Prey

Prey presents: The theme that plays in the alarm clock

edited 31st Mar '17 2:25:02 PM by UltraWanker

edited 31st Mar '17 2:30:27 PM by TAPETRVE

Jesus fuck, the facial animations are so bad they make the unpatched Mass Effect: Andromeda look beautiful . Not exactly sold on the NPC writing, either. Gladly those things aren't why I want this game.

There's a guy in a container who sounds a LOT like Javik from ME 3 there.

Overall looks.... interesting (Very Bioshock) but the enemies are pretty bullet spongey.

What the heck were those survivors thinking trying to fight against even ONE of those things if they can body-jack their victims so quickly?! They all died in seconds, and the turrets did virtually nothing against the creatures.

The BioShock meta references are relentless. Apparently the Mimics don't actually take on the material shape of other objects, but switch places with a copy of said object from a parallel dimension.

edited 16th Apr '17 1:54:30 PM by TAPETRVE

Again, I can't help but feel that Chris Avellone is using this game to vent his frustrations about something...

I'm pretty convinced that he is. And it's not just him; there are plenty of design elements that harken back to BioShock's early concept stages. Before the final, highly simplified ADAM economy was in place, Bio Shock actually had human-cum-marine-creature mutants, bit like Davy Jones' crew from Pirates of the Caribbean, just creepier. One of those creatures was called the eel man, and it was really just that, a wriggling mass of eels that form a humanoid body, sort of like the leech zombies from Resident Evil 0. And the phantoms in Prey are highly reminiscent of said eel man. Hell, there's even a named one that carries a can of jellied eels in its inventory, for fuck's sake. I think at this point it's pretty safe to say that Prey is really a BioShock reboot with the serial number filed off. Which is very ironic, considering that the tagline of said trope is a quote from Yahtzee saying that BioShock was exactly like System Shock 2, which in hindsight is a massive fuckload of bullshit.

edited 17th Apr '17 5:20:02 AM by TAPETRVE

Anyone here played the demo that's been out on consoles for the past few days?

I need to get on that. From what I'm hearing, it's essentially Bioshock IN SPACE!

That alone should help it fly off the shelves on release, but the Facebook and Youtube comments are... worrying. Some folks apparently don't want to touch it since they think it looks boring, and are also complaining about the graphics. I guess it's kinda true that the faces are awful-looking, but... boring? When they haven't even touched it?

God dammit, I keep telling myself to avoid the comments section of Facebook since I know it's becoming nothing more than a hive of hate and idiocy, but Christ...

Here's the thing; structurally, this game is a lot more like System Shock than Bio Shock. Which means there's a fuckton of wandering about, and very little in terms of orchestrated action setpieces like BioShock had. If you look at the demos for both BS and Prey, you'll notice that both can be easily played through in about half an hour or less. The difference is that the BS demo - like the entire game - is a very linear affair, and you'll have seen pretty much everything it has to offer once you reach the ending. The Prey demo on the other hand is a massive sandbox that gives you up to 4 fucking hours worth of content to explore, with many locked off parts available through sequence breaking (e.g. by using a toy crossbow to bounce foam darts around corners and press out of reach buttons, Portal-style). Prey has good chances to be the game System Shock fans were expecting but did not get with BioShock. People who grew up with the latter on the other hand will probably feel bored by it not being Call of Duty enough. Of course there's also the fact that Prey isn't exactly original, but also not generic enough. When people complain about it looking "uninspired", including the art direction, what they actually mean is "overly familiar", because there are only a few games that look like this, and they are very well known, so it's easy to dismiss Prey as a wannabe knockoff. What is lost on them is that Prey seems precisely designed to ape its inspirations, because it wants to make a statement.

edited 1st May '17 10:27:29 AM by TAPETRVE

From what I heard the only problem with it is that the mimics will not try to hide for some reason or another in the demo so the Paranoia Fuel isn't in play in the demo so that's why people view it as boring.

It could very well be Bioshock fans complaining about it not being Bioshock enough for all I know though. Something worth pointing out about the animation style. That animation style is more in line with Dishonored, it's exaggerated and grotesque generally to highlight something, which isn't a bad thing nor unexpected as these are the devs that made Dishonored.

edited 1st May '17 4:27:27 PM by Wispy

Most of the mimics you meet in the demo are scripted encounters. I presume the final game will then add random enemies into the mix.

Game will actually be out in 5 but launch trailer has dropped. As for the trailer itself: typical trailer stuff, doesn't do the best job of highlighting the thriller aspects the developer talked about.

A couple of tropers have pointed out that the developer has a history of making shoddy PC ports with lots of bugs at the initial launch (most recently Dishonored 2). Granted, if I make the purchase it's going to be the PS 4 version since my desktop probably can't run it, making prior point mostly moot, so...

It's a bit hard to decide in the sense that Dark Messiah and Dishonored 2 are the only games that had this apply (and D2 wasn't even that buggy, it was just a bad port launch with lackluster optimization), so it's a 50/50.

edited 4th May '17 2:07:35 AM by UltraWanker

Dark Messiah wasn't even a port, it was a PC-only game.

By the by, here's another thing re: my theory of this game being a very intentional deconstruction of BioShock: The wrench you pick up as your starting weapon is called "Hephaestus Twist & Loop". Hephaestus is the area in BioShock where you kill Andrew Ryan. Yup, that's right, this bloody wrench is literally referencing BioShock's plot twist - and then you use it to trigger the plot twist in your game of Prey. How fucking amazing is that. Oh, and it's also a joke on how you use this wrench like a hammer. Because Hephaestus is a blacksmith, get it. Damn you, Arkane.

edited 4th May '17 3:14:12 AM by TAPETRVE

Very torn on this game - I liked Bioshock a bit but bounced off two. Think it was the linearity and the fact I already KNEW a lot of the story. Again, System Shock 2 I felt a bit "lost" I suppose.

I want to get this and enjoy it but just not.... sure.

This game is the exact opposite of Bio Shock. It's a fucking satire of it.

edited 4th May '17 3:41:35 AM by TAPETRVE

Heh - basically "You guys had it ALL and you burnt it all down!" - Bioshock felt so different from all those promo articles - I remember the whole eco-system it was promising, the underground bunker. Good game but... yeah it went a bit away from what it's original vision was.

I mean it looks pretty cool - getting an interesting Dead Space vibe as well with the jump scares and watching survivors get picked off.

Overall it looks damn good and has the depth to carry things. And enough nods to know its heritage.

I don't think Pey is gonna change your mind about the System Shock formula, since that's what it follows mehanically. But if you enjoy these kind of games it's a pretty good deal, at least based off the demo. The ultimate question is how the endgame will play out. Basically, System Shock 2 suffered from a bad case of backtraking towards the end; again, this could be partially attributed to those worm enemies with bad hitboxes that were extremely annoying.

edited 4th May '17 3:57:17 AM by UltraWanker

I think I bounced off SS 2 recently due to the graphics and fiddliness of things. I enjoyed the concept and how it played but like the Thief games I think I sometimes feel a bit grumpy about gameplay and graphics not "ageing" as well. They're serviceable but the decay system felt a bit too punishing. Maybe try it again modded.

I think i'll deffo give it a go.

Prey takes the open structure and minimalistic approach to weapon variety from System Shock (other than the wrench and a stun gun there are only two traditional firearms, one futuristic raygun, and one single(!) "gimmick weapon" in the game, as opposed to BioShock's somewhat gimmicky, awkward to use Doomguy arsenal), and puts it against the quality of life improvements from BioShock, Arkane's own Dishonored, et cetera. One of Prey's ballsiest moves has to be the roster system, which allows you to track every single NPC present in the game, any time you operate a security terminal. Even NPCs you haven't met or even heard of yet. Instead of rushing you from pillar to post and merely putting the busiwork of finding them on you as the player, the game simply gives you a massive bounty list of names, and leaves it up to you to find out who they are to begin with.

edited 4th May '17 5:57:21 AM by TAPETRVE

Your comments about Bioshock are reminding me of this article a little even though you aren't talking about same thing

Basically this part “It is revealed to the player that he is actually Andrew Ryan’s illegitimate son. Ryan had sexual intercourse with a young female stripper resulting in her pregnancy. Later, a smuggler purchased the embryo. Then a scientist accelerated the player character’s growth, making him vulnerable to several mental techniques…” and how baffling it is that this is example of what is considered to be best writing in video games