Game Info
Game Name: Prey
Developer(s): Human Head Studios/3D Realms/Venom Games
Publisher(s): 2K Games
Platform(s): Xbox 360/PC
Genre(s): First Person Shooter
Release Date(s): July 11, 2006
ESRB Rating: M
Hi…Are you a friendly monster or an angry monster?
Tommy’s reservation is attacked by alien invaders, and Tommy, his girlfriend Jen, and his grandfather Enisi are taken aboard the alien ship for processing into food and slavery. Tommy escapes into the ship and by tapping into the Land of the Ancients, he fights to save his people.
Prey was one of the first “new” titles released on the Xbox 360 after being trapped in development hell for almost ten years. It felt like a step up from the earlier systems but when compared to recent games it doesn’t hold-up as well.
Prey has a lot of weapons and zero-gravity fighting is fun (though it could have been utilized more). The Land of the Ancients and the spiritual part of the game is a creative way to explain having multiple lives (and give Tommy “super-powers”), but the spirit-walking doesn’t make much sense and could have been used more to make puzzle solving a bit more evolved.
Let’s go zero-gravity more when Prey 2 is released!!!
Prey has a multiplayer tournament style play. Players have time limits or teams and for the most part the most kills come out on top. There are a number of fighting grounds and with the zero gravity and spirit-walking, there are a lot of styles of play. Here, the achievements help because you find a lot of people fighting crazy (yeah, a guy trying to kill you with a wrench while everyone else is using guns isn’t uncommon).
Prey does have its problems. The online fighting is fun, but now you’d be hard pressed to find anyone to play (unless you go to message boards for specific “Achievement Boosting” times). It also suffers from terribly slow load times. You might as well just go get a drink between levels. The levels are very unbalanced with some levels extremely long and other levels are little more than a cut scene. The enemies are also very repetitive and it would have been better to have more alien species loose on the ship.
You have guns…I have a wrench…someone is going to be dead.
Prey is a pretty basic, straightforward game, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable. The story does take some surprising twists and despite advances in graphics, there are some cool effects. After more problems, a sequel is being released and despite a direct set-up at the end of Prey, it isn’t a direct continuation. From all reports, Prey 2 will continue the story, but in a strange way with Tommy not being the main character (but appearing), and it is going to be an open world story format (which is must different from this first-person leveled based game). Prey is generally found in the cheap bins, and it is worth a low-price investment.
