Prey

OK, so I got to the Water Treatment Plant.

I managed to defeat the Technopath there with nothing but a stun gun and a wrench.

Hooray for savescumming .

Holy fucking shit. I beat the game and it is a fucking masterpiece, 10/10, definitely game of the year for 2017, OMFG just wow. It may actually be my favorite game of all time.

My only real issue is the matter of the twist ending and the questions it raises; how much of the situation you found yourself in was real (as in happened to the real Morgan); was the situation portrayed on Talos I (and the people there) real, and did the real Morgan make the same decisions that Mimic Morgan did, or was it a complete fabrication? If it was real, then it seems like Morgan's choice at the end was All for Nothing since the Typhon seem to have infested Earth either way.

Oh, and also the matter of the Scare Chords playing at rather inappropriate times.

edited 10th May '17 8:06:54 PM by CaptainCapsase

Hey, can anyone tell me how to get into the Hardware section of the Neuromod division?

By the way, I'm glad it didn't turn out that using Typhon neuromods locked you into the bad ending. That was one of the things that really bugged me about Dishonored, using all of the cool toys ends up getting you the bad ending.

Also I really enjoy how interconnected the game world is.

edited 10th May '17 8:06:40 PM by CaptainCapsase

Could you go into a little more detail?

I mean, that's all well and good and I get people are somewhat unfairly calling it a "Bioshock rip-off."

But having enjoyed the three Bioshock games and being mildly interested in this after seeing what the enemies can do, it's starting to sound like there's some Fandom Rivalry here.

edited 10th May '17 9:27:01 PM by Soble

Nah, the game is being very obvious about it. It's not a mindless hate-parade at all, but it comments on BioShock quite a lot, especially in the early hours.

edited 11th May '17 6:03:06 AM by TAPETRVE

I never played the original System Shock or System Shock 2, though I absolutely love this game; it makes Human Revolution feel like a pale shadow in comparison. How does the level design compare? Did a game from way back in 1999 really have the same level of interconnectedness and sprawling level design (and the very organic way of traversing areas that your powers and arsenal enables) as one made in 2017, because the level design in this game is absolutely amazing.

The Fandom Rivalry comes from both games being spiritual sequels to the System Shock franchise.

edited 11th May '17 9:01:51 AM by CaptainCapsase

It's not so much fandom rivalry as it is developer rivalry.

As for System Shock, its level design was obviously more labyrinthine and abstract, but the general feeling was very similar.

Abstract in the sense that it didn't feel as much like a real location (presumably because technical limitations made that sort of thing difficult) or abstract in a different sense?

Edit, incidentally, is there any way to save Alex in the Destroy Talos ending? Because if not, that means that the original Morgan canonically decided to go with Alex's plan.

edited 11th May '17 12:52:31 PM by CaptainCapsase

There are two options to flee the Talos I, one being alone with Alex's escape pod, the other being with Dahl's shuttle together with all people who are still alive. I haven't tried the latter yet, so I cannot say if Alex joins you, or if he's just so pissed he decides to stay on the exploding station. I actually opted for staying with Alex and spend my final moments sitting in the pilot seat.

edited 11th May '17 1:03:32 PM by TAPETRVE

Yeah, I got the neutralize the Typhon ending because January's arguments for destroying the station when another viable option exists didn't really seem compelling to me.

My reason for destroying the station was basically "Fuck capitalism" .

I don't disagree with that sentiment, but I don't particularly appreciate Luddites either. The Typhon found their way to low Earth orbit without anyone anyone mucking about with psychic powers, so it's not like Earth would be safe; sooner or later one of the "bigger fish" January uses as an analogy will end up finding us even if we're metaphorically hiding under a rock.

You forget something: The post-credits evaluation is completely irrelevant to your first playthrough. From what the game teaches you, Transtar doesn't give a flying fuck about saving the planet, so there's no reason to let'em have the good shit. If it comes to another invasion, they will die screaming like everyone else.

I haven't played this game, but I'm spoiled for pretty much everything, by my own choice. I have a question: If the 'Morgan' you're playing as is actually a Typhon that just thinks it's Morgan, what happened to the real Morgan Yu?

It's never directly addressed, but from the way the game presents its conclusion, I'd presume that Morgan is supposed to be dead. Also, the Typhon isn't actually a physical copy of Morgan (unlike e.g. Spence Olham in Phil K. Dick's short novella Impostor), it is basically a tendril strapped down in a chair playing a VR game. Which, while a bit hamfisted, nicely fits in with Prey's whole meta angle.

edited 11th May '17 2:01:07 PM by TAPETRVE

It's not so much that the player character is a mimic so much as they're a typhon-human hybrid made with Morgan Yu's DNA and implanted with their memories reliving the incident on Talos I in order to test the extent to which the addition of mirror neurons have given them the capacity to feel empathy. It's kinda like you're a clone. Alex's last line kinda implies the original died, though the fact that he's alive in the first place also implies that the original Morgan opted not to destroy Talos I, unless it turns out Alex actually comes with you on the shuttle if you get that ending.

If you get the best possible ending, !Typhon Morgan's hand shifts into a human hand during the handshake, so they kinda are a physical copy of Morgan, or at least use them as a Shapeshifter Default Form.

edited 11th May '17 2:06:26 PM by CaptainCapsase

It's a shame that the game in its attempt at being subtle about everything does undermine its own cleverness quite a bit, especially when it clashes with the at times very humdrum character dialogue, and the moments where it, well, simply isn't clever. There's an underlying comment on modern neurology, and how the commonly propagated theory of the human brain working akin to digital hardware might have been a severe misconception (see the operators, which are limited to their internal logic even when realistically emulating a human persona, and ultimately fail to comprehend motivation), but I doubt most players are even going to notice, because it's not exactly a popular or even just commonly debated argument yet. The ending also could've been made so much more simple and satisfying if they actually just outright said something like "Morgan is dead, and we raised a phantom from their corpse and conditioned it." (which, ironically, would've been another nice jab at BioShock's "would you kindly" twist), instead of awkardly beating about the bush.

edited 11th May '17 3:07:48 PM by TAPETRVE

Well, this is how that would go. Phantom Morgan: ( Roar ) *Kills people*

edited 11th May '17 3:23:05 PM by Mizerous

My background is in molecular biology, not neuroscience, but I'm not sure it's particularly profound in its commentary about cognitive sciences beyond restating the basic argument over the computability of the human brain/whether the hard problem of consciousness is actually hard. While it is not the same type of computer as the one I'm typing this post on (being an analog system rather than a digital one), the human nervous system fulfills all the criteria that define a computational system.

edited 11th May '17 3:36:59 PM by CaptainCapsase

Profound, most certainly not. And how would it, considering how much it revels in completely unscientific Roger Corman-esque pulp sci-fi nonsense. Maybe they should've diverted more resources to that, instead of focusing so much on lecturing BioShock .

edited 11th May '17 3:55:34 PM by TAPETRVE

To be fair you can't lecture Bioshock enough. :P

Rule of Cool is cool with me.