T w e n t y S i d e d

I played the demo of this game way back in August of last year. Last weekend I saw the extra-special collector’s edition with various knicknacks of dubious value and an art book, all packaged in a felt-lined tin for $20. Oh yeah, there was a game in there too. Really I was just happy to find the game for cheap, so the collection of collector’s collectables hold about the same value to me as a stick of baseball card gum or a Bazooka Joe comic. Eh. That’s nice. Whatever.

I stand by most of my initial comments on the game: The Native American spirit warrior is as good an excuse as any to give the player super powers, and it works well here because those powers translate so well into compelling gameplay.

You can run around on the glowing paths. This might feel a little strange.

This game really does have a lot of new tricks up its sleeve. Half-Life 2 had the gravity gun, and they more or less built the game around the thing. It was brilliant, but looking back it seems like a one-trick pony. (This isn’t really fair. I did play through the game three times.) But Prey has several of these sorts of tricks, and all of them give me a “why hasn’t anyone ever done this before?” feeling.

The game has catwalks which go up walls, across ceilings, sideways, and back down to “right side up” again. The game never explains how they work. You just stick to them. Gravity retains the familiar orientation, but some alien technology prevents you from falling. (Unless you jump) This can be strange as you fight enemies who are on different catwalks with different orientations, and neither one of you is right-side up. Sometimes when objects fall or get knocked around you get a sense of which way gravity is “really” going, and the effect is dizzying.

Speaking of gravity… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prey: First Impressions”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.