Game Review: In ‘Prey’ Nothing is What it Seems

When it comes to entertainment, titles are important. A good title is a signal to the audience, reassuring them that this is something they need to buy into. Something they need to be a part of. When you hear titles like Escape From New York, A Nightmare on Elm Street or The Toxic Avenger you instantly know that this is your jam.

But sometimes titles can be misleading. Many franchise remakes and reboots use the name to lure people in with scant respect to the original material. Just recently Alien: Covenant teased a return to the 1979 space horror film roots, yet in practice it was actually just Prometheus 2.

My personal history with Prey goes back 20 years, when Duke Nukem developers 3D Realms shared screenshots of their upcoming first person shooter starring a native American protagonist. Being massive Duke fans, my friends and I couldn’t wait. But wait we would. Oh, how we would wait. Many of us would be old, bald and toothless before we got hold of that sweet, sweet Prey.

After many failed attempts Prey was finally released in 2006, shocking the world by… actually being pretty damn awesome! With gravity-defying gameplay, mind-bending portals before Portal was a thing and unique alien creatures, Prey 2006 was one of my favorite games of that decade.

Which brings us to the reboot: Prey 2017 (like Doom 2016, having to write the year afterwards is bullshit. IT’S DOOM 4, YO!). Reboot is being generous, seeing as the only similarity between the 2006 version is that both games have a wrench as a weapon.

Gone is the forth-wall-breaking native American protagonist Tommy, a hugely likable character who gave Prey 2006 it’s heart. Instead, you are a scientist of Chinese descent (and either gender) who has just joined their brother Alex Yu to work on a top secret project. Sounds fun and not doomed at all, but surprisingly it does fail and shit goes sideways fast. Before you can say “come get some” you are contently shooting aliens in the face with a shotgun.

Your enemies are the TYPHON, shape-shifting shadowy aliens. Being studied on the space station TALOS-1, the Typhons breach the containment kill most of the crew. As fortune would have it researching the aliens has led your team to develop Neuromods, which give the player special powers like lightning, telekinesis and pyromancy – sort of like the Plasmids in Bioshock. Okay, exactly like the Plasmids in Bioshock.

A key gameplay mechanic in Prey is collecting random objects and putting them in a fabricator machine, crafting them into something different and useful. Which is fitting, since it feels like someone stuck Bioshock, Half-Life, Dishonored, Doom and System Shock 2 in a machine and this game was ejected (interestingly, the one game they left out of that machine is Prey 2006).

One of the most fun powers is the ability to shapeshift into any object. While playing as a sentient roll of toilet paper trying to get under a small gap, I had to step back and ask myself some hard life questions.

Weapons-wise, the usual pistol, energy-weapon and shotgun all report for duty. Unusually it features a NERF dart-bow, which you can use to activate touch screens from afar and presumably irritate your foes into reporting you to HR.

The Gloo Cannon is the most inventive weapon, letting you spray quick-hardening foam on your enemies to slow them down and even build walls and bridges.

Your character can clamor and climb with ease. Like Doom and Dying Light, your character is dexterous and effortless to control. This freedom of movement is one of my favorite recent FPS trends.

Made by Arkane (Bioshock 2, Dishonored) and published by Bethesda Softworks (everything awesome) there is no way Prey was ever going to be a bad game. The combat is challenging yet rewarding, the art deco sci-fi paperback inspired setting is beautiful and rich, even if the graphics are a little flat in the texture department. The space station Talos-1 is expansive and full of depth. This is a game you don’t want to put down for fear of having to relearn the geography of the massive world.

The enemies, while all falling into the fairly repetitive category of black-gooey-shadow-blobs, offer a challenging fragfest involving strategy and cunning. The most innovative baddies are the mimics, spidery creatures who can shapeshift into any object. And by ‘any object’ I mean the little bastards mostly like to pose as medkits, meaning when you are low on health that sweet oasis of healing is often sticky black death in disguise.

Ammo is scarce and on a medium difficulty I often found myself fleeing down corridors with no bullets only to be ambushed by HUGE creature, then another few creatures, then another wave.

Stealth is limited although there were upgrades available on the tree I found badass electric powers or the ability to turn into a mug more appealing than tip-toeing past.

Composer Mick Gordon strikes gold again after last year’s brutal-as-hell Doom 2016 soundtrack. This time Mick goes synthwave, resulting in a gloriously groovy score which sets the mood for the game’s pulpy retro style. Gordon’s work is so damn good, any game title with his name on it is instantly worth owning. My only issue is that the music isn’t used enough, usually resorting to a spattering of horror stabs.

Prey is a great shooter and although I enjoyed my time on Talos 1, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated at its missed opportunities.

Maybe I shouldn’t get caught up on the title. After all, if Doom was called Sugar Rainbow Funtime it would still kick all of the ass, right?

But I do feel like the makers had the chance to create a brand new franchise, instead deciding to coast on an existing game without even referencing its predecessor and instead choosing to pay homage to System Shock. In a game about a character trying to find their identity, Prey often feels like it a game which needs to find its own.