There is just something eerie to me personally about space horror or thriller games, and not just the games but film too. I think this has something to do with watching Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey at a very young age and for some reason it terrified the life out of me. When I was little the first space movie I watched was Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, and just fell in love with the space genre, so anything even remotely space orientated was a must watch for me. Which is how I eventually stumbled onto Space Odyssey, we were at the video store back in the day long before Netfilx, YouTube or the internet, I saw the cover and was adamant my mom get the film for me. Unfortunately it wasn't the epic space adventure I was hoping it would be, it was a sinister showdown between man and machine, that really freaked me out for some reason. I'm not sure what exactly it was, the tone of HAL's voice or the very ominous music throughout the film, but it gave me nightmares. Then to add insult to injury I also watched Aliens movie somewhere after that, which completely changed the happy place space had always been for me.
The first time I experienced that very nostalgic feeling of fear or being very uneasy was the first time I played Dead Space, which was an epic game, but I really struggled to get through it. I'm really not scared easily and I was in no way overcome by fear, it was just that uneasy feeling that sits in the corner of your mind. The best way to describe it would be in the words of Morpheus, “Something is wrong with this world, you’ve known it all your life, you don’t know what it is. It’s like a splinter in your mind ... driving you mad.” Prey did bring those nostalgic feels back which was actually very entertaining and made it fun playing.
The failed assassination attempt is the catalyst for Kennedy to then direct more funding to NASA and into the space program, allowing it to flourish and seriously accelerating the Space Race. This basically allows the mass expansion and building of space stations, massively bigger than what has been done in our time line. Something strange happens when the Soviet Union's low Earth orbit satellite, Sputnik 1 encounters a species of eusocial aliens called the Typhon. These aliens function very similar to the social structure we find in bees, which is one of the highest levels of organization in animal species.
The United States forms an alliance with the Soviet Union in order to work together to fight off and capture the Typhon. As with any alien encounters these governments keeps this information highly secretive and the general population completely in the dark about what is really going on. Together they construct a massive space station called Kletka which means "cage" in Russian, in orbit around Earth's moon, which will be used as a prison for the Typhon aliens. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US takes control of the station and starts building research labs to study these aliens which then leads to great advances in science and especially neuroscience. This ultimately leads to the creation of Neuromods, which allows the humans to harness the Typhon's physiology to restructure the human brain and then grant the user new supernatural abilities, as well as superhuman ones.
The Kletka station was brought by the TranStar company a few years before, and then renamed to Talos I, with the main purpose being that of developing new technology from researching the aliens. Upon arriving one of the supervising doctors is brutally attacked by one of the Typhon and Morgan is knocked out, he then wakes up in his apartment, but finds out that it is actually a simulated environment. The truth is that Morgan has been living on Talos I for the last three years, he is then contacted by January, who is an artificial intelligence that claims it was built and created by Morgan, only he has no reelection of ever doing this.
January explains to Morgan that the Typhon have broken out of their containment cells and has almost completely taken over the station, killing the majority of the crew. January informs Morgan that he had been experimenting with the neuromods for the last three years in order to discover new abilities, they also allowed the user to instantaneous learn new complex skills and abilities, however it comes with a side effect. While Morgan was testing the neuromods installing them and then removing them, he would loose all memories gained after each installation of that neuromod, which is why he has no idea of how he lost three years. The A.I. then informs him that the purpose for it's creation was to help Morgan destroy Talos I, as the technology was never meant to be used by the human race.
"We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.." - John F. Kennedy
The guys at Arkane have done a fantastic job of making this bizarre environment feel lived-in, which really adds the authenticity of an almost real place. There is a great cross over between old and new technology all over the place, from old school film projectors right next to touch screen computers, something similar to steempunk only not as contrast. I really enjoyed the story, as well as discovering the history of what had happen over the last three years, through reading emails between the crew members or finding audio logs as you progress. This game is all about picking up literally any piece of useful gear or actual trash, which can then be converted into raw materials to be used in all manner of construction or upgrading your gear. Just be careful because there was a few moments where you have the life scared out of you when the trash turns out to be an alien face-hugger that's going to eat your face. The back end character customization and upgrading is great with six different skill trees to choose from, plus upgrading systems on your suit and scope.
All in all it was a fun game with a constant unsettling sense of paranoia as any object could turn out to be a hidden alien, but this does become a bit tedious about half way into the game. I was a little disappointed in the combat, and the enemies are literal bullets sponges which really sucks because ammo is a very rare commodity on Talos, use it sparingly. The special abilities feel very much like those in Dishonored, but the mind-control powers and making copies of yourself does come in handy especially when you run out of bullets. I really loved the Gloo Cannon, which launches blobs of instantly hardening foam which can immobilize enemies for a short period, clog up holes, or even create platforms for you to get on. Prey is a fun game but maybe just a little too long in my humble opinion.
These are the good people who were responsible for creating BioShock 2 and the very popular first and second Dishonored games, which I reviewed a few months back right here. You can definitely see the artistic resemblance and animation style between Prey and Dishonored, almost like a signature. The game is published by Bethesda Softworks, who needs no introduction what so ever, they have brought us some wonderful games. The game was released worldwide in May 2017, and is available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. This Prey game is largely unrelated to the 2006 game Prey developed by Human Head Studios, although Bethesda Softwork did obtain the intellectual property for it but was then canceled in 2014.
Prey is now more than a year old and will possibly start seeing a few deal where you will be able to pick this up for much less, if not check out the pre-owned section of your game store.
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