I think I just might be hard to please when it comes to the realm of first person shooters. I want a game that does something more than just basic stuff. Well, I guess that isn't true with Prey. Prey isn't basic, but it tried to make improvements to the formula that really weren't that fun to me. But maybe it just takes a large amount to impress me these days.
Prey looks decent on 360. Textures are good. Lighting is good. I don't think that it fully utilized its graphical abilities on enemies. There are maybe ten or so different types of enemies and none of them are designed anything beyond what we've seen before, and they look merely like Doom rejects.
I really like the cube puzzle. Beyond that Prey doesn't offer anything tricky except not being able to see where you can go because everything is so dark. There were a few rooms
The environments
are pretty and full of detail.
Shoot red wraiths during
"Death Walk" to restore your life.
where I couldn't figure out how to progress, as when a new thing was introduced like the room rotaters.
One thing that really drives me nuts, is the back of the box boasts how you can overcome gravity, "Can you handle it?!" The only real anti-gravity activity is along a preset path that you have to turn on and then follow that specific path. There are switches along different walls and floors that you shoot in order to rotate the room as mentioned before, but you can't tell me that hasn't been done before.
The story centers around Tommy, a Cherokee Indian that hates hearing about his Indian heritage and denies its usefulness. Of course, the all-wise and knowing grandfather keeps on him and eventually becomes a spirit guide to help him discover his one lame power. You can leave your body and "spirit walk" to activate switches. Grandfather says, no physical obstacle can hinder you,
when what he really means, is you can walk through force fields to hit a switch and open the door for your physical body. Ok, I guess there are two powers, the second is called "death walk", and when you "die" you are transported to the netherworld where you use your spirit bow to shoot red wraiths to get life back and blue ones to gain spirit power within the time limit and then you are sucked back into your body to continue. I won't give any spoilers in case anyone decides to play it, but the story just gets lamer and lamer as you go along. The worst part is, they want to make a sequel as seen in the story's ending.
The 360 degree motion, freestyle, vehicle combat, I found enjoyable. It leaves you with a slight feeling of what Forsaken delivered back in the N64 and Playstation days. Those parts of Prey were probably my favorite.
Overall, Prey does nothing for the genre in my book, but
The less than paper thin portals are really cool.
Look at your own body as you "Spirit Walk."
again FPS is not my main genre, so maybe I'm more picky than others. I want a good enveloping nail biting story (XIII) or free roaming or customizable character leveling (Deus Ex) or good puzzles or insane amounts of frenzied shooting (Serious Sam). Prey doesn't deliver on any of these.