Prey

Well, that is one of the things Prey does really well, after all. Especially the intro.

You know, IMHO it would have done Prey well to have done the big reveal 3/4 of the way through the game rather than at the very end.

Because while one of the in game books briefly references the philosophical implications of an artificial being given the memories and personality of a person who is dead, it doesn't go nearly in-depth enough for something that is such a central part of the plot, in contrast to say Soma.

Wrong. The player is supposed to identify with Morgan Yu to the very end, and make their decisions as such. Any knowledge imparted would completely change their approach. The game is focusing on matters of personal motivation, and while it throws some badly written platitudes in there (such as January's hackneyed "fate is what you make of it" speech), it is mostly content to go all-out Dark Souls on the player, and let them make both informed and intuitional decisions, depending on what they know and what they care about. That's not to say it doesn't throw occasional spanners in their works - a hilarious example is the "Save Luther Glass" side quest, which really toys with players in various ways (The character you are supposed to save has been dead for the entirety of the game, and chances are you knew that already, so either way the quest would throw you for a loop). And again, lots of what the game does is a direct meta commentary on something done similarly - and usually quite badly - in the original Bio Shock. That's not to say Prey does it all better all the time, but usually it knows what it does, and does it well as a result.

edited 12th May '17 7:09:57 AM by TAPETRVE

January's platitudes is another reason I decided to go for Alex's ending., but that said I disagree that doing something like I suggested would necessarily be bad; it would just need to have gameplay to back it up rather than phoning it in like Bioshock did.

edited 12th May '17 7:10:29 AM by CaptainCapsase

Here's where motivation comes into play. I did what January asked, but for entirely different reasons. Not to save the planet, but to hurt Transtar. Again, very Dark Souls, I guess .

Whereas I didn't do what January said because while destroying Talos I will avert a potentially apocalyptic crisis in the short term, it would severely damage the long term prospects of human survival in the face of another wave of typhon arriving from deep space or some other alien threat. As far as the likelihood that the continued use of neuromod technology will exasperate existing social inequalities, that's something that pretty much all forms of transhumanism would have as a side effect. Widespread social unrest is likely in such a system however, and sooner or later Earth's elites will either have to make concessions or face outright revolution (didn't that actually happen in the backstory of System Shock 2?), if the normal trends of modern history hold true. My intent would be to release the whole truth about the station to the people back on Earth, and hope that forces some serious reevaluation of the freedoms companies like Transtar are given to pursue their agendas.

edited 12th May '17 9:16:31 AM by CaptainCapsase

So, I have fully upgraded the Shotgun's damage. Woe to any Phantom that gets up close, as I can drop him in one blast. Too bad I forgot to DVR how I killed a Weaver after jumping from Alex's office - I just chucked a Nullwave projector down, then jumped and slowed down the descent using Atrax boosters, fired up Combat Instinct and served the Weaver three point blank shotgun blasts. SPLAT.

Well, maxed Combat Instinct and shotgun is a Crazy Awesome combat style, actually. It works damn wonders on Technopaths in close quarters too.

After I saved Mika and Dr Igwe, a veritable shitload of Typhon popped up in the Main Lobby. Including two(!) Telepaths and a Weaver. It so happened that I had some spare parts and two functional turrets at hand after hunting the first Fire Phantom in the Infirmary. The first Telepath got shredded with me being reduced to the role of a rodeo clown. Then I tried to lure the rest into the kill zone, dragged the Weaver in, but the second Telepath got so fascinated with the Lure I just did the "Combat Instinct and point-blank shotgunning" trick.

It also decimates the Nightmare in 4 to 5 shots. The new patch fixed its stupidity though, so it is now a lot more alert and dangerous.

Are you SHITTING me?!

Sure. Nightmare can wipe you with a single projectile chain, cannot be stunned and shit, but when you're saying that it takes five shots to wipe him off the station if and when he decides to show up (I'm avoiding Typhon mods since I rely heavily on turrets and pretty much suck at hacking). Seriously. That's like 350 damage to dish out under optimal conditions. That and Nightmare is so huge it can't fit in small openings, which makes the entire job even easier.

One thing that kinda bugs me about the background stuff is why exactly TranStar feeds the Typhon human volunteers? Various documents attest to the fact that most other species of vertebrae and some cephalopods have a degree of psionic potential, and that mimics can reproduce from consuming non-human organisms. While you might get a lower throughput by feeding them chimpanzees rather than humans, you'd only have to screen out animal rights activists from your staff rather than anyone who isn't a borderline sociopath. It just strikes me as kind of Stupid Evil.

edited 13th May '17 8:40:24 AM by CaptainCapsase

Same reason why Xenomorph take on completely different forms based on what animal they are bred from, I'd say. In other words, Transtar don't want their customer to complain about weird cases of neuromod users starting to pick lice from each other's scalps.

edited 13th May '17 9:09:24 AM by TAPETRVE

Perhaps, but if they're farming them for exotic material, does it really matter what they're being fed?

Maybe they don't want to fuck with PETA.

PETA is big and it's in America. Human Rights watchdogs in Russia? HAHAHAHAAH who am I kidding. Now, imagine if Russia was even worse.

There you have it.

Also, I finished the game today and caught some shit for not saving everyone. But seriously, how do I get those two dweebs from the IT department supply closet in the Lobby? Well, that and I failed to notice one of the mind-controlled guys in the cafeteria before he explosively backdoored me.

And, most importantly, what's the use for the grounding resistor in the Psychotronics section? The one in the Reactor section (of which there's a shitload) is used to restore power to the vented section where you get Mika's medicine - the doors come online, allowing you to pick up two neuromods from behind the bulkhead and raid the office opposite Mika's.

While carrying a resistor you absorb more electric damage.

Huh. I managed to put the GLOO gun and EMP grenades to good use to avoid that, so the point is kinda moot, plus, the idiocy of this gameplay solution is really painful.

Just beat the game. Holy shit.

Arkane, you mad genius bastards!

Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

edited 13th May '17 11:17:34 PM by Gault

So far I consider this game Arkane's unsung masterpiece. On the one hand it lacks the polish of the Dishonored games (and probably the budget, too, which makes Bethesda's ridiculously elaborate marketing campaign all the more questionable), and suffers from some astonishingly bad writing in parts. On the other hand it's without a doubt their most organic and complex game yet, ironically by virtue of keeping things quite simple. None of the fun but contrived mazes from Dishonored, which often feel like maps from a multiplayer shooter repurposed for a different game.

As far as the writing goes, it's not nearly as wooden as dishonored typically was, which is a plus for me.

I'd argue that in some respects it is actually much worse than Dishonored. Most of the side characters, especially the ones only encountered as Transcribe recordings, are pretty awesome, with only a few exceptions. The main cast on the other hand is once again ranging from OK (Alex, Igwe) to absolutely terrible (Mikhaila, Elazar), at their worst written like unfinished placeholders. Also, bonus points to Igwe's facial animations for hitting the uncanny valley so hard it borders on a racist caricature.

I think my favourite character in the game is actually Luka. Clichéd as he may be, he has that BioShock-esque Narm Charm that is missing in most of the other flesh-and-blood characters you meet during the game, maybe aside from Igwe and Dahl.

edited 15th May '17 2:40:47 AM by TAPETRVE

Heh, Luka caught a stungun blast from me as soon as he opened the freezer and told me to get in.

Seriously, when you're impersonating a guy you most probably packed into a cardboard box in teeny little pieces, don't expect I'm gonna trust you.

And then I talked to Sho. Put Luka in the freezer, threw a Recycler after him, closed the door.

It's much more fun to follow his questline through to the end. His taunts are hilarious.

Only just started the game, am ignoring the big walls of spoiler this thread is apparently in, but while I've only just done the starting bit I'm enjoying it a lot. My favourite bit was just after you get your first Neuromod — or specifically, about how that went down in my playthrough. I decided I wanted to get up to the second floor but couldn't see an apparent way to do it. I'd put my first point in Hacking, but I didn't have Hacking II yet so I couldn't see right now what the security computer would do, I saw the liftable (well, not for me) heavy items that seemed to open some pathway into the men's loo^note Clearly where the scientists would keep their best loot, gotta remember to go back there later, etc., and lastly I saw a tipped over cabinet or some such. I walked up onto it, and for a moment I thought that was it, but it didn't take me up high enough.

I spent a bit wondering what to do and if I should just move on with the game, but then I remembered: the Cryolator. And then the game made me smile, because yes, turns I could do this. It's a small thing, but I do appreciate that things like this are possible. I don't know if there was actually any other way to get up there, but it was neat-o and now I have a stun gun.

edited 15th May '17 5:48:42 PM by Lavaeolus

So woohoo, managed to locate all talos personel 'cept those three guys hiding in lobby's security room's closet. I assume they get out later to die to plot or for another telepath segment. I did get achievement bit early though, same thing about email achievement. Seems like they are triggered before you actually have all of them.

BTW, completed Bellamy quest and downloaded Morgan's typhon research, but nothing popped up. I assume thats bug so what did I miss? :'D

BTW, asking for advance about endings so like since I have lots of typhon mods installed, will I be killed in wave device thing ending Alex wants you to go for? I've been wondering when the self sacrifice thing comes in. I mean "do you explode the shuttle or not" was clearly the "do you kill less people to save more or do nothing" from personality test so I assume pushing fat man is exploding talos so that leaves the "do you jump on track" thing left

Oh, also annoyed how I have scanned all Typhon... Expect the door affected by technopath. Apparently you need to scan it twice to complete it and I only have one scan :P Did I already miss my chance to get second scan or will I get chance to complete my scan research logs?(ye don't get much besides Morgan's comments if you complete scans)

Anyhoo, speaking of finding all of the crew, kinda sadly funny how some of the crew deaths could have been avoided if Emmanuel's "Escape Pods Are Fake" message hadn't gotten interrupted during upload. Poor guy died while being tangled in the wires, which had nothing to do with typhon. Anyway, you can actually finish uploading the message which turns the billboard into that message for rest of the game so thats cool :D

edited 16th May '17 1:32:11 AM by SpookyMask

Sooo, wait, do I get this right? MAJOR SPOILERS: So Morgan creates pretty much in each "cycle" an operator named after month they were created in to make sure they fulfill their wishes? Starting with October whose thing was ensuring wave thing is used if it comes down to that(Alex being on side of exploding the station) and who Alex considers real Morgan, December who was programmed to help Morgan escape the station and January who wants to ensure you blow up the station?

Also, in final confrontation If you listen the conversation, Alex shoots January, if you join the conversation, January stuns(I think, forgot to check before reloading) Alex First time I hear of that

Yes, Lava, that's what I did. Climbed the guard booth, splatted a wad of GLOO on the edge of the second floor, then climbed up (you should find the code for Volunteer Quarters either in the Neuromod Division or somewhere in the Lobby). I later did the exact same thing in Crew Quarters to get to the Rec Room mezzanine along the outer wall (above the level entrance).

Climbing to the second floor and opening Volunteer Quarters should get you to Manufacturing, although there's a Technopath there, so you'll encounter really heavy resistance. But, a piece of advice: your entry will be a ventilation shaft on the left wall. On the front wall, there's a door and two large windows through which the Technopath will attack. But, on the right wall there's a small window that will take you into a smaller room in Manufacturing, so if you manage to chuck the two turrets down there and set up a perimeter, you might have a fighting chance.

edited 17th May '17 9:42:28 AM by NotSoBadassLongcoat