Our lives are repeated cycles. Get up, eat, work, buy, sleep, repeat. A bit of entertainment, a handful everyday problems. It's easy to lose yourself in this cycle, stop paying attention to details. Details that could make us realize that there is something with the world it is wrong - it is different than we thought. But then we might stop seeing our face in the mirror. Like this game, which supposedly has the title of another game from 2006 about an Indian fighting aliens, but beyond the aliens and the title Well, Prey doesn't seem to recognize himself in that mirror either.
I don't understand a bit about the idea of publishing a completely different game using a title with which it has nothing to do with. I want it to be a well-known, popular brand, but Only the oldest highlanders remember the previous Prey from the MacLeod clan, and its sequel died long ago in development hell of Human Head. Then it took over the brand Bethesda, hired Arkane Studios to make the game, and they they've made a new Prey all over again. There seems to be the only reason for using this title is the fact that Bethesda bought the rights to it, and someone very much he didn't want the money spent on it to look like much bad investment. But enough about the title. The thing came out in May, but I have only managed it now to complete - after all, summer is the best time to go catching up, and through E3 and a holiday trip to the mountains there was a lot of them. Well, enough introductions - here we go.
The game starts with a pretty atmospheric introduction, which I don't I want to spoil, but probably all game media, advertising and promotional materials spoiled the surprise the first 30 minutes. However, I will not talk about it. Enough to say that after this introduction we have a classical situation. Our hero - Morgan Yu, who - depending on ours choice - it can be both a man and a woman, he finds off at the Talos I space station, which is mostly staffed by she was murdered by highly aggressive aliens, na which these staff had previously carried out the research scientific. Ah yes, definitely a classic. Well, yes, let's conduct research on a foreigner, an insanely aggressive space race of the unknown opportunities - what could go wrong? Let us make bold, strongly interfering with the laws of the universe research without thinking - what would not happen for sure it'll all be fine in the end, right? Whatever we discover, let's make it immediate human modifier product and let's put it to use by the entire population of our research facility without worrying about it unknown side effects. Old, proven method - nothing bad ever happens. A safe, proven solution. Despite the rather cliché skeleton, the plot defends itself with details - we have some solid ideas here that come from a variety of subspecies science fiction and horror.
Same beings with whom we fight - the so-called Typhon - belong to these more the original thanks to the ability to turn into ordinary objects, and at the same time they have that Lovecraftian one in them element - they are very alien to human beings and some they are even capable of causing fear in the hero. And they basically fold out of tentacles. Nothing communicates "cosmic horror" like tentacles. There are many choices here - often about whether or not we save someone, so it necessarily affects what characters will interact with us, and what about that goes - what quests will we get. Besides, even if the data the decisions do not matter at the moment is the epilogue of the game tries to emphasize their role and thus most of ours The action seems to have its place in the plot, however. The ending itself can potentially be irritating, but it does all in all, an interesting plot twist that changes the meaning a bit story and adds an extra layer to it. Perhaps the biggest problem with the plot of the new Prey are the characters, which did not evoke any emotions in me. I helped them because I usually try to play positive characters in games, but the fate of any of Morgan's companions or Morgana I didn't really care about Yu. Maybe it's an acting issue either limited facial expressions of models, but probably most of them of them was just not very interesting written. But despite the fact that there is no shortage of boring characters here as well all kinds of clichés, however, Prey's storyline is of those better - the motivations of some heroes remain for a long time unclear, and we have to make decisions not so much on the basis of what we know and what we choose to believe, so the story presents us with some intellectual challenge.
Prey is a typical Arkane game - some systems and behaviors characters - especially stealth items, alarm presentation enemies and their reactions - I strongly associated them with Dishonored 2, which came out only six months before the game in question. Prey is Dishonored 2 welded together with System Shock 2. In fact, there is probably no other production that would be so it strongly resembled a second system shock like the new Prey. From Dishonored 2 is distinguished by the fact that we do not have another series here levels combined in a linear story, and a set of large locations connected by various transitions and often while having fun we happen to return to previously visited segments of Talos I. Prey is what is now called immersive sim, that is ... hmm, addictive simulation? This is the type of games with roots date back to the early days of the Thief, Deus Ex and System Shock series.
Here titles with an open structure, but their openness does not follow from a big world like in GTA, because this one is rather small, and the number of different interactions and solutions the game offers. Oh, these are microsandboxes in which the sandbox itself it is small, but there are a lot of toys. Maybe I'll give you an example. Imagine that you want to get to the closed gatehouse. There may be an e-mail somewhere with a password for the door, but if we invest in the skill hacking, we can hack that door. Or bring yourself some small object, transform into it and roll through the window. Or, with telekinesis, reach the visible screen inside open the door anyway. Or maybe just shoot a button from a plastic crossbow that throws foam bullets. Maybe from there is an entrance to the mountain and a plot of land called LEPIK needs to be built stairs? Or behind some heavy crate that can be lifted only after prior investment in mass and sculpture, hidden is there a vent leading to the destination? Not every site includes all of these solutions, but from how we develop our character with injectors in the eye sockets of the neuromods, it depends on what options are in front of us hole. Anyway, imagine it commercial a product implementing micro-neurosurgery with abrasive needles about the eyeball. I am trusting it with financial success! The game economy has been invented nicely, and finally not was based on money. It's always so stupid when the hero imprisoned with bloodthirsty creatures in the severed since the site civilization still needs to fill up the piggy bank in order to buy a gun from someone the player is trying to keep from devouring or another, uncomfortable existential state.
In the game, we collect various types of scrap metal, and in special machines we can process it into basic raw materials, from which then we produce the necessary resources and equipment with the help of futuristic 3D printer. Look, developers other games - a solution that narratively makes sense! Limited inventory requires such planning from us paths to get to the scrap crusher before they are full our pockets, and the station's depleting resources force us reasonable management of raw materials at the printer. Yes, still here you have to think. Maybe it's not some titanic effort mental, but the game does not pass by itself. It is similar with the fight. The shooting mechanics itself is this myself - which makes me think of Bioshock - and the game has only a few guns, but the amount is there various powers prompts to combine. A lot is lost here, because the game is not easy. I was playing after a bit on normal and hard difficulty - both I happened to fall dead on a regular basis - on one bit less often. Tough and aggressive opponents force you to the player to look for the most effective methods of combat, so you have to decide: whether to immobilize the type with LEPIK? Trapped? Or maybe with a special attack to overpower or temporarily disable the adversary's special powers? Unfortunately, we will also encounter a handful of stupid NPCs here and they are irritating the fact that the base humanoid Typhon called the Phantom when already sees the player, suddenly starts to move mostly teleportations which brings a lot of chaos to the fight and makes it effective carrying out our plans requires constant stealth if we do not want to quickly overfeed the stock of first aid kits or without interrupts to use fast save and load.
Fortunately, the game loads quickly when we die and want to load status from same location but loading screens when moving between segments of Talos I are already there quite long - at the beginning it doesn't hurt, because we change places rarely, exploring one time and an hour or two, but towards the end In the game, we repeatedly traverse the station along and across quickly through several sections one after the other - and then those times charging like a needle stuck in the eye of a neuromod. The game also has some minor bugs right after its premiere had problems with optimization, control lags and the lack of a dead zone on the analog is raining which led to character drifting with the slightest touch mushroom, but most of it has already been patched. I heard also about errors that prevent the plot from going through, but either I was lucky enough to avoid them or they too have already been fixed. And here's all of Prey - a game imperfect but still very solid immersive sim that hides between the story films a decent piece of science fiction and a very large dose giving a lot of freedom of the game. This is probably a game closest to the non-existent System Shock 3 and at least from this because of it, one should be glad about its existence. Even if the Indian Tommy one does not recognize in the mirror the Asian Morgan there. Successfully cleaning Talos I of the cosmic tentacle plague and paranoid mashing of cups with a wrench.
ALL IMAGES ARE FROM - https://wall.alphacoders.com/by_sub_category.php?id=242197&name=Prey