What can I say? At least it's not about a Space Marine...
It's really good. Seriously, from the beginning it just started off very promising. The game's basically about a guy of Cherokee descent that's tired of living on the Cherokee reserve. His grandfather insists him to be proud of his heritage and to pay attention to the signs of the spirits and whatnot, but he just wishes to just get away from it all, because he feels it's a prison and he wants to take his girlfriend with him. The game starts off with Domacy looking at himself in the mirror and telling himself that he's a coward cause he can't even tell her that he loves her. After some interactive movement through the reserve casino, Domacy finds himself forced to take out some drunks that start stirring up trouble at the bar, when all of a sudden things start to get weird and all of sudden you, your grandfather and your girlfriend are all abducted by aliens.
This is one of the best introductions to a game I've seen, at least in an FPS. The game is just giving you a clear idea of who the characters are and then throws you right into the conflict. For when you're abducted, you're treated to what feels like a roller coaster ride and it's all very exciting, mostly thanks to the fact that there is a lot of scenery and epic jaw dropping moments. One for example, is your view of the Earth from space which really got me.
It's really kind of a basic setting when you think about it: Good vs. Evil story of vengeance. But it has something spiked into the mix, with its twist of originality. The idea of a conflict between an ancestral race of aliens and a character of Native American origin is something that's never been done before. It's a shame really, because they really could've done just a little bit more with it.
Quick review of well, everything else: There really isn't much for me to say about the visuals apart from them being awesome. The areas in the game all have a fleshy metal theme, as if the ship itself had life. In fact, you can tell just by looking at the weapons you use, that everything in this game is supposedly organic and therefore, alive. The game was developed using the Doom 3 engine which I find very ironic simply because, I enjoyed this much more than Doom 3. There's a simple reason for that. This game offers much more than just dim corridors and cheap scares.
There are sections where you're walking on walls or going through portals that you can see and shoot straight through. One second you're shooting your enemies from the floor and all of a sudden you're falling towards the roof, it's really quite interesting. Now this isn't to say I didn't have some complaints about this game.
For one, I hate reviewing FPS games because there's not much you can say about its game play. That's because almost 75% of them work exactly the same. Same control scheme, same goals (shoot, kill, progress, repeat) and hardly ever puzzles of much of a challenge whatsoever. This becomes even worse when say, game play elements directly negate a good challenge. Let me explain: In Prey, about 20 minutes into the game play, you receive one of the powers of the Cherokee spirits called spirit walking which is basically what it's called. You walk out of your body and your weapon is changed to a spirit bow. This can be used to attack enemies or get past areas (mostly force fields) that you can't traverse in your physical form.
This is alright, but then there's the other power: Death Walking. When you die (life bar reaches zero), your spirit is transported to a spiritual plane that kind of works like a mini game. You shoot flying wraiths with your bow to replenish life and spirit energy and then you're sucked back into your physical form through a hole in the floor. It's very cool looking and all, but it's done every time you die. That means that there is no game over, there is no restart from checkpoint and therefore nothing stopping you from finishing this game. Death in this game therefore, only prolongs the inevitable truth which is, you can finish this game, because without death, there's absolutely no challenge. This is bad when you consider the fact that there really wasn't much of a challenge to begin with. Puzzles are simple, levels are beautiful yet very linear and most of the enemies are all pushovers.
It's a shame. I really like this game, I really do. But it's definitely got it's problems, which is mostly in the game play. The story is great and the game can be finished in about less than 10 hours. After one play through, you do unlock a "difficulty" called Cherokee Mode which is kind of pointless when you think about it because like I stated above, you can't really die. It's definitely a game that should be given a try, because you can really tell that the developers were on to something. Now, without spoiling too much I'd like to conclude this by saying that the ending kind of left open the idea for a sequel by saying, "Prey will Continue…" although I don't really see it happening especially since it wrapped up so well. If they do make a sequel, I know I'll try it and I'll be hoping they make the adequate changes and take full advantage of what they've laid out with this one.