is fantastic as there's tons to do, meaningful representation among the cast and a gripping story that unfolds.

It's a great game despite its unoriginality, if you're starting to become cynical towards forced diversity in modern gaming, this should put that cynicism at ease as like I said, it draws from great ideas and diversifies the cast in a way that's respectful and not patronising.

Sooo here we have pre much my fav immersive sim ever and the best game Arkane has ever put out (and uh is unlikely to be topped considering their recent repertoire)

Prey starts off with your ass waking up in a nice high rise apartment ready for your first day at work, throw on your red HEV suit, greet the mechanic along the way to your rooftop where you take a serene helicopter ride to partake in some tests by researchers for your new job. It's a pretty hilarious and diegetic tutorial that confuses the player as to what it is they're doing wrong and before you start getting too suspicious of the researcher's remarks, some weird lil alien thing pops up and attacks the researchers and we are knocked out and for some reason wake up in our apartment again as if nothing just happened and so we wondering what be going on. You can walk out the apartment but now the elevator to the rooftop is blocked and that mechanic is now dead so well now what are you meant to do, but then you receive a message from some mysterious dude saying you have to escape (the emails on your computer also make this very clear) and the only real way you feel you can escape is by walking out on the balcony, so you smash the window with your wrench and the slow mo begins and holy moley it was all a lie and the glass shatters revealing the truth - the apartment, the world outside it, the helicopter ride and everything up until that point was a lie and you are just looping this day over and over and Lord I was shooketh when this happened, top tier gaming moment right there. I was completely engrossed from this point and I just had to know what tf was going on, and then it doesn't even stop there as when you make your way out of this area you get slapped with the next reveal that you're in goddamn space on a space station and everyone is pre much dead and its all been overrun by aliens and it is mindblowinggg

The fact that there were plenty of hints leading up to this (the only one I found was exhausting the mechanic's lines of dialogue and then she remarked she would get in trouble if I stayed and kept talking to her) is cool as hell too. It is one of, if not straight up the best opening to a game I've witnessed and immediately after it keeps firing on all cylinders by introducing the Typhons in the form of mimics, who are one of the coolest enemy types in a video game along with the gloo cannon, one of the coolest weapons in a video game so yeah absolutely goated first 1-2 hrs

Like mann the mimic is an enemy that can take the form of pretty much any object in the game so during the start of the game when you are weak as piss it makes you paranoid af thinking that any object that looks slightly out of place will jump and attack you kinda like Prop Hunt but the props are hunting you instead and makes you look like an idiot whacking a pot plant that is just a pot plant and also making you feel like an idiot when you drop your guard and pick up a medkit only for it to turn into a cosmic headcrab and attack you (also the note in the game that mentions that instead of shape shifting into the object it instead yeets itself into a pocket dimension and pulls the same object from an alternate dimension sounds cool af and adds to the cosmic horror feel the Typhon give off). They can even mimic a corpse of a dead mimic, legit can't trust anyone and it never feels unfair when they pull up on you since there are enough tells that a mimic is near (duplicate objects next to each other, sound cues, the object jittering) that if you get hit its your fault bro

The gameplay on display is phenomenal and is bolstered by the variety of interesting weaponry, powers and enemy types and with the immersive sim design philosophy there is an abundance of choice in how you choose to interact with the world. Take for example a locked or a blocked door - you can find hack a computer to find the keycode in an email, find an opening somewhere with your gloo cannon, use your upgradeable strength ability to yeet the object blocking your path, throw an explosive canister to blast away the object, transform into a mug nearby and sneak in between a gap, use a recycler charge that turns any object, even enemies, into the game's crafting materials and walk through the door or holy hell use your goddamn nerf crossbow which only shoots foam bullets and shoot the part of the touchscreen of the computer monitor inside that opens the door (because this game made the brilliant decision to let you interact with them without having to enter a separate screen) and this method in particular was the game's best eureka moment for me. Now take this idea and stretch it over to all the enemy types to work out the most efficient way to take them down, questlines to decide how you feel is best to resolve the conflicts you are provided both in terms of the obstacles and the moral choices you have to make and the areas of the space station in how you choose to traverse it and you are left with one of the most rich and dense environments in a game ever, a living breathing space station you can explore from top to bottom (and even fly around it in space) that doesn't feel like it was just made to suit the player's needs but a place that all the in-game characters all lived in before getting brutally murdered :(

And that gloo cannon, it can do everything - its a vital combat tool as it slows down and stops most aliens/machines you encounter to let you go ham on it while its stuck, but it also has the added utility of being able to make the invisible enemies visible and dropping the airborne enemies from the sky (which if dropped from high enough will die from fall damage). But who cares about its combat usage, you legit can just use its ammo to create platforms and go up to balconies and it feels like you're saying 'shut up' to the level designer but this functionality never feels broken and hell you can use it to put out fires or traverse dangerous terrain like electrified floors it's so versatile

Also while I'd say this game is largely a survival horror through and through, towards the end of the game you would have figured out your most efficient ways to kill everything and due to the fact that you can create the game's version of a skill point with your crafting materials (yet another thing that feels like breaking the game but not game breaking), you become essentially a human/alien mutant hybrid god which feels great after how well the game drip feeds you new enemy types that tend to make you go 'what in the flying fuck is that' and it is a fantastic progression/back and forth of getting stronger and then being humbled by the new cosmic terror it throws at you

Now for the rest of the story past the beginning, I don't remember too much of it but I remember the side quests and all the world building with the notes and audio logs being super interesting which is an absolute rarity as I find it hard to not gloss over stuff like that so kudos to Arkane for that and for the main story, I do recall being annoyed at the constant story roadblocks ('aight time for some juicy story' into 'stop right there you got to get past this first' being repeated a few too many times) but satisfied with the large amount of choice when it came to the endings and personalizing it to how you felt it should it end. Butt the real ending that comes right after where once again it is revealed that everything was kinda a lie and the entire game was essentially a giant personality test to determine whether you, being a typhon reliving the protagonist's memories and imbued with human DNA, is compassionate enough to be released and help the humans in retaking the world back from the typhon is a cool idea. It literally puts your choices up until this point, especially in terms of the side quests, in perspective as they go towards your evaluation but man it's really hard to pull off an ending like this and not feel a little bit annoyed that your actions had technically no impact on preventing the typhon from reaching earth/saving the few survivors on the space station considering that may have very well been your motivation for the ending you chose just prior

Yeah so overall amazing game, wish it was popular and sold well so it got a sequel but if only games with genuine passion and heart behind them made money then the gaming landscape would look very different

Other stuff
- I can't really express in words how cool it was to see the apartment crumble, I timestamped it here https://youtu.be/j2ndRGP5bMs?si=guIzHmsIb1CsOON2&t=873
- This game has the single best jumpscare I've encountered in a video game so far that only cemented why I could never play a full-on horror game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cen5oyld8fw
- It has another fantastic spook when in the main elevator you use to to traverse the space station, the times you've used it up until this point have made it feel like a little safe room and catch your breath in between the areas but then there's this one time it will malfunction and it will cut to black and a typhon will appear in the room and it never felt safe after that even though it never happened again
- The Nightmare enemy is suitably named because that was terrifying when it was introduced and terrifying when it crouched to get through a door into a space I had no idea it was allowed to go in
- The bright happy track playing during the opening titled 'everything is going to be okay' is the complete opposite of what follows
- Mick Gordon the guy who did the doom soundtrack did this OST which shows the dude has range and it does a great job at pushing the creepy sci-fi atmosphere the game is trying to immerse you in
- Along with the OST, everything just sounded great from the heaviness of the shotgun to the audio cues of initiating combat and all the electronics you can interact with it all sounds organic and natural
- The UI is slick as hell and hell even the typeface used looks nice as well this whole game just looks and sounds great, the whole aesthetic feels both modern and kinda retro at the same time everyone in the art department needs a high five, presentation wise it is immaculate
- the room where pre much every object has a sticky note saying 'this is not a mimic' lollll

I've neglected playing prey for a long time. For the longest time in my life, I've hated how long games took to get into the gameplay parts. Story taking the front seat instead of a solid fun gameplay is one sin i still believe in. Nowadays, i've become older and more tolerant to stories and dialogues in games, previously i would skip all of them. Obviously the problem has become much larger than back then, seen as most Sony praised first party multimilion dollar titles are glorified movies and the AAA industry more and more tries to mimic what they're doing seeing as it's the game as a form of art movement we are going through right now. It's just not for me, my favorite genre in the past was old first person shooters, i hated DOOM 2016 when it came out cause the little story it had annoyed me and the gameplay felt like a slow paced modern FPS which borrowed some elements from it's past (i havent played it in years so i dont know how are my feelings towards it if i'd play it nowadays). Beyond fps games i really like simulation games because they cut to what is interesting without any story (most of the time). That's why i neglected Prey. I played the first moments of Prey and no matter how good that opening was, it could never strike an impression on me. I can now appreciate it for all it is and almost live and breathe in the world of Prey.
The presentation in here is top notch. The art direction here is amazing going for this futuristic art deco style that reminds me a bit of the way the art was handled in Bioshock (which is not a surprise at all, coming from the devs of dishonored 2). Right after you wake up in the game, all these sharp architectural designs and how the props match to the enviorament reinforces how real this game feels. the station and this era the game is set in feels belivable by how reinforced it is by the designs of objects and rooms Right from the get go you get immersed by all the little details on the apartment, the items, the e-mails, the props, the interactible objects (opening sinks are as fun as they ever continue to be, it's always a pleasure to add a new game to the flushing toilets and not taking showers genre). The opening sequence plays out flawlessly from start to finish made my eyes glued to what was happening on screen, specially when the start of the game in an horror experience that made me quite paranoid for a solid 4-5 hours in where i was sweating looking at chairs and small boxes. The horror here is intense, they are the prey hunting you down, you are fragile and unnarmed even though you can outsmart them, they are much more stronger and skilled than you.
All the text and info on Talos-1 is so interesting, the stories of the crew mates aboard and the sheer amount of visual storytelling (perhaps my favorite part of the exploration part of the game) reinforces the world of Prey. I was craving for the next room where i would enter and discover new things. I was rather anxious about opening locked doors, and finding my way to unlock them in unconventional ways, that i ended up finding the best aspect of the gameplay: the sandbox nature and how it's used to solve puzzles in multiple forms.
As the game progressed i discovered that what i loved about the game at first was outshined by how exploration and Sandbox go hand in hand in Prey. hidden locations with loot and visual storytelling make exploring way worth your time more so when the loot you find can upgrade your abilites and stats, that way i was venturing into uncovered dark and scary rooms for neuromods to get strong and after a while the whole curve hit me. I wasn't scared anymore, i was an explorer badass space marine repair hacker guy that was running through the station with a fully upgraded shotgun in slowmotion, at that point it hit me that i overcomed most enemies and i had turned into the Prey hunting them down.
And while the start of the game, lore and the gameplay are rock solid. The main story mission drags for way too long, the unvailing of the mysteries are cool but the gameplay here is just not it. A lot of backtracking and plot devices that feel really unecessary and are made just to make the playtime a bit longer. Which is a massive disapointment!
I got discouraged about 2/3 into story to do anything i was previously enjoying, since i wanted to see what happens at the end of it, but the experience was way too boring for me, that i was mostly ignoring enemies and audio logs and just rushing it.

Overall, it's a great experience, one that i'll recall in the future as one of the great singleplayer games i've played. it's memorable, it's fun and it's smart. Prey is a Sci fi horror immerisve sim sandbox worth your time and money especially now that it goes on promo for low prices

9/10

Getting this out the way, what happened to prey 2 was genuinely an injustice. As for this versison of prey, we've already seen the bioshockification of the "exploration based fps"/immersive sim. This is the peak of how far people ran out of ideas into making something that appeals to the equivalent of A24 but for video games. This is was one of the most boring fucking things i've ever played in my life. This is one of those cases where if i wanted to play bioshock, i'd play bioshock, if i wanted to play deus ex(the good one), i'd play deus ex, etc, etc. There was no reason for this to come out and arkanes already doing the fruitless task of keeping an already censorius and bloated western dominated video game industry alive. Something that should've crashed by 2008.

“Bioshock in Space!” That is how my colleague at work sold this game to me. “So…. System Shock?” I replied.

“No mate, Bioshock in Space, what is System Shock?”

“It’s erm… Bioshock, but in Space”.

“Oh, that sounds like Prey mate, you’ll like it”.

Prey is really good. I suppose its an Immersive Sim, or an Action RPG if you are old like me. You know the drill; unlock upgrades to your avatar via a Skill Tree, hack computers, turrets etc. The game takes place on Talos 1 Space Station, in an alternate universe where Kennedy was never assassinated and the Space Race reached unparalleled hights. So, the future we wish we lived in, but don’t. Talos 1 is a magnificent setting in terms of its design, but it is a little bit bland in its art direction. This is something of a theme with the game to be honest, but Talos 1 is an amazing place to spend the 25 hours or so you’ll take to finish Prey. Its just a bit nondescript, not a place you’ll really remember much after you finish the game, but one you’ll enjoy whist you are there. It really is incredibly designed to be fair.

The game is similar to Metroid Prime in regard to how you can’t access every part of an area at first, but with the attainment of various upgrades, will be able to when you return later. So… like Bioshock, but in space. Or System Shock. It’s a Survival Horror, where you find yourself constantly under powered, low on ammo, just trying to survive for the first half of the game, but then the balance all goes to shit and by about halfway through, you just become largely unstoppable. My initial playthrough I tried to play though using the environment and laying traps for enemies that would destroy me 1 v 1, and for 12 hours or so, that is what I did. After that I realised I’d maxed the shotgun out and all the related perks and spent the next 12 hours playing Doom but with the most limited enemy types imaginable.

That is the biggest problem with Prey, its probably the best game of its type. Its like how you remember System Shock 2 with out actually having to play a 23-year-old game. But then just as you get to grips with the systems the game uses, and the style of play you want, suddenly you’re overpowered and the game is no longer a survival horror. I think part of the problem is that you recycle basically anything in the game into raw materials via the use of a certain grenade. You can then put these raw materials into a machine and create ammo, weapons, upgrades and also, more grenades that turn everything into raw materials. Once this happens, you largely have infinite ammo. By about 2/3 of the game, I stopped upgrading my character because there was simply no point in doing so anymore.

The characters are all bland, the big twist ending can be seen a mile off and as amazingly designed as Talos 1 actually is, its all a bit samey and a bit bland. The enemies have 1 design concept and it’s repeated for the entire game. Big faults, but those first 12 hours of survival horror and the 3-5 hours of revelling in being a killing machine afterwards are just phenomenal. It takes the best of System Shock, Bioshock and Deus Ex and elevates them to near perfection. Then you spend the last 5 hours running from point A to point B and back again, massacring everything in between as the game completely loses track of what it is and what it meant to be.

I know this review is quite negative, but those are big defects that the game has. The fact it succeeds despite these faults and is actually one of the best games of its type ever made, is really testament to how incredibly well thought out the initial game actually is. Each enemy is a puzzle, and yeah, once you have all the pieces and then some, you’ll delete them left and right, but when you are underpowered, struggling for ammo… Each encounter is massive, requiring you to actually think about what you are doing. It starts of very difficult and ends up being far too easy, but the sweet spot it maintains is second to none for the longest time.

Colour me impressed, but for a game that borrows parts of Dead Space, Bioshock, System Shock, Deus Ex and a dozen others, Prey manages to rise above these in many ways. Superb story, setting, plot, action and character development options. It wears its influences proudly on its sleeves but there is more than enough going on in this game to overlook its heritage. Quite simply, this is one of the more superior games I've played in recent years, and I heartily recommend it.