Fenixp

There we go, finished Prey, took me ... 23 hours, apparently. That was one hell of an ending, now I kinda feel like playing it again, even tho I did expect it, in a way. The whole ending sequence was rather nerve-wracking, like lifted from a proper sci-fi thriller. Avellone was doing writing on this, wasn't he? At any rate, well done, and the game did take a few turns I did not end up expecting. I do like that instead of just farting out slowly like games like these tend to do, it ended on a fairly high note. Generally, the whole thing left me feeling like I stepped into a well-written sci-fi novel with a lot of player agency on top of it. It's not particularly original in that context, but I don't think I've ever seen a game ... Progress ... In this manner. And I also really like that the game paced itself properly - slowly uncovering new aspects that it presents you with. Quite a surprise. I think the ending kinda has to remain ambiguous for it to work, otherwise they'd ruin the whole point.

Honestly, I ended up enjoying Prey a lot more than I did Bioshock - Prey actually feels like the spiritual successor System Shock deserved, whereas Bioshock was ... Just a thing with a twist in the middle. Then again, while I did enjoy it, I was never particularly impressed with Bioshock as it didn't inherit the qualities I enjoyed the most about System Shock games, whereas Prey nailed them.

To be fair, both DOOM and, even moreso, Prey are possibly the most oldschool AAA titles released in the last... Well almost decade really. They're very clearly designed for people who used to listen to the old hardcore stuff as opposed to the fans of the pop. That could actually be said about the new Wolfenstein games too to an extent, altho they are designed to also be much more digestible for listeners of pop. When it comes to games Bethesda published, only Dishonored 2 and Rage are not technically proficient. Everything else is stellar, perfomance and functionality-wise. It's only Bethesda themselves who are poor developers. (and even that is arguable, there's a reason why their games are a buggy mess - which doesn't excuse them in face of the consumer, obviously)

Okay, so after 20 hours with Prey (still haven't finished the damn thing), I think I have finally formed a decent picture about the game. Let me start off by two things I am personally enjoying very much: The writing and the level design. Sooo... The Good So far, my favorite space station in a videogame ever was Citadel in System Shock, because it felt like a connected, living place - in spite of its level design being rather nonsensical more often than not, it gave me an impression of a place that no other ships/stations in any other game I have played since managed. Well, I firmly believe Talos 1 replaced it on that imaginative list. Arkane has always shown aptitude to create excellent and believable gaming environments, and in Prey, talking about 'levels' is not even applicable anymore. Talos 1 is an actual, believable place that you could imagine living in, not only with relaxation biodomes, living quarters and workplaces but all of this connected in ways that make sense with everyday life in mind (it doesn't take long to get from living quarters to just about anywhere, for instance - which also helps gameplay, obviously). There are some issues, naturally - but someone actually looked and thought long and hard about how could this place function before it was turned into a videogame environment, and it really shows. As for the gameplay aspect of the space station, it's an absolute joy to explore. The extreme attention to detail makes sure there's always something interesting to find, be it stories, details of what was happening in this particular bit of the station or just some items to make your life easier. This aspect alone makes this game irresistible to me, getting to explore a believable space station in a big budget title capable of realizing something like this was my dream since the original System Shock and now it's been fulfilled. And the best part is that you don't only get to explore the interior of the station - you actually get to put on a suit, jetpack and go on your marry way around it too. This can actually serve as a way of fast-travel as any airlock opened from the inside can then be accessed from the outside, in addition to giving player another massive space to explore and giving him sense of sheer scale of the station. As for writing, I still have no real idea what's going on and who to trust, but I have finished a fair share of side quests, read a whole bunch of emails and listened to many audiologs (which happen to be placed fairly logically, finally). The game keeps me constantly feeling uneasy, constantly feeling like even the stories I thought I have explored have something missing that I have not quite been able to spot. Additionally, many side-quests tend to have smaller or larger twists to them that I find rather enjoyable. Do like. Generally, you pick up quests while exploring outside the critical path, and they often contain environmental puzzles you need to deal with before progressing (and no, the game usually doesn't tell you how to solve them.) I'd like to point out that this aspect of the game is why the game hovers around 90% user reviews on Steam. The game doesn't treat the player like an idiot, is chock-full of hidden items and pieces of information that always contribute to the story somehow and wants you to believe that you are part of an offworld research project first and foremost. Immersive sim at its finest? Quite possibly. But... But. There are downsides to this. Many may just be a me-thing, but they're worth mentioning nonetheless. Sooo... The Bad The combat. Man, that combat is so bad. Until you level up your weapons and your weapon skills considerably, you feel like you're firing peas at your enemies - and it doesn't get much better even then, they just die faster. Prey is trying to do the whole "Each combat is a puzzle" thing where most enemies can be rather dangerous even at the end of the game and ... It just ended up feeling really annoying eventually, to the point where I knocked down the difficulty so that it would be over faster. There is a rudimentary stealth system that allows you to avoid the opponents, but since they have hardly any patrol paths and they often stalk around valuable items (not to mention being irritating to keep avoiding), you end up taking them out anyway and only use evasion against the most powerful ones (read: The most annoying ones to defeat.) Enemy variety is really impressive and I do like the way different enemies behave, but... Dear Lord that combat system is unsatisfying. Dem graphics. Visually, the game is also superb, everything feels like a real place. But ... I kinda feel that's the issue really. Pretty much everything is rather drab, minimalist and ... Well, a bit visually unimpressive. I suppose I feel like walking through an extremely fancy shopping mall while exploring Talos 1, everything having its purpose, everything being as non-distracting as possible. In a way that's an achievement I suppose, but at the end of the day, I guess I could have lived with the station being a bit more stylized (like Alien: Isolation!) Or a bit less stylized? I'm finding it really hard to identify what do I dislike here :-P Lastly, quality of life stuff. It has not happened too often thankfully, but I got stuck on bits I should have not gotten stuck on, climbing is often much more cumbersome that it could have been and moving heavy items is incredibly finnicky. Honestly, I'd expect experienced developers to flesh out things like that, alas... That didn't happen. The verdict so far? All in all, Prey is fantastic. I've played it for 20 hours past the last 3 days, more or less completely ignoring real life in the process - it takes a special game to make me do something like that. Exploration, finding out what happened on the station and discovering what kind of beings Typhon are is a superb experience. At the end of the day tho, Prey is essentially System Shock 2 with bits of Bioshock in it. It's neither very ambitious nor particularly innovative game - it just does what its predecessors did damn well, and there's never enough of games like this. TLDR: If you liked System Shock or Bioshock and are not a Katphood, buy Prey. You won't be sorry.

You could use the squeaky crossbow to do that, Raithe. But I too grabbed a Typhon skill, namely mimicking. Thought it'll help stealth. It didn't really. But at least I'll get to squeeze into places I couldn't previously. Incidentally, Prey is the game that introduced me to problems that may arise from roll of toilet paper being shaped like a roll. There was a floating chair. I thought it was a glitch, but... More importantly, it wasn't a chair.

And Bethesda are a bunch of a-holes. Arkane really realized their dream of creating a System Shock 3 tho. Edit: To be fair, Prey genuinely is missing presence of a powerful antagonist. Arkane went out of their way to create aliens that actually feel alien - they are in fact so difficult to connect to in any way that I don't feel anything towards them. Hatred, sympathy, nothing - they're just there, doing their thing, with barely anybody even beginning to understand why. I think I'm starting to understand why does sci-fi tend to portray aliens human-like. That said, I really appreciate Arkane taking this path, it makes the aliens feel rather intriguing. Nonetheless, SHODAN and Many were antagonists I will remember with my dumb human brain incapable of empathizing with completely unknown. I do feel a plot twist coming tho.

Okay, now I have played Prey for over 6 months (In other words, it's suddenly 1 AM and I should probably go get some rest.) So some additional stuff that I've noticed: - I knocked combat difficulty down to Normal, because the combat is incredibly finnicky and gets annoying when you also take insane amounts of damage from enemy attacks. I'm enjoying it a good deal more now, but I'd still not call it great (then again, I'm yet to gain powers. 6 hours in. Slow burning indeed.) The way it works is basically you can approach an enemy and shoot said enemy until it dies, but this way usually proves to be extremely exhausting one one's resources, if not rightdown deadly. So you're looking for hazards, turrets or better positioning that'd help you. Which sounds fun in principle, until you realize than on higher difficulties, you kinda have to do that for majority of encounters. Then it just gets old. At any rate, Arkane went from power fantasy that was Dishonored to resource management survival-ish ... Thing, which is a pleasant change. - The way gating works in this game is rather ... Interesting. It's gated both via skill checks (you need hacking lvl x to open door, lifting lvl x to move this aside etc.), but there are also 'soft' checks along the way. Basically, if you meet an enemy that looks too tough for you, it probably is and you should probably return later. Now here's where it gets interesting - there are no levels in the game. The way you'll come back to defeat or overcome said enemy later on won't be with superior stats (even tho that too to an extent), it'll be better equipment and skill gained while playing the game. I do quite like that actually, it's a fairly oldschool approach that actually lets you get your arse kicked repeatedly if that's what you wish. It can also be a bit frustrating when you incorrectly gauge your enemy. - Storyline is getting from straightforward to kinda mid****y. I wasn't particularly interested in it before - I'm coming around now.

SPAAACE! With 6 degrees of freedom movement! Okay, now this is impressive. There's quick-saves and proper save slots. It's nothing like Alien: Isolation. It's not really a horror game per se - just a game with some horror elements and nice atmosphere. There's no real gore or gloomy interiors in it either - the entire space station is designed to look like there were actual people living in it, which is rather neat. Yes, there are toilets. And from what I've played thus far, it would appear that the whole game revolves around this huge space station, parts of which you progressively unlock as you proceed through the game, other parts via unlocking new skills. I'd probably compare it to something like Dark Souls, Resident Evil 1 or 7, or the original System Shock. Alien: Isolation too to some extent actually. It would appear that as you unlock the individual bits, you can freely return to and explore previously visited areas too - especially since you'll get more advanced hacking/lifting/repair skills by then, so you'll get to visit previously locked places.

The gameplay... Does actually look decent enough. Not polished to the levels of the previous two games, obviously - but I'm more interested now than I've been after seeing the first DS III video.

I already started writing down all the areas I can't access due to too low hacking/lifting/whatever skills. Played like 3 hours of it, incidentally. There's definitely a lot more System Shock to it than anything, including the original games's "We'll give you a bigass space station and you're free to toy around in it". Combat is a bit clumsy, but I get a feeling that's purposeful - the game seems to prefer players figuring out more creative ways of defeating opponents than just gunning them down. I'm rather pleasantly surprised by the fact that there's a -lot- you can explore completely outside the critical path, which is nice. Speaking of, enemy designs are all fairly clever thus far, it's not just the mimics that the internet keeps yapping on about (who are, incidentally, not nearly as scary as the internet would have you believe) I'm reasonably impressed so far. We'll see if that remains. Edit: I also recycled myself. It wasn't the smartest thing I've done.

Oh come on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yIwPovQKxQ Darksiders 2 was overly long and the loot was a bit ... Meh, but other than that, fighting mechanics were solid and it had a very imaginative world to explore. You got to scale a gigantic chariot dragged by two undead dragons as it swooped past the landscape! You got to visit hell and paradise with some wonderful depiction of both. You got to do a weird ... Shadow of the Collossuss ... Ripoff ... Boss ... That didn't really work that well but was rather cool. And a whole bunch of optional dungeons were a lot of fun. And the writing was pretty neat too, with Death being portrayed rather nicely (and his reluctance to take on sidequests was occasionally funny.) Shame animation quality wasn't nearly up to snuff, especially after splendid animations of the first game. That said... Yeah, the original was a bit better. But just a bit. When it comes to the third game, the trailer doesn't really bring a lot of hope to me.

Fury ... Did actually have a bit less clothes on her originally. But I'm sure it's not backlash, I'm sure it's just cold where is she going.

They really mean 'Like Assassin's Creed' as that's what we're mostly getting. If all open world games would be open world like Skyrim I'd be a happier man. And fatter. And probably a lot more lonely.

The difference is that AI won't mindlessly attack a tank that poses no danger to it. If you build your warrior as a scared turtle with a shield in each hand, AI will just ignore engagement and go straight for your glass canon characters, rendering purely defense-oriented fighters completely useless.

You should start building warriors in such a way that they can kill things already, lest the things will ignore your useless meat shields and go eat your glass cannons.

I still don't think the resolution really means a lot without the buildup. In other words, the buildup is as important as the resolution ends up being.

Just play Nier: Automata people.

To be fair, I don't think there was much to wrap up - ultimately, the themes Nier: Automata worked with were much more important to it than the world or storytelling in itself, which is really interesting.

And there was the bit with the wrist device. And the bit with the complex around satellite dish. And then you kinda had to trust him. So good. Incidentally, Titanfall 2 didn't sell very well, so we probably won't ever see another campaign from that universe. Booooo! I couldn't resist.

Did you get [E]? You absolutely need to get [E].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltSOidHtxOk

Not only a SP thing, it's among the best SP FPS campaigns I've ever had the joy of playing. Hope Katphood enjoys it as much. Honestly, after Titanfall 2, MP Military Shooters have no excuse for a poor campaign.

There's plenty of games with cool premise. Vast majority of them fail when it comes to their execution. Stuff like openness, reactivity and freedom are buzzwords used in gaming for the last 5 years or so, and majority of games fail to deliver. Incidentally, Arkane does happen to be among the small minority of studios that have proven to be actually capable of delivering on those promises. No, the cool gimmicks make it an average shooter. It'd be rather poor otherwise. I mean come on, it didn't implement majority of the features even its peers were able to at the time, and its gimmicks are purely cosmetic. Oh and you can't die. Yes, that's quite literally the only thing I really dug about the original Prey. But that's not really a gameplay feature and wasn't particularly prominent outside anything but aesthetic - even the 'dream' sequences were incredibly cliché with a nice coat of paint. ... And that's why we can't have fun new ideas in AAA games. Because when they are attempted, people are going to call them stupid. Incidentally, it's not like gaming's overflowing with games focused on being stranded on a space station - especially since Prey's storyline promises a lot more (like experimentation on alines captured during their defeated invasion, which is a premise I don't think I've ever seen really.) Look, for all I know, the new Prey'll be crap. But Sturgeon's law tells us that, most likely, so would be Prey 2. Idealizing something that you've never even really seen in action at any length of time is not a particularly constructive approach, all things considered. But the new Prey may bring some interesting ideas and gameplay elements to the table - for that, tho, we'll have to wait and see. Prey 2 would not exist, regardless of what happened with the Prey's name. And getting hung up on a word feels a bit... Silly.

I can see you come from alternate reality and the future where you got to play both games and compare them. Let's be honest here: The original Prey was a rather average shooter to begin with, it just got some cool gimmicks.

Well... Some people do enjoy atmosphere and storytelling a lot more than the actual gameplay, popularity of walking sims is a testament of that. And Inside does hold a lot of appeal there, especially if you enjoy showing over telling.