Prey Review
The Story
In Prey you play the role of Tommy, a Cherokee Indian. Like countless other humans you are abducted from Earth by an alien sphere intent on harvesting its victims for food, but using a combination of captured alien weapons and your Cherokee Indian abilities you take the fight back to your captors.
The story is quite good and combines elements of science fiction, Native American Indian beliefs, and Tommy’s quest to rescue his girlfriend and escape from the sphere.
During the course of the game the story unfolds through communication with your Grandfather. There is also an unknown telepathic voice on the alien sphere that regularly communicates with you, and Tommy also talks to himself sometimes to shed insight on things he sees. Additional back-story is garnered through cameo voice appearances by Art Bell with his radio talk-show where callers on Earth ring and describe what is happening on the planet (“bright lights in the sky”, and so on).
The voice acting for all the major characters is pretty decent and believable too, and the opening abduction scene is very well done and really sets the mood of the game.
This handsome face belongs to you.
Level Design
Prey’s environment is set inside a vast alien sphere and as a result offers themes ranging from metallic to organic, or a mixture of both. Level design is a mixture of standard corridor crawls to very large open spaces. The corridor crawl sections usually have variable lighting, animation and/or fog to keep things visually interesting.
Progress generally unfolds in a linear fashion but sometimes puzzles stand in the way, and what sets Prey apart from most first person shooters is the range of gameplay elements used to solve such puzzles.
Spirit Mode
One such gameplay element is your ability to enter spirit mode. This mode leaves your body behind but allows your spirit to move as normal. This is handy to pass through forcefields, traverse areas not possible in physical form, and generally be in two places at once.
While in this mode you can manipulate objects as if you were in physical form so you can press buttons, pick up items, and so on. Also while in this mode spirit "bridges" can appear in some areas that allow the crossing of chasms that are otherwise impassable. Additionally you can also attack enemies with your ethereal bow but this drains spirit energy, energy which can be replenished by dispatching opponents and absorbing their souls.
When spirit mode is needed to progress or there is a secret area nearby, there is usually a circular star symbol on the ground or wall which gives you a hint to use it.
Tommy goes into spirit mode to get past the forcefield. He can engage the guards on the other side with his ethereal bow while his body floats to the right until he returns. Note the sun symbol on the ground to the right which gives the hint to use spirit mode.
Portals
Portals offer another gameplay element. These offer the ability to see and move into spaces that are not connected to your current area in a regular fashion. There are also puzzles involving the manipulation of extra-dimensional rooms not accessible by anything but portals, rooms that allow you to proceed to the next area.
Entering this portal teleports you to the room beyond.
Gravity
Another unique aspect of the game is variable gravity. In certain areas you can change the direction of gravity by shooting gravity controllers and the gravity will start pulling towards the wall the controller is attached to. So if a wall is too high to climb over, you can reverse the gravity and walk on the roof (which is now the floor) to get past it and then flip the gravity back again.
In a similar vein there are gravity walkways that follow all manner of twists and turns but as long as you stay on them, you won’t fall off, no matter what your orientation is. Think Descent but on rails. However if you kill enemies on a walkway they will fall back to the ground.
Additionally objects can exhibit their own gravity separate to the main map so (for example) you can walk around an asteroid without falling off and you can jump high due to its low gravity. However as soon as you leave the asteroid the main map’s gravity takes over so you can fall as normal and jump only to a regular height.
Stepping onto this walkway keeps your feet firmly planted on the ground even if you start walking upside down.
Interactive Objects
Interactive objects also appear in the game. The start of the game has a bar with working gambling machines (slot, cards, and so on) and also a jukebox where you can select from a range of music. These items aren’t necessary to complete the game but can provide an interesting diversion, and later on they’re distributed through the game as Easter eggs. There’s also a “casino mode” difficulty level that allows you to play these machines indefinitely as it won’t allow progress past the opening bar.
It’s time to kick some Alien butt…while listening to Judas Priest.
