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Prey Review - PC

Prey is one of those games that has literally been in production by 3D Realms for as long as Duke Nukem Forever. That is, well, forever. From early pre-shots nearly 10 years ago (yes, really!), it appears that Prey has grown into quite a different game to originally shown. Through rewrite and rewrite, the game has evolved quite a lot since the first design ideas, and comes to release using a modified version of the lauded Doom 3 engine. While the game changed developers a few times, the final game was developed by Human Head Studios (Rune) under the production of 3D Realms. Most people had pretty much written the game off as a lost title, never to see the light of day. But just as everybody had stopped caring, up comes one of the most impressive games in the last 2 years.

Gameplay

You play the game as Tommy, a Cherokee Indian, down on his luck, living on a quiet reservation. Things rapidly change for the worse when one night you find yourself sucked up into an alien spaceship "The Sphere". Here you find your fellow humans being tortured and slaughtered violently around you. Is this the harsh ending to the human race? Your girlfriend Jen gets taken away for some unknown 'processing' right at the beginning of the game, and you must track her down. As you explore, the reasons for the alien presence become clearer and you also uncover a large plot involving the spirit world and a larger entity.

Armed with only a trusty wrench, you start by grabbing an alien weapon from your first kill. Further weapons are gathered from the aliens around you, and as you progress your arsenal grows larger. Each are fairly original, and the energy weapons sizzle across the darkness effectively with spectacular graphic effects. Rather than simply having boring hand grenades, the concept is replaced with small crab-crawler alien creatures which can be tossed at the enemy, or used to blow up things around you. Some weapons can be recharged from charge stations on The Sphere, and each has different modes using the left and right mouse buttons. Later on you also get to pilot some alien craft which takes things up a level.

You don't fight hoards of different creatures in Prey, and a lot of the game involves exploring and working out the right sequence to get past certain areas. Those times that you do fight however are action packed and tense. Smarter creatures are intelligent enough to hide behind objects, and jump to cover as you fire upon them. Others brainlessly amble towards you, and can be dispatched easier before they can rip you to pieces with their claws.

Physics plays a big part in Prey. Whilst the enhancement of physics to a first person shooter has been talked about for a few years, this is one of the first games where it is used to add ... (continued next page)