Yet another game that has a native Linux port that runs worse than the Windows version through Wine. Had pretty bad screen-tearing in the Linux version that couldn't be fixed with VSync.
I was excited to revisit Prey because I did remember this game having a great intro, but for some reason I never made it far. Another reason for excitement was that it's a game based on a 3D Realms concept that had been abandoned in the late 90s and picked up again in the early 2000s. It's always interesting to see how old school paradigms adapt in modern times. For example, Doom 3 and Quake 4, which are both developed on the same engine, imo present a great marriage of the two.
To my surprise Prey does not play like an old school shooter at all. In terms of its gameplay it most resembles Half-Life. You spend most of the time solving mini-puzzles that help you unlock the path forward. The actual combat is very slow and methodical. You die very quick, so it is encouraged to hide and snipe enemies. Your main assault rifle is pretty weak, but has a sniping mode, which kinda sends the message. It is very easy to run out of ammo too, so you cannot play this like you would play Doom or Quake.
In addition to your weapons, you have a special power, which allows you to leave your body and attack enemies or overcome obstacles as a spirit self. You'd think there's a huge potential with something like this, but you can't really successfully utilize it in combat because your real body is standing right there (receiving damage), and you can rarely find a place where you can leave it unguarded. Also you don't really have a lot of ammo as a spirit, and just like your human form, you die quick.
The main sorta gimmick of this game is the gravity-defying sections, where you either run along walkways on ceilings and walls or shoot buttons to flip the room on its sides. These are pretty cool at first, but they rarely serve much of a purpose. And due to the combat in general being not very fun, they end up not really making much of a difference. For example, when you're traversing walkways, you can hardly allow yourself to run around and dodge attacks, because the walkways are thin, and you can't jump on them. And the enemies will often spawn like 30 meters away, so the best solution is usually to whip out your assault rifle and snipe them while standing in the same place. It's not very exciting. I did once kill a few enemies by flipping the room, but I feel like the devs designed that moment this way. There are also portals, which this game was meant to pioneer in the late 90s, but again they serve little purpose other than being cool-looking doors.
Not a huge fan of the weapons here either. From what I gathered in my 3 hours of gameplay, other than the weak assault-rifle, you get pretty standard grenades, a machine gun (with a grenade launcher as alt-fire), and this one gun that transforms into either a plasma rifle, a flamethrower-like freezer, or a rail gun. The problem with the transforming gun is that you can only have one of these "modes" at a time, meaning you can never properly adapt to different situations. I mean the rail gun mode works against everything, but you quickly run out of ammo. You end up using the weak assault rifle the most, and it's just not fun.
The story here starts off pretty cool, but then doesn't really progress much. And it's mostly just exposition. Just like in Half-Life you spend most of your time in silence, but every now then the game stops you and delivers a new chunk of exposition. Pretty boring tbh, which is a shame, because the premise is so fucking cool. Playing as a Native American, you have to fight against foreign invaders who come with superior technology. There's so much potential for a colonialism metaphor here, which (at least in the time I played) was not very utilized. There is a theme of rediscovering your roots, but it's not being explored beyond gameplay necessities.
I also find the game's aesthetics and tone to be a bit dissonant. Clearly, the game wants you to treat it seriously (which is evident by the amount of gruesome violence and lack of humor), but its depiction of aliens is more in line with soft sci-fi like Star Trek. In fact, again, they remind me of aliens in Half-Life, who always failed to elicit any emotion from me. They're just different-looking creatures, neither scary nor interesting. They could just as well be humans and animals. And this is really how the whole setting ends up feeling. It's pretty generic.
I think I could overlook a lot of this game's flaws, if I liked the core gameplay. But I've never been a huge fan of Half-Life, and this game feels exactly like Half-Life, except it's set on a spaceship and has some gravity-defying architecture. I'd even say there's nothing particularly wrong with this game, it's just not my cup of tea. I like Half-Life, but could never understand why people consider it one of the greatest games of all time. Even as a kid, I always found Half-Life to be a little boring, and that's exactly how I feel about Prey. Now I know why I could never make it far in this game.
I was excited to revisit Prey because I did remember this game having a great intro, but for some reason I never made it far. Another reason for excitement was that it's a game based on a 3D Realms concept that had been abandoned in the late 90s and picked up again in the early 2000s. It's always interesting to see how old school paradigms adapt in modern times. For example, Doom 3 and Quake 4, which are both developed on the same engine, imo present a great marriage of the two.
To my surprise Prey does not play like an old school shooter at all. In terms of its gameplay it most resembles Half-Life. You spend most of the time solving mini-puzzles that help you unlock the path forward. The actual combat is very slow and methodical. You die very quick, so it is encouraged to hide and snipe enemies. Your main assault rifle is pretty weak, but has a sniping mode, which kinda sends the message. It is very easy to run out of ammo too, so you cannot play this like you would play Doom or Quake.
In addition to your weapons, you have a special power, which allows you to leave your body and attack enemies or overcome obstacles as a spirit self. You'd think there's a huge potential with something like this, but you can't really successfully utilize it in combat because your real body is standing right there (receiving damage), and you can rarely find a place where you can leave it unguarded. Also you don't really have a lot of ammo as a spirit, and just like your human form, you die quick.
The main sorta gimmick of this game is the gravity-defying sections, where you either run along walkways on ceilings and walls or shoot buttons to flip the room on its sides. These are pretty cool at first, but they rarely serve much of a purpose. And due to the combat in general being not very fun, they end up not really making much of a difference. For example, when you're traversing walkways, you can hardly allow yourself to run around and dodge attacks, because the walkways are thin, and you can't jump on them. And the enemies will often spawn like 30 meters away, so the best solution is usually to whip out your assault rifle and snipe them while standing in the same place. It's not very exciting. I did once kill a few enemies by flipping the room, but I feel like the devs designed that moment this way. There are also portals, which this game was meant to pioneer in the late 90s, but again they serve little purpose other than being cool-looking doors.
Not a huge fan of the weapons here either. From what I gathered in my 3 hours of gameplay, other than the weak assault-rifle, you get pretty standard grenades, a machine gun (with a grenade launcher as alt-fire), and this one gun that transforms into either a plasma rifle, a flamethrower-like freezer, or a rail gun. The problem with the transforming gun is that you can only have one of these "modes" at a time, meaning you can never properly adapt to different situations. I mean the rail gun mode works against everything, but you quickly run out of ammo. You end up using the weak assault rifle the most, and it's just not fun.
The story here starts off pretty cool, but then doesn't really progress much. And it's mostly just exposition. Just like in Half-Life you spend most of your time in silence, but every now then the game stops you and delivers a new chunk of exposition. Pretty boring tbh, which is a shame, because the premise is so fucking cool. Playing as a Native American, you have to fight against foreign invaders who come with superior technology. There's so much potential for a colonialism metaphor here, which (at least in the time I played) was not very utilized. There is a theme of rediscovering your roots, but it's not being explored beyond gameplay necessities.
I also find the game's aesthetics and tone to be a bit dissonant. Clearly, the game wants you to treat it seriously (which is evident by the amount of gruesome violence and lack of humor), but its depiction of aliens is more in line with soft sci-fi like Star Trek. In fact, again, they remind me of aliens in Half-Life, who always failed to elicit any emotion from me. They're just different-looking creatures, neither scary nor interesting. They could just as well be humans and animals. And this is really how the whole setting ends up feeling. It's pretty generic.
I think I could overlook a lot of this game's flaws, if I liked the core gameplay. But I've never been a huge fan of Half-Life, and this game feels exactly like Half-Life, except it's set on a spaceship and has some gravity-defying architecture. I'd even say there's nothing particularly wrong with this game, it's just not my cup of tea. I like Half-Life, but could never understand why people consider it one of the greatest games of all time. Even as a kid, I always found Half-Life to be a little boring, and that's exactly how I feel about Prey. Now I know why I could never make it far in this game.