Prey

Well there's a trophy for that, so doubtless the developers knew that would happen. I ended up doing it on purpose.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to play through the original 2006 Prey. I gotta say, despite how awesome Prey 2017 is, complete with imo much deeper and involved gameplay, the old one just has a much more unique setting and weapons, not to mention a much more tragic and disturbing storyline. Makes me sad that Prey 2 never came to fruition, as the original is truly underrated. h well, at least we have this awesome game in its place.

Though, it would have been nice to have had After Midnight Project compose another Award-Bait Song for Prey 2017 like they did for the 2006 game:

Heck, while not a perfect match, Take Me Home does, funnily enough, fit to several of the characters in Prey 2017.

I thought I was clever, trying to block off the one flaming Phantom in the Trauma Center with some well-placed Gloo blockades.

I didn't see him do it, but he either broke through the blockade or the structures disintegrate over time. Which is weird because they seem to last for quite awhile in the lobby, and the ones I placed after the ones that vanished were still there. Perhaps I placed too many?

EDIT: Nevermind, just watched him walk through it.

So Kennedy lived and got through a second term.

edited 22nd Sep '17 12:18:27 PM by Soble

You're better off GLOO-ing him directly and then you know, shooting him in the face (which always reminds me of RLM when i give it as advice).

Early game can be pretty difficult, which is why i always grabbed the Shotgun ASAP, which is pretty early.

The shotgun's a lifesaver, that's for sure.

For the Trauma Center, I think I just snuck by the two phantoms. By the end of it all, I think Morgan's knees were probably wrecked to hell for all the pointless crouching I did.

edited 22nd Sep '17 1:29:43 PM by Lavaeolus

It's probably better to leave the Trauma Center alone for now, because the thermal phantom has large HP pool, hits like a truck, and can't be attacked with the wrench since you'll be burned up-close. Try coming back when you have a recycler charge or a couple of nullwave grenades.

Its one of those things where the game's difficult is kinda dependent on what you do first. So if you try to wrench the walking matchbook to death you might have problems, but if you've already found the shotgun, upgraded its damage (I'm pretty sure there's an upgrade kit near the shotgun itself) you shouldn't have too much of a problem.

I think you can just chuck an O2 canister at it as well, but I could be wrong.

One of the (many) problems my non-human upgrade run has encountered is the fact that, due to not having Repair you can't get the Q Beam until much later in the game. And the fact that your weapons are at the bare minimum upgrade tier.

Yeah, there's a reason I'm never gonna bother trying to complete Prey without a single neuromod back. You're gonna be running away from almost everything. Let alone the platinum achievement...

Well, you could always try it on Easy.

I figure that would be doable, if not even really easy.

Crap, I'm gonna have to do that after I do it this way, aren't I?

I left the flaming Phantom alone because bump that, raided as much stuff from the area as I could and left Trevor Young alone.

I've found like 10 shotgun shells and no shotgun yet. Found a silenced pistol though. There was a Phantom Yuri-something in the Sales Division who backhanded me into the ceiling and killed me like 3 times. So, I took the Toy Boltcaster and booked it. Somewhere between 3-5 Phantom-related deaths I ran across those weird hanging chandeliers in the lobby and fell to my death due to carelessness.

Also, I turned off tutorials and... realized that there wasn't an automatic "stick yourself with random drugs" scene. I've got 6 Neuromods now and I'm getting the impression I could be using some of them but... this "no-mod" run idea is intriguing. Plus, the turret in Yu's office keeps saying "no typhon material detected" and I kind of feel like the mods might ruin that.

I tried luring the Phantom in that guest shop/gift shop area into my turret. Gloo'd him and everything. Few seconds later my turret was on fire. I'm pretty much just dining and dashing from Phantom-infested areas from this point.

There are too many locked doors on this space station and I am not doing the security computer stuff.

The mimics were a clever, terrifying enemy at first, but after the first few spooks I've grown used to them. I had one moment where I backtracked and saw a second garbage can lying where it shouldn't have been. Wrenched the thing to death. Then I saw an apple rolling down the floor and stared at it for a good minute until I was sure I wasn't about to stumble over some hostile, alien horror. But afterward, after finding the map and figuring out I could target enemies to keep track of them, the tension's become manageable.

Or at least it was until I ran into that one Phantom in the Sales Division, which followed me all the way to the entrance of the Hardware Labs and proceeded to uppercut me into the ceiling. I didn't expect that. That kind of wrecked with my sense of security.

Went into the Hardware Labs and found those floating flamethrowers, took a minute to sneak around them before resorting to bashing their parts in with the handy ol wrench. And as I proceeded I'm pretty sure I saw a surviving crewman stall a Phantom, use his Gloo gun to make a wall platform and run away, and then moments later that same guy showed up again as a Phantom.

edited 23rd Sep '17 10:42:36 PM by Soble

Yeah that guy is there mostly as in-game demonstration of using the GLOO gun as a ladder.

And the shotgun is apparently in two places in the Lobby, but i only ever found it in one of those places.

True to the game's sequence breaking nature, there's an in-game direction on where to look for weapons that i only ever heard after i had been to that place.

For what it's worth, the human neuromods are fine to use as far as the turret's concerned. Hacking, etc., won't turn them against you. Later on you can use your neuromods to turn into teacups and shit, though, which'll get you ticked as "not human" by the turret pretty quickly.

edited 23rd Sep '17 8:51:38 AM by Lavaeolus

You can use a few Typhon neuromods and not worry about the turrets.

Plus, turrets really aren't a threat that much themselves.

But "no-mods" should really not be your first playthrough. Not only does it make it harder, but it does ruin some of the fun. If nothing else, increasing the damage you do with weapons is good, along with increasing your inventory space (that's like my number one complaint about no neuro-mods) and a few other basics.

Thirding what the others are saying about Neuromods: you're fine as long as you install the ones related to "Human" abilities, it's the Typhon stuff that'll cause issues and you won't be able to get those until you reach Psychotronics.

Oh, and about the "limit" of how many Typhon Neuromods you can install... it's three. I'm not gonna bother spoilering that, since I want you to have fun with some of the cooler abilities, such as mindjack or matter transformation. Go any further than that, and you'll incur the wrath of the auto-turrets, and people will start commenting about how you're "changing".

edited 23rd Sep '17 11:33:35 AM by SgtRicko

And now for some beautiful pics of the game: Linky!

(Seriously, I can run Prey at near-max settings with minimal lag, and it still doesn't look that good)

Was the one posting those using that one mod?

No idea. You might be right though, since the shadows are exceptionally detailed and cast even upon simple objects like chairs, vases, or slight wall corners. Plus, it's darker than the base game, that's for sure.

Alright, playing with no mods was definitely the wrong idea. I've cleared the Talos I Lobby, found the security room, found the shotty, and I'm headed back into the Hardware Labs, the Ballistics Lab in particular.

The attention to detail in this game is astounding - I see my character actually has legs, a realistic shadow that even changes direction when Yu steps to the side, I can see the Hardware Labs section of the space station through one of the windows near Gabe's office, every crew member seems to be accounted for on the security log, and every nuance or facet of Yu's knowledge/abilities - engineering, neuromods, weapons, cooking - it's all laid out for you through the various books and help guides lying around in-game. Leaving a canister in a doorway causes the door to bounce back on a loop.

The Phantoms, while tough, don't feel blatantly unfair (or maybe that's just because I blew up the three in the Lobby with explosive canisters. Man, I was playing this game the wrong way, trying to be all stealthy and jazz. Astounding. I haven't even run into a glitch yet.

Except for maybe this - the one security station you find with the turret hidden next to it? Yeah, a Mimic got stuck in there with the door locked. Now I know I got in there earlier because I saw the 21 utilities on the computer screen. And I locked the door because I'm a paranoid git, and letting a Mimic slip into an unlocked room is exactly the situation I wanted to avoid. However now it seems I actually can't re-enter that spot. It's the same one I need to access the security terminal I can use to find Calvino - I went back to the lobby and used the one in the Trauma Center instead - but I've yet to figure out how or why I can't simply reopen the door.

I'm a bit amused that the shotgun has a holographic ammo counter.

edited 24th Sep '17 8:31:49 PM by Soble

Are you sure there isn't a way through the access panels or ceilings? Or failing that since it's a security room, is there a small slit in the window facing the security touchscreen terminal? You might be able to use the crossbow to unlock the door if your aim is good.

FINALLY beat the game after all this time!

Aside from the big twist at the very end of the credits, which I'm sure most of you at this point are aware of, the ending cinematic itself was so short and disappointing - not even a minute long, and it doesn't even give any feeling of closure, or much explanation either - just the destruction or purging or Talos I, a small shuttle escaping or not, and Alex or Morgan's brief related quotes. At least the Apex Typhon was cool as heck.

Had a problem obtaining the full library of research scans. Apparently, I missed the few opportunities available to scan the Typhon-corrupted doors. Quite annoying, because I only found a single door like that in the entire game, and two scans are required to complete the profile. And from the looks of the web, looks like I wasn't the only one annoyed by this issue either.

I think its the flaw of giving the game multiple endings is that they all feel short and perfunctory. Which is fine by me though, because the choices you can make are far more engaging.

The possibly contaminated shuttle, the people locked in a faulty escape pod, how you deal with Dahl (who is a borderline Space Flea as far as I'm concerned-though so does the massive Typhon), and of course whether or not you choose to play as a Squishy Wizard or a Badass Normal with a nigh-instant death shotgun.

Overall this was a game I felt more or less disappointed in, but only because I partly believed the hype about the story. As far as actual gameplay went, I found it very enjoyable and with high replay value.

You don't play Arkane's games for the plot, that's for sure. It's a bit of a consequence to being an Immersive Sim, it can result in solid world-building and interractions but with rather simplistic plots. And don't get me started on how stupid the System Shock 2 ending was.

Dark Messiah still has a soft spot for me because of how B-Movie level the story was.

edited 5th Oct '17 5:30:41 PM by UltraWanker

Thirding the idea that Arkane did an amazing job fleshing out Talos I and the world of Prey. I can't think of any other game out there where the developer went as far to name and characterize EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE on a space station with more than 200 people! Oh, and how they realized how ubiquitous toilets, break rooms, and personal spaces full of post-its and snacks are in real life. Only other game which got that right were the last two Fallouts.

Still, I think the story is better than most. It's quite telling that, aside from Dahl and that Ukrainian serial-killer volunteer (poorly) disguised as the chef, there's not a single character who could reliably be pinned into being an "evil" archetype. Everyone has plausible motives, sympathetic reasons, and their own flaws, all the way from the two Yu siblings to Dayo Igwe. Heck even the Typhon themselves are hard to classify as being evil: both Alex and January point out they're simply animals obeying the instinct to feed and reproduce.

edited 5th Oct '17 6:15:56 PM by SgtRicko

Dahl's not even that 'evil' though. He's a bit of a jerk, but ultimately he's just a guy doing a job. He was given orders, he was paid, and he did what he was told.

He even questions William's decision to kill his own children. I just dislike how he feels shoehorned into the game-some Foreshadowing would not have gone awry.

Luka, on the other hand, yeah is pretty much scum.

ION, I'm so close to finishing my Typhon-upgrade only playthrough. How I loathe it.