Prey (18)
Format: 360 (version played), PC.
Sick bag required.
Opening with the central protagonist Tommy cursing himself in a dirty mirror, Prey shows that it’s trying to do things differently to the average First Person Shooter by immediately giving the character soul and history - he’s a disillusioned Native American Indian who’s desperate to leave his home and culture behind him.
Hanging out in a dirty bar at the start gives you the chance to familiarise yourself with the controls, meet the other central characters (his traditionalist girlfriend and grandfather), play a Pacman clone and club people to death with a wrench before everything goes a bit Independence Day.
After being freed by some sabotage on the giant spaceship you find yourself kidnapped by it’s up to you to save your family, saving Earth can wait. The ship itself is an amalgamation of Doom 3 rendered cliches - dark metallic corridors and squishy fleshy bits. Admittedly the squishy fleshy bits are taken to a whole new level that Freud would have a field day with and the size of the ship is brought home when you see a freshly abducted Airliner about to crash on the inside of it.
With obvious nods to Half Life and Doom, Prey’s main twist on the FPS is the introduction of gravity flipping rooms, sticky walkways and portals - holes that can appear and lead you to entirely different locations. Although nothing more than glorified doors the portals are a visual treat whereas the gravity flipping adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay and potential for some unique puzzles while spicing up the frequently laggy multiplayer with Lionel Richie style shooting on the ceiling.
With all the room flipping and Descent inspired 360 degree flying it’s certainly a game that requires great spatial awareness or, like Tommy, will have you reaching for the sick bag. If the designers wanted to communicate the feeling of having your notions of up and down turned inside-out then they’ve done so quite well.
In contrast to all the slimey, metallic, bio-mechanical Sci-Fi there’s also plenty of Indian spiritualist hokum which imbues you with special powers like the out-of-body Spirit Walking for further puzzle potential. Things also take a disturbingly ghostly twist aboard the ship showing that all is not as it seems. Just pray Derek Acorah hasn’t been abducted too.
The ever important gunplay is satisfying, if slightly clunky and there are some interesting looking weapons - seemingly alive the alien guns pulse, ripple and sweat in your hands. It’s a shame that they just boil down to the same old Sci-fi FPS stuff.
Like the fleshy walls the game oozes potential but that promise of innovation never seems to be fully met, delivering a solid but fairly standard, linear shootathon with some overly corny plotting and dialogue with a central character who seems more like a grumpy teen than the unwitting saviour of Earth.
8/10