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| Look how cool I look | Enemies will come out of portals and will be shooting you from impossible locations |
Even with that bizarre combination you will find Prey to be quite an entertaining game, and (to enhance the weirdness of my thoughts) it even makes perfect sense! In Prey you take the role of Tommy, a native Cherokee who wants nothing to do with his heritage, disregarding the wise words of his grandfather who warns the young Cherokee of an upcoming catastrophe, Tommy’s only motivation is to leave the reservation in company of his girlfriend, Jen. But when Tommy finally makes up his mind about talking Jen out of the reservation, a massive alien invasion takes place seemingly out of nowhere, and Jen, Grandpa and Tommy are literary sucked into a gigantic alien ship.
The whole concept of the alien ship is thematically outstanding, you will soon find out that there is much more than you can see, and the so-called “alien ship” concept that you would expect is more likely defined as the “living planet-sphere-star community with a mind of its own” kind of place, which gives the story a whole new perspective and gives Prey enough elements to deliver a refreshing and fun gameplay, where dimensional portals and gravitational puzzles are the main ingredient.
If you are wondering what those elements mean in actual gameplay, let me explain it in simple words, it basically means that enemies are capable of popping out from nowhere and in every possible location you can imagine. Forget about those days when you only had to check behind walls and turn around every once in a while in order to find your enemies, in Prey you will have to check the ceilings, the walls, every hole and in every direction to discover the source of those deadly shots that may put an end to your life (which in Prey only means that you will be shooting some wraiths in order to recover your health and pop back to existence, but then again, who likes dying?)
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| Say cheese! | Taste the power of the mighty spirit bow |
Now that we are talking about dying in Prey, it is time for us to discuss an aspect of the game that many will love but many others will hate. Tommy is capable of detaching his spirit from his body, which helps you to walk through fire and force fields, but more importantly your spirit abilities help you when your health is depleted. Basically when you die you are taken to a specific spot in the Land of the Ancients (which, according to the game, is the place where dead Cherokees linger once they leave their mortal lives) where you will have to shoot some wraiths with your trusty spirit bow in order to regain health and spirit power. Once the time for the “mini-game” is over you will return to the same spot where you died (unless you fell into a very deep pit, in which case it would be useless to return there) and you will be capable of continuing with your alien butt kicking quest exactly where you left it.
While some people will find the death mini-game sequence to vanish every sense of difficulty in the game, some others (like me) will think that it is a great way to get rid of those frustrating moments when you had to load previous games in order to get pass through a difficult area, this way you can keep on with the storyline without feeling constantly interrupted by a minor nuisance such as “dying”.
Sound and visual effects on Prey are very coherent, everything that takes place in the game feels just as it should, voice acting is great for every character but Tommy, who doesn’t seem to be very frightened or confused during his mind bending quest, and he also believes that cursing all the time will provide him with some sort of supernatural powers to defeat the deadly aliens (oh wait… it did), but overall everything sounds great. The environments are designed in such a way to make the player feel disturbed, the alien ship itself seems to be alive and you will find enemies in weird spots along with other bizarre beings which inhabit the place. The voices of Jen and Tommy’s grandfather sound great, full of life and well-acted.
If you are looking for a challenging game then Prey might not be for you, not only do you have unlimited lives, but the enemies’ AI is definitely not brilliant, the really brute enemies will just rush heads-on to you on open areas giving you plenty of time to aim your alien gun to their heads and blow their brains out, while the geniuses will occasionally look for some cover and toss some grenades around your location while they can’t see you, giving you a little less time to aim your alien gun to their heads and blow their brains out as well. However the real difficulty lies in the environment rather than on the enemies themselves, it is quite a difficult feat to accomplish trying to shoot aliens standing on a ceiling while looking for cover and, since the alien ship is a living thing, you will soon find yourself running into a slimy tentacle or a nasty mouth-looking thing in the floor (or wall or ceiling.. hard to tell). You can beat the game in 8 to 12 hours, depending on the time you spend exploring, and since Xbox Live features only deathmatch options, I do not believe this game will make your Xbox Live Top 10 anytime soon.
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| Get down here so I can shoot you! | Tommy and Talon make a great team |
It is also important to say that there is only one human weapon in the whole game, a wrench, which I only used for the first minutes of the game, every other weapon in Prey is alien in nature, so you will find some interesting effects and refreshing weapons for tearing those aliens to pieces. In this game you will have with a wide arsenal at your disposal and, unfortunately for the aliens, most of the weapons can really make the toughest alien think twice about messing with an angry, thirsty of revenge Cherokee. Blow the heads off your enemies, snipe them, freeze them, shoot lightning at them, or bash their skulls with your handy ol’ wrench, the choice is up to you, and the best part is that your favorite weapons are available at a press of a D-Pad button, so there is no need to worry about wasting time looking for the best choice.
Top Game Moment:
TOP GAME MOMENT
The gravity and portal dynamics, they make the game much more enjoyable, they keep you guessing, you never know what to expect.
