Prey Review

[Michael {United Critics}]

Good things:

This is a great game that flow under the radar of many gamers. The worldbuilding in this game is awesome – the whole Talos I station is build in a way that it made it look and work like it would in real life increasing the player immersion. I love that most of the times there are a few different ways to get to a place you want to get to and only your perception and imagination are the limit. It is also good that there is a main story guiding you to some places but side quests lead you to the rest of the space station and the game encourages you to explore on your own and does not hold you hand. Also finding all crew bodies is encouraged too and they made a wise decision to let you track crew with security stations so you can also see some new areas by looking for bodies that you didn’t find. It is also nice that NPCs dialogues do change if you found the things they want by exploring the station even before they asked you to get to a certain place and bring them the item they need.

It is good that there is no XP in this game or any kind of level ups while you are still rewarded and getting stronger by just playing. You just get rewarded for exploring and finding new neuromods and scanning Typhons to unlock new Typhon related skills and killing Typhons is encouraged by giving you extra loot that later can be recycled in special machines and used to produce even more neuromods in another machine thus making you even stronger. And because there is no XP you can also finish the game without ever using neuromods and leveling any of your skills while also just evading Typhons or carrying the turrets from place to place or putting them in vital areas.

The whole game is brimming with atmosphere and all the emails and audio logs tell you all about the crew and their jobs, D&D social group, secret hookups, anniversary, birthdays, jokes, workplace grievances etc. It makes the world feel alive for a long time before the game even started. The weapons you get and the reasons why there are pistols and shotguns but also a death ray type of weapon are logical and well explained. It is also important that each weapon has it’s use so it depends on the player what and when he will use or what weapons he will just recycle and never use. I must say that all the weapons feel good to use and sound good when used.

If you love games like Deus Ex, BioShock, System Shock, Dishonored you will also love Prey.

Bad things:

The worst thing about this game is the name. Game named Prey released in 2006 is a totally different type of game and by naming this one Prey fans that played first Prey were thinking they will get more of that and were not interested in this game when they found out it is something different and people that didn’t like Prey from 2006 were afraid this will be more of that so they were not interested and that made this Prey in 2017 not sell very well so there is a big chance we won’t get a sequel but I sure do hope for seeing Prey 2 as a continuation to this game and see the events transpiring on Earth.

To tell the truth I think that using neuromods to max out only human abilities made me much more powerful than the second time when I finished the game maxing out only Typhon abilities so the balance of abilities is a little off for me. Also playing with human abilities gives you larger inventory and hacking and many good abilities that made playing only with Typhon abilities feel like a chore more than it felt like fun. It was like overpowered fighter vs just a mage kind of gameplay.

There are achievements about saving or killing all humans that are still alive but because of one of the pipes being damaged and spitting fire the moment the Crew Quarters area loads it can be really hard to get without prior knowledge that you have to rush to the Fitness Center as you only have a few minutes max before the mind controlled humans will burn to death making you unable to get achievements – this is a bad level design for me.

Conclusion

If you love exploration and you want to be afraid of everyday objects this game is for you.

Rating: 8/10

Reviewer: Zarddin