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What did everyone think of Prey, by the way?
OK, yeah, I also recommend this game so far. It's still rather compromised and missing the true prestigious design of the classics, and there's a lot of wasted potential, yet it's a lot better than all the other neutered Immersive Sims from LG's descendants of the past decade, from Dishonored to the truly abysmal Bioshock.
Well that went downhill fast. This game is pissing me off now.1. All the neutering is very apparent. Fabrication license limits removed. Wep degradation removed. Suit integrity influencing oxygen levels removed. Status effects removed. Such things would have made the game generally a lot more engaging, and make all this constant loot micro-management and exploration actually worth it. Speaking of:2. Micro-management and exploration gets tedious. 95% of the game you're looting trashcans and supply crates and reading boring emails...for nothing. I'm starting to avoid content because there's no need, and that's just not how it should be. There's operators everywhere. I have 120 food items, 30 medkits (not even upgraded med kit efficiency once), and 60 suit repair kits. The general gameplay is not working in tandem due to a lack of challenge, neutered game systems and a lack of pacing. Where's all the enemies at? No pseudo-random respawns like Shock 2? Aside from the nonthreatening mimics and the invisible phantoms this is so predicable and bland. It's the same every time: there's a Typhon or two patrolling the centre of a large room/corridor, you kill it in five seconds, then spend the remainder 95% of the time reading all the emails and looting all the garbage, rinse and repeat. The game never even surprises you with scripted enemy placement, like say a typhon locked in a cargo container that jumps out when you hack it open.3. RPG systems and replayability: modern RPG design strikes again. With the ability to be able to get all or nearly the neuromods and all the upgrade kits in one playthrough, in addition to all this other bullshit I predict very little reason to play the game again, unless they release a fulfilling patch or someone with good design sensibilities mods this game and makes it wholesome. And of course you become an absolute god quite fast and it wrecks challenge.4. The hacking mini-game? Surely they had the idea to include moving obstacles, target areas that shrink in size, maybe a pacman style ghost that chases you around? Do you just hate fun and derive sadistic pleasure from boring players to death, Arkane?5. Art direction excess/excessive clutter. Ultra detail + cluttered levels + primary focus on loot whoring and micromanagement is so draining. New Vegas gets it right so it's not purely a old school vs modern thing, it's a result of art obsession and ultra detail in every damn level. Major Exception: the Arboretum. This level is not a maze of crates, trashcans, lockers and whatever else. Still a visual splendour, but it was 100% enjoyable to explore due to clear intuitive visual communication of what is worth hovering your crosshair over and what is not.As a result of this obsessive art approach object highlights and objective markers arguably become necessary. And my god the markers are extra annoying in this game, such as disappearing when you get close, there's hundreds of them yet they're vague in the information they provide (textually) so it can be confusing which is actually relevant...there can be so many quests active at any given time that you feel like you're playing shitty borderlands or Elder Scrolls.So, they're needed Arkane? Why not make them actually meaningful? Say a limited inventory item you can use that provides quest tracking temporarily when used? This would avoid bombarding the player with so many markers and encourage actual use of his or her own navigation skills while still offering the occassional free pass should the player feel they need it. Definitely an interesting middle ground, though also perhaps only interesting on paper.6. Weapon variety or lack thereof. It's been said before. Another reason not to replay the game. I'm finding them boring even on my first playthrough.7. The enemies in concept. It's been said before. Horror multiplies immersion substantially, and adds something special of its very own. You wanted to innovate/not tread old ground with the failed biological experiment route and the like, fair enough. The result is just a little underwhelming.8. The plot. Also has been said before. This isn't like Shock 2 or Deus Ex where you're on the edge of your seat completely engrossed from start to finish. This is like in Dishonored or a Bethesda game where NPCs are so bland, boring and meaningless that you do not value them as virtual entities; they talk and you find yourself filtering them out.Who else was thoroughly enthralled and engaged by the cutesy lesbo love story? The Cook subplot? The every day lives of half the staff in general as told by email?Remember those people held up in the cargo bay? They were boring me, the gameplay was boring me, so I cut the leading lady off mid-sentence with a shotgun blast to the face and then murdered all the rest. I could not care less for their plight. It's mostly the gameplay's fault though. I put up with anything happily if the gameplay is rock solid.9. Audio design and music. I went into this before. The music is at times bland, other times downright annoying. The audio cues can also be just too much, but that is also something that has seen plenty criticism already. Many sound effects in general equate to ear rape.Second take on the recommendation: play up until you complete the Arboretum, then just quit because it goes from a 8.5 or 9/10 to 6.5/10 pretty quickly. Challenge declines, shit gets repetitious, all the wasted potential becomes apparent. It's better than most garbage these days, but honestly though? Think I'd rather replay Dead Space over this. It's all about design and execution. Complexity doesn't mean much when it's intentionally neutered with poor execution and/or pandering design, the prime example of this being Bioshock or Skyrim. Dead Space may be simpler than both, but the game design is synergistic. The king is still Shock 2 though, and Arx Fatalis still the best Arkane game.Bear in mind this is an angry write up which I rage quit late in the game out of disappointment to post. And this is without going into all the little design intricacies that make the likes of Shock 2 plain superior. There's lots of things about PREY I'd love to praise too, but I'm not in a merciful mood. Overall it's more good than bad, and the recommendation to play probably still remains. The first 1/3 of the game in particular was great, but much doesn't hold up to scrutiny and Arkane wouldn't deny it without considering themselves disingenuous.Yet another game not living up to the legendary classics all things considered. What's it going to take?Many gameplay problems can and should be addressed with a patch, if they're very thorough. A lot of games have been doing that lately, patching in actual brain engagement. Better than nothing and an improvement over the last decade of utter disregard/disrespect for gameplay in general, I suppose.Story, music, non-threatening atmosphere etc is probably unsalvageable, but the gameplay probably is salvageable and is also probably worth attempting to salvage. Do it Arkane.
I'd forgotten that object markers would often disappear for seemingly no reason. This was most annoying when you were outside the space station, heading for a distant point, which was clearly marked, then you'd maneuver around something, and when you face the right way again, the marker either has disappeared, or the text has gone.
I completely agree about the enemies being unsatisfactory. You only encounter a few, and when you do it or they tends to be stood staring at a wall, or moving on a predefined sentry root, and easy to sneak up upon. And they don't act intelligently or even too aggressively.
And I'm not sure when I'll be replaying it
RPS: "We think it’s safe to say that more Prey is on the way"
on it's own game disc
What the what?
Hope it's better than DOTO. I found the main campaign much better. Not that the DLC didn't have a good story or anything. Nothing could top some of the levels of the main campaign that's all.Plus the motivation for killing guards wasn't there, since they worked for the queen who you potentially played as during the main story.
EuroGamer: "The return of Randy Smith and the state of the immersive sim"
RPS: "Prey Mooncrash DLC out now alongside free story, survival and new game+ modes"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySVBHI2OeAg
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