Prey began it's long development
life in 1995, a decade before it's final release.
Just as they did with Duke Nukem Forever, 3D
Realms stumbled around changing development
teams and the game but, ultimately, weren't
able to build a game engine to support the portal
technology.
The idea was to have portals
(ie teleporters) that can be opened and closed
throughout the game. 3D Realms spent a number
of years on the engine before it was finally
put on hold, indefinitely, in 1999. Which was
a great shame as the videos, screenshots and
E3 presentations released in 1997/98 had many
fans excited, including me.
Prey was one of those games
that I long awaited, just like Duke Nukem Forever.
Unfortunately they both became vaporware. It
wasn't until 2002 that the project was resumed,
although not announced officially. However this
time round 3D Realms retired the idea of using
their own engine and started again using idTech
4, with the game actually being created by Human
Head Studios, authors of the classic third-person
Rune. And in 2006 Prey was finally released.
Ironic that eventually outsourcing
Duke Nukem Forever to Gearbox Software was the
only way 3D Realms' other, more famous vaporware
game would ever get released as well.
Back to Prey, somehow through
this mess of a development timeline, Prey turned
out to be a great game. It didn't feature design
that was new as both Doom 3 and Quake 4, the
only two other games to have used idTech4 up
to 2006, featured very similar sci-fi themes.
Doom 3 was slightly darker, Quake 4 was slightly
more military themed. Prey took the theme in
more of an alien, surreal direction, but ultimately
sci-fi is sci-fi. However it looks just as good
as Doom 3 and Quake 4 ever did, so it's another
great looking entry into the shooter market.
The entire game takes place within a huge living
sphere floating in space. But most of the level
design is based around human-sized rooms and
corridors.
There are some much bigger
open areas which you can fly around in using
your little spacesuit. Unfortunately, just like
every other shooter that forces the obligatory
on-rails/vehicle levels, these flying levels
are far too common. After the first couple of
levels featuring flying I was hoping that would
be the end of it. I was sadly wrong. They're
not frustrating, in fact the flying mechanics
were fairly solid. But I hated Descent, so I
was always going to sigh when Prey takes me
off my feet.
Prey also features portals,
as per the original idea of the game from the
1990's. However portals are nothing new come
2006. Sure they can open and close and it's
a good way to insert more enemies into the action,
but they're not a big selling point.
What is a lot more unique is
the change of gravity. Using special pathways
you can literally walk vertically around the
four walls of a room. You can reverse the gravity
of a room just by shooting a trigger. On top
of this you have spirit walk, where you can
leave your body as a spirit and still interact
with the environment. These are some intriguing,
fresh features that form the basis for many
puzzles throughout Prey. Do I like puzzles?
No, not at all. So the constant gravity changes
and puzzle solving didn't really have me jumping
with excitement. In fact the brightly lit gravity
pathways did get a little ugly and repetitive
as the game wore on.
The actual action in the game
was all solid. The weapons are slightly different
to your standard shooter stock, so it made for
some interesting gameplay. The game should have
been quite a difficult game, however a unique
approach was made regarding dying. Instead of
relying on quicksaves or checkpoints, you instead
enter a short shooting game which after 20 seconds
returns you to where you died with your health
returned. This means you can't really die in
Prey. Quicksaving is completely unnecessary
and sometimes there's little point to avoid
losing health. You might as well just die and
get your health replenished. The boss battles
in particular become a complete joke when you
keep respawning and the boss still has the same
health. I can understand the idea behind it;
they wanted to remove replaying large sections
and constant quicksaves/quickloads, but they
made it far too easy to not try at all in the
game. There's no incentive to not dying, other
than your own ego.
However with it being an easy
game, it's also replayable as you can jump into
any part of the game and have a blast (providing
it's not a flying level!). There's no lengthy
storytelling or slow parts to the gameplay.
Prey is certainly not a perfect
game; the flying and puzzles get old, the regenerating
(no dying) system was a mistake, but the action
is solid and design great throughout. Possibly
the best shooter of 2006.
