Cheap thrills FPS with great looks and mildly engaging puzzle-play.
After a short intro into the game that involves the main character Tommy running around his girlfriend Jen's bar. It's not too long before things go a little pear shaped and before long they're being abducted onto a mysterious fleshy alien ship.
The controls in Prey are relatively easy to pick up. Not much different from any other FPS you would have played and anyone who's familiar with the genre will have no problems with them.
The gameplay is really a mixed bag, on one hand you have the combat. Which is for the most part, just point and shoot until everythings dead. You can pretty much just survive by running backwards and blasting the enemy down. However Prey does encourage a little strategy with Tommy's unique "Spirit Walking" ability. This is pretty much just an outer-body experience where Tommy steps outside his body to explore other areas of the level which are often off limits to his human form. Alas, this sort of feels a little half baked. Apart from the compulsory Spirit Walking to walk through force fields to press buttons, you really don't need to use it for anything else.
The puzzle's in Prey were a bit of a highlight for me. It's also a chance for the game to really step out of the ho-hum shooter mode and into something that can, at times, be quite challenging. You'll be turned upside down and the roof will become the floor and the wall become the roof etc etc. It can get a little disorientating but really adds to the atmosphere of the game.
Prey's graphics are mostly pleasing to the eye. The fleshy textures look amazingly gooey and realistic and the whole design of the ship is very intricate and at times, astounding. The frame rate is quite steady and throughout my experience with Prey i didn't notice any slow down. The only drawback for the graphics are that everything looks great while your moving but when your standing still, things can often look a little jagged and ugly.
Prey was mostly a fun, interesting experience and definately a bit of a twist on the FPS genre. I enjoyed it's story, even though it was slightly predictable. The game felt very well put together and didn't majorly stuff up any part. It doesn't have a lot of replayability though. Once you've beat the story on both difficulties, you'll have little reason to go back for more.