Much Ado About Everything

Prey is like a summer blockbuster or a summer fling (I actually have zero experience on either of those categories – I’m merely throwing around stereotypes here) – a brief, reasonably fun diversion that only rarely turns out to be more substantial.

Actually, I do think it has some innovative elements. The only problem is, they’re innovative only to the first person genre, not the gaming industry. Either that, or they are just a gimmick.

I can only remember two things – funny, it hasn’t even been a week since I finished it. One, walkways – nicely lit paths that allow you to walk as if attracted to them (think magnetic boots). This allows some nicely done levels and puzzles that play games with gravity – or rather ignore it. So you can now be walking on walls and ceilings, as long as you don’t try to jump, of course. The only trouble is, they look very much like spider tracks in Metroid Prime. In fact, they look almost the same, and they work the same way too. The other thing are portals. This is a bit hard to describe unless you use a lot of words and have to actually put an effort towards constructing a sentence, and since I just finished a 0.5l can of beer, that’s beyond my skills at the moment. However, I felt this was mostly just a gimmick. It’s not that there is no potential – there’s lots. It’s just that there is also a lot of complexity involved. Too much freedom is not something that majority of people can handle. In this case it probably overwhelmed developers and they ended up only making only a few cool scenes using these portals; the rest do not contribute much to the gameplay or enjoyment. They do their part to distinguish this game from the rest though. But it’s sad, if a game doesn’t need to be fun or memorable these days to distinguish itself – all it needs is to do something no one else did (or did not do in quite the same way). That thing itself need not actually be good. Just new.

I just remembered something. Ok, so I lied. I am forgetting the third thing, the one that is actually the most innovative of them all. The one where you hit a device on the wall and it changes the gravity so that the wall it was on becomes the “down” direction, meaning the floor. The best puzzles of the game have been done this way. None of them was hair-tearing hard, but there were quite a few where you had to actually think as well as try a few different approaches until you can find the one that works. So the game isn’t really all that easy as some reviews might make you think. It’s probably just hard enough for a first-person shooter. You might get frustrated and if you can’t handle sudden changes in orientation, you should definitely sit this one out as it will make your head spin.