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3D Realms ships a product. Sort of. Prey was announced nearly a decade ago and cancelled shortly thereafter since 3D Realms wanted to focus on the development of Duke Nukem Forever. Since then, the game was handed off to Human Head Studios with 3D Realms producing the game. It’s been a long time coming but Prey turned out to be a clever first-person shooter and the Doom 3 engine doesn’t hurt.
In the game, you play as Tommy, a Cherokee Indian who doesn’t particularly care for his heritage and actually wants to leave the reservation to move on to bigger and better things. It isn’t long before the game takes a sci-fi turn as aliens arrive at the reservation, killing many and taking Tommy, his girlfriend and his grandfather into a spaceship. As Tommy, you need to rescue your grandfather and girlfriend while saving the Earth and learning more about your heritage.
Prey is a first-person shooter and plays as such. The game gives you ample opportunities to test your firepower and frequently throws many enemies at you. They aren’t the smartest enemies you’ll find but they do put up a good fight and their attacks don’t seem cheap. You’ll notice that they’ll take cover and will send in reinforcements to take care of you while a few stand behind and try to snipe you from a distance. To keep them at bay you’ll have a number of weapons. You’ll begin with a pipe before getting a machine gun (that doubles as a sniper rifle). Later in the game, you’ll find an acid gun, rocket launcher, and a nailgun that doubles as a grenade launcher. The game also includes a leech gun that can be charged with different types of shots including plasma, a freeze ray and electricity.
Prey does introduce some new mechanics though. One of the major selling points in the game is the use of portals. Basically, the portals let you reach and shoot at a completely different area than you’re currently in. The game occasionally gives you the opportunity to choose which portal you want to enter although there usually is a right portal. At times, there will be many portals in an area and you can see yourself enter a portal from one next to you. It’s a trippy effect and one that makes the use of portals all that more interesting. Aside from the portals, the game makes liberal use of gravity. The puzzles in the game usually involve gravity in some sort. You’ll be able to walk up walls and onto what you thought were ceilings as well as enter rooms only you’re now upside down. The puzzles are fairly clever though you’ll get the hang of the mechanic quickly.
The puzzles are made more interesting with the spirit walk. Basically, Tommy can leave his body and walk as a spirit. When you’re a spirit, you have a really powerful bow to take out enemies although you’re usually just getting to a previously inaccessible location and make it accessible to your physical form. The developer made sure to use this feature quite a bit and when combined with the gravity aspects, makes the puzzles interesting to figure out and complete. The spirit feature is also used to prevent you from actually dying. When you die, the game throws you in a spirit world where you need to kill some spirits with your bow to recharge your life. Once you do that, the game places you right where you left off. Although it does remove some of the difficulty, arguably all it does is make quicksaves and quickloads more interactive than just pressing a key. Nonetheless, the PC version includes a quicksave feature although the Xbox 360 version does not. In addition, the game includes autosaves at the beginning of each level.
Beating the game unlocks a harder difficulty setting on both platforms. The Xbox 360 version encourages you to play through the game by giving you an achievement for doing so. Aside from the new difficulty setting, the game includes online multiplayer. You’ll find deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. The multiplayer makes frequent use of the gravity features and the portals which makes it an interesting mode to play. The Xbox 360 version includes a system link mode for offline play although there is no split-screen found here.
Visually, the game shines thanks to the Doom 3 engine. The game’s environments are technically sound with excellent textures, vast corridors and sometimes open areas that show that the engine can handle such things. Artistically, you’ll find a lot of decomposed organic matter all over the place giving the game an out-of-this-world feeling. The portals look great since you can see into them and it’s like really seeing a portal. There are a few visual tricks like when the game builds a level right in front of you. The lighting and shadows are nearly perfect as this is the staple of the Doom 3 engine. In contrast to Doom 3, though, Human Head Studios made sure that the game is appropriately lit. The Xbox 360 version outshines the PC version even when playing with the recommended system requirements although as expected the PC version can look better than the console one provided you have the hardware.
The sound design is also great. The voice acting is fine and you’ll hear it quite often. Early on in the game you can understand the aliens, which is pretty neat. The sound effects are appropriate although the guns could have used a bit louder. The soundtrack fits the theme well although it isn’t particularly arousing.
Prey offers ten or so hours of gameplay in its campaign mode. It manages to do the expected FPS stuff well while adding some new mechanics that spice things up. Good use of the Doom 3 engine makes the presentation superb, as well. Overall, the game is recommended even if it’s just to say you played a new 3D Realms product.
-- Jose Liz & -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Jul 16, 2006
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