Prey

So, Prey comes in May. Yay. I'm so tempted to make a first impressions video that just focuses on rhymes involving the syllable "ay/ey".

Okay, you were doing that on purpose XD

Hooray, it's the fifth of May. Let's play some Prey. Which is a new game made by Arkane, and its main claim to fame is that it shares its name with another game from way back in the heyday of the last console generation. Hooray.

Having watched Extra Credits about the importance of silhouette in enemy design, I'm curious about the choice to go for a formless black head crab and then formless black humanoid as the (So far seen) enemy types.

I get we're going for a Bioshock feel here too. I like how they can ambush you etc. But it's a lot of dark space and black enemies which seems to be overkill a bit.

That said, I am getting "Bureau" vibes from the enemies - early Bureau, I mean, before they Mass Effect TPS'd it. When the first enemies were the black goo.

Still, looks interesting and hopefully won't devolve too much into a twitch shooter. Still lamenting the demise of their original concept.

As I said before, I am pretty convinced that this game is a very deliberate middle finger to Irrational Games. The whole conceit of the game is basically "What if Bio Shock had indeed been the System Shock successor we were promised, rather than the dumbed down gimmick shooter we ultimately got? Oh, and let's also throw the oil aliens from the cancelled XCOM shooter in there, because fuck Ken Levine."

edited 26th Jan '17 10:25:51 AM by TAPETRVE

Is it just me, or is Morgan Yu, the game's protagonist, like the only east Asian main character I've ever seen in a Western game, ESPECIALLY in a shooter?

I mean, we do have Lo Wang from the Shadow Warrior games, but he's more of a parody.

I guess there's Faith from Mirrors Edge, but she's only vaguely half-Asian, with a white dad and an Asian-American mother that is only ever mentioned in the promotional comic tie-in that was released alongside the first game. Then there's of course Ajay from Far Cry 4, who's half- NepaleseKyrati, but he's hardly much of a character to speak of.

edited 26th Jan '17 3:59:50 PM by TAPETRVE

Ah, I forgot about Faith. And Ajay... yeah, you really need to do the side missions in order to get a better grip on his personality, because he's pretty much a mime in the earlier parts of the game and the main story for some reason.

So, here's the first hour, for anyone who doesn't mind the spoilers (and there are some pretty serious ones).

Yup, this is exactly what I was hoping for; a Bio Shock expy filtered through the lense of System Shock, coated in a huge meta blob of design influences and references, from Portal 2 to Mirrors Edge, and psychedelic/eso-trash scifi movies such as X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Mock-Up on Mu, and what have you.

edited 15th Feb '17 10:05:50 AM by TAPETRVE

I like it, I like it a lot!

Ok, I'm definitely buying this on day one, it looks worth it.

I saw most of the video and I have to say, I was kind of impressed. The game is kind of Bioshock meets System Shock meets Dishonored with a bit of Fallout as well. The gameplay is pretty cool. I have to wonder, though. Is this game going to have a twist halfway through the game like the Bioshock series and the System Shock games?

I stopped about halfway through to avoid any further spoilers, but I from what little I've seen I do have some theories. The big twist (at least for the first half of the game) is probably going to be that Morgan Yu was never human to begin with, and was some sort of Human-Typhon hybrid. I know they mentioned the implants would supposedly allow one to shapeshift and mimic the Typhon's powers, but that's quite a stretch just for a mere implant to perform, no?

Well, the game already starts out with several twists within the first twenty minutes - some of them being subversions of familiar tropes from similar games (especially Bio Shock), such as ye olde Voice with an Internet Connection actually turning out to be an algorithm of voice recordings left behind by the amnesiac protagonist him- or herself, and said amnesiac protagonist's identity being pretty quickly revealed to be not just some low-level employee, but apparently one of the space station's CEOs - and I strongly suspect that the whole obvious Theseus' Ship Paradox setup mentioned in the press releases is really just the beginning of something much more chaotic.

The whole thing really feels like a deconstruction of Bio Shock so far, like it was made by someone who loved Irrational's game for its setting, but also hated it for its bullshit, and for being so removed from System Shock.

edited 16th Feb '17 6:19:26 PM by TAPETRVE

What was wrong with the Bioshock series? Sure, they might have their flaws but all three all excellent games. Also, is it really that bad to not follow what your predecessor did?

edited 16th Feb '17 6:28:19 PM by pointless233

He's probably talking about the alternate timelines and time travel shenanigans from Bioshock Infinite. Nobody expected the game to take that direction, and a bunch of players whined about it all over the internet after the game was released - hell, that's how I was spoiled about it.

I personally wanted Infinite to focus more on Elizabeth, not the time-bending/Reality Warper shenanigans. It wasn't a bad game it's just that the story got a bit jarring at times. I also personally despised Infinite's boss battles. They were really bad to put it simply.

This game looks really really interesting though

edited 17th Feb '17 2:15:43 AM by Wispy

No, I'm talking about the original Bio Shock, when it came out 10 years ago. While it was met with critical and financial success, it was nonetheless a disappointment for many who had expected a true spiritual successor to System Shock, rather than linear, narrative-driven gimmick shooter. While the story was mostly well-received, people were also angry at Irrational waving the entire overly contrived plasmid economy off as "it makes cool things happen, that's all you need to know". The whole "Bio" part of Bio Shock had been reduced to window dressing. Prey in that regard almost feels like a lost prequel to the first Bio Shock - think about it: If it was set in Rapture, you'd be basically playing as one of the first Splicers during the experimental phase.

So Prey seems to quite ostentatiously address a lot Bio Shock's Gameplay and Story Segregation issues, and also smaller niggles that are very common tropes in games, such as the aforementioned Voice with an Internet Connection, which aren't being "fixed" as much as subverted in more or less original ways. Hell, Bio Shock's underlying "illusion of freedom" theme is being addressed in the very first minutes of the game. Prey pretty much takes the big fucking twist of Bio Shock and turns it into a minor introductory plot point. Well, not all that minor, it's actually a massive Wham Line for the player who experiences it the first time. But beyond that, it's just a deeper dive into the exposition. Like the player discovering Old Aperture in Portal 2.

Intentional or not, the helicopter platform part in the beginning is pretty damn clever. In several of the preview videos I've seen, players tried to jump off the building. Invisible walls, natch. What's usually a design flaw in most games is simply an intentional part of the setting here, as you're very quick to learn.

edited 17th Feb '17 3:41:07 AM by TAPETRVE

This is Chris Avellone after all. He loves to point out any flaws/nitpicks that he has with a story, and rip them to shreds. Just look at KOTOR II and the FO:NV DLC.

A very good point. Though it goes beyond storytelling; Prey mocks the genre's mechanical flaws as much as the narrative ones.

As po-faced as it presents itself, I'd also like to think that it is at the same time very, very self-aware. I mean, look at the Talos-1. It's literally a fucking Skyscraper floating in space. If that isn't a very tongue-in-cheek response to Bio Shock's underwater skyline, then I don't know.

edited 17th Feb '17 4:56:23 AM by TAPETRVE

So, how long is the game supposed to be?

Around 16 to 20 hours per playthrough, according to the blurb.

Fairly solid length, it seems.

The opening credits track is now avaliable for your daily listening.

I love how pointedly unfitting that track is. Like, the whole opening credits run is so bloody hammy and hokey that you'd be forgiven to write the game off, until you learn that it's very much on purpose.