While Prey is a technically sound shooter, it almost feels like a throwback to classic FPSes while adding tons of new.
Prey is a pretty good game, that takes lots of great ideas and kinda doesn't come through all the way with them (I'm looking at you, portals). The game is simple, fun and kinda short...The trifecta with most modern RPGs it seems...This isn't a bad thing at all, but it definitely doesn't impress as it could have. The one truly innovative thing in the game is how you "die". When your health bar drains, your spirit is thrust from your body and into some weird world where you have to arrow down red or blue wraiths for health or more "spirit juice" as I like to call it. After a short time you're thrust back into battle.
While the aforementioned addition may seem like a cheap way to escape death and get through the game quicker...Well, yeah...It is. But it's SO much better than having to start over a checkpoint or *shudder* the beginning of the level...Either way, the mechanic fits well with the game and also turns out to be brilliant, albeit, quicker/easier to beat the game.
Some other gameplay mechanics are the no reloading weapons, the wall walking thing, and portals...And to a lesser extent the flying in the pod thing...All of which work well within the game, but none totally revolutionize the genre by any means. The first few times I wall walked I was really disoriented, but then I thought it was a great time to be sideways in the air shooting guys on the "ground". There are also a few parts where you have to shoot these things to make the gravity switch walls...That is something that is very cool, but very disorienting. All of these things are fun in their own, but the game doesn't use them to their full potential in the long run.
Prey obviously looks fantastic...I never ran into any bumps or frame rate drops. The game just chugged along with it's beautiful self. While I'm sick of the FPS in the dark thing, the game still looks great. Considering this is the exact same engine that gave us Quake 4, the game looks a lot lot lot better than that one did...And I thought Quake looked pretty sharp.
The sounds are all top notch, including the voice acting. I have no complaints, nor was there anything really spectacular...But the sounds are distinct enough that you know what's happening and realistic enough that you believe them...It works.
The game is on the short side...Probably around 8 hours or so for the single player. Not short with todays standards, it seems, but hard to make it worth the $60 entry fee. Multiplayer is fun, some of the levels are great some are just ho-hum. The ones that use portals, wall walking and flying pods are among the most fun. Hopefully we will see some add-on levels in the near future...And a fix for some of the slow down (I didn't have much trouble with slow down, but I did have some trouble entering matches).
Overall, if you're an FPS fan, you gotta at least rent this game. It's nothing terribly new, but it's new enough to be interesting and stand out among it's peers. Since there is obviously gonna be at least one sequel, hopefully they will improve everything in the game to a true level of greatness.