This is such a meme ...

The only memories I have from this game is me and my mates sitting in I don't know which course, computer science probably, and trying to beat each other's high scores. Probably the best thing to do if your Wifi's dead and you're not really into reading. Other than that I dunno. Maybe they should rerelease this game to add a PvE campaign and a skill tree and open world. Maybe then I'll revisit it.

10/10 for funny dino game hihi

I thought my opinion would be waaaay more controversial but no, it seems like this game is generally well received. Now in short: I, Love, This, Game.

Apparantly people call these kind of games "immersive simulations", which is a term I have never encountered before but sure, seems logical enough.

I have no idea about anything that went on in the story. Everything was just weird in a freaky and exiciting way, like how you have no idea what is going on in Dark Souls until you watch Vaatividya's explanations. But after reading a sumary the story seems actually pretty interresting.

But now the part of the game that makes it one of my personal favourites (and also the reason why I can't shut up about the game). I love the gameplay. I love it when games just have an internal logic that you can use to your advantage. I love it when games leave room for freedom and expression. And finally I love it when there are multiple ways of going about solving a puzzle/clearing a room full of enemies. Prey is the first game of this kind that I have played, where there are just so many possibilities and tools to interact with the environment.

So the gist of Prey is that you are some kind of guy or gal, you wake up, see a guy get eaten by his coffee mug, you wake up again, you smash a window make your way through the first part of the game and eventually end up in the lobby, where you notice, that you are on a space ship and you are trapped with these eldritch horror looking human eating aliens consisting of somekind of weird black shifting matter. From there on out you are mostly free to roam the facility. I still destinctly remember how my first instinct was to return and to use my gloo gun to build makeshift stairs. I reached an area that was dark and really scary and I definetly shit myself when there suddenly appeared a phantom right infront of me. The game didn't tell me to go to that place, but it gave me the tools and I figured it out by myself. And this sums up my experience with Prey quite nicely. Where ever I went I found puzzles in the form of locked rooms or safes. This was the game's way of challenging me to use my brain. And it felt so satisfying everytime when I got into a room through any other way that isn't the front door.

10/10 for the most liberating experience I have ever felt in gaming and also for scaring me to death multiple times in the first hours.

There is a lot to say about this one so buckle up.

Everybody has heard of Metroid and seen Samus. It's one of the most iconic main stay titles of Nintendo, or at least that is the perception I and many other people I know always had. But the more I asked around the more I realised that Metroid is a series that people tend to hear a lot about but at the same time never tried for themselves. I was one of those people and to finally discover what all that fuss over Metroid is about, I decided to go and try for myself. I started with the original, which is one of the only games I have ever abandoned. So my first impression went terribly. But I still decided to give the series another shot, skipped Metroid II and went straight over to this game. And oh boy oh boy I am so glad I did.

First up: for a game that released several years before I was even born I gotta say the game's graphics hold up surprisingly well, atleast on emulator. It has this sorta eerieness to it that I can hardly describe and fits well with Metroid's theme of science fiction coupled with horror. I dunno why but the graphics just did it for me. Espeically the first few hours feel very atmospheric, almost unlike anything I have ever seen before in a videogame. It has good controls and, comparing it to the original, a fucking crouch button (which was the least they could have done) and buttons for aiming directionally (which I didn't actively demand, but was still more than glad to take).

The gameplay is, well, what you expect from Metroid and what the series is known for. You run through levels, collect upgrades to access new areas, to then collect more upgrades, rinse and repeat. On top of that the game has also cranked the amount of secrets up to eleven. It's one of those games where you quickly learn to not trust walls. This makes exploration really rewarding, as you collect more ammunition or health upgrades, which strongly convey a sensible feeling of satisfaction that stems form the visible effect that collecting secrets has on your character. Especially considering that some of the bosses are really hard without extra energy canisters and missile containers. The main upgrades offer so much more freedom in the way you move through screens or make you so much stronger, that compairing Samus from the beginning of the game with Samus of the end of the game is a difference a clear as night and day and reflects how far you have come in your jorney through Zebes.

Lastly the level design. As a huge darksouls fan I love non linear level design. I back tracked every chance I got and I was never disappointed to find some new area I couldn't access previously with a hidden missile container in it. Some puzzles also required you to think outside of the box like that one puzzle in Maridia where you had to built up a super jump in one room and then bring it into the next room to be able to break certain blocks and get a missile container. I felt like my few years of Portal community maps experience have paid dividence. There were also several puzzles I outright cheesed by freezing enemies with the ice beam and then using those enemies as platforms to get to places I wasn't supposed to get to at that point in the game. A game that allows for that much freedom just has to be good.

Also, I softlocked myself by making the jump to kraids lair without the Hi Jump Boots, going into the next room, wasting my super missiles and then going back to find the super missile blocks to be back. I also couldn't make the jump a second time because the blocks were in the way and I couldn't build up enough speed to clear the distance a second time. Thank god there are cheats. But honestly the situation was, although really stressful, kinda fun and I look back on it fondly.

So to wrap up my ramble: There are emulators wink wink, there are Rom's wink wink, no need to sue me Nintendo wink wink. I highly recommend this classic, that made me find out, why there are so many Metroid stans out there. I'll be definately playing the other entries of the series. 10/10.