Prey for Windows

So, I read the last guy's review. He/ she is pretty spot on with it, so I'll just supply my views and issues with this game. I'm not gonna get technical because this is on PC, and it a lot depends on what you you're working with. So here goes:

Story:
You play Tommy, a stereotypical Native American. He's maybe the most unlikable character I've ever played as. I mean, if the guy I'm playing as can't even be excited about playing the game, what's to make me want to? He whines and complains the ENTIRE GAME, so get used to it. When we begin, he's in a bar, listening to 1970's cockrock, and playing video poker. That's what all Native Americans do right...? I wouldn't go as far as to say it's racist, but it's a bit much for me to feel okay about. The video poker might be the highlight of the game here, so if you're already irritated by this point, then go ahead and get your money back. Tommy then gets sucked up into a spaceship with his girlfriend. He then has to realize/ accept his heritage which he apparently hates. So Tommy does this throughout the game, questioning his purpose, whining, complaining, and making the player feel as if they've insulted him by buying this game. Throughout the game, this main character refuses to believe in his Native American spirituality... even though he's on a friggin' spaceship and even when he goes to the spirit world and talks to his grandfather's spirit. Even when he, himself, turns into a spirit to save his own life, he still says that 'all that spirit stuff is a bunch of lies' and 'he just wants to save his girlfriend.' Yep, aliens are real, I've died and seen the spirit world, but I'm still not buying that religion crap..... This really just serves to make him whine even longer in the game. I hate him. Truly. I hate this character. A first for me.
Now, I guess I shouldn't reveal the end, even though there is absolutely no twist or much of a climax. You do fight a final boss, and save the world and all... no surprise there. There's a bit of 'soilant green' type of story thing going on here, but really, the story is pretty useless.
The only highlight to this game is Tommy's girlfriend. He spends most of the game trying to save her, and there is a nice little change to that plot-line, but I don't feel like spoiling it. Regardless, it's not worth paying money to find out. In the end, the story is garbage, much like most other first-person-shooters (here-on referred to as FPS's). I never expect much in this area for a FPS, but this is hardly original. Then again, neither are most world war 2 FPS's.

Look
Have you played Doom3? How about Quake4? I f so, you won't be surprised in any way whatsoever when you play this game. I never really loved the look of any of those. I've played 3 of these Doom-based games and while there are some cool automations/ animations going on in the background of a lot of rooms, it hardly fills the other gaps. There is one room, however, where a machine just stabs people. Call me sick, but this part is just entertaining. You watch some guy come down a chute, then a giant machine stabs him and then crushes him. Ordinarily I'd find this gross, but after hating my own character as much as I did by this point, I actually felt kinda good about it. Anyways I digress. So, in terms of the background and room animations/ automations, these Doom-engine games are cool, because they go beyond simply creating functional rooms, and extend the creative look to the room design and background... though in Prey, the room design sometimes factors into how the character plays the game and gets to the next level, room, part, etc. Portals, gravity reversing switches, gravity-walkways (lets you walk on walls), and little keypads, etc. all play a big part in this game, so searching rooms is important to find out where to go. Most of the rooms work on a funnel effect, leading you to the next place in a logical manner, however, I did get stuck a few times because I had no idea where to go.
Now, the character design: For the most part the characters look okay. I'm not giving up hope on photo-realism yet though. Jen, Tommy's girlfriend, looks like she has FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). Just in general, the characters looks a bit generic and boring.
In the long run though, it's a pretty game. It uses the graphics potential well (whatever that means....), and this may be one of the few things going for it. Textures are pretty nice, some things are a bit reflective and look gooey or slimey, especially the things on the walls. I'm not gonna say what they look like, but man, that is definitely nasty. If they were on a woman, I 'd tell her to have that looked at... soon. Anyways, The bad guys are typical doom mutants but do look intimidating and a bit scary. Overall the look and design is pretty good, keeping in mind that it looks like any Doom3 engine based game.

Gameplay
This game plays like pretty much any other FPS. Surprises? Hmmm.
Well, you can change into spirit form and walk through force-fields. Yay. And this is often to hit a switch to turn off the force-field so your human body can go through, or used to cross a bridge that looks like it's made of spider web so you can... you guessed it, hit a switch and let your human body get somewhere. Sound exciting? It's not. It's used every now and then, and is really more or less useless. Just a novelty idea. A few times this ability is the key to a puzzle, and gets a bit crazy, but most times it serves to inconvenience you enough to irritate you.
As mentioned before, there are gravity switches, which... yep flip gravity so the ceiling is the floor and the floor is the ceiling. Honestly, this is a bit cool at first, but the novelty wears off. It's also far from an original idea, but at least it changes things up a bit. It serves as a factor in some puzzles as do most of the little novelties in this game.
Also, there are portals. These look very cool. I love the animation for them. Walk behind them and they aren't there at all, walk around them and it there's a little ripple effect that looks nice. These can be a bit disorienting. Sometimes you'll find them in boxes, sometimes you have to press a switch to open them. Overall, they function like doors, and are an easy way for designers to jump a character out of a boring room and into a completely new and exciting environment. However... just buy Orange Box and play Portal if you want a creative application of this concept.
And lastly the walkways. Walk on walls and ceilings etc. Cool idea. Even when the bad guys come out on the floor and you're on the ceiling it's a neat idea, but again, it just gets tired by the end of the game. The player also has to turn these walkways on via... you guessed it, a switch.

Well, that covers the stage/ level setup, but what about the character? Well he can jump, he can turn, and he can turn into a useless spirit, what else? Not much apparently. There is no reload, the game does this for you itself. Thanks. I couldn't handle that part yet as the 400 other FPS's I've played made me do it. The animations for the guns are nice, if you stand around and watch them. This has an entertainment potential of 28 seconds, total. The guns looks cool, but as far as functionality goes, they don't do much. The secondary fire offers something a little different, but no dual-wielding or any other creative application of this element of the game. On a side note though, there are these little creatures that you pull the legs off of that serve as the bombs (grenades) in Prey. These are funny and are a bit fun. I used them more than once, and they also have an alternate fire that lets you set them up like booby traps to explode when a bad guy walks by them.
So, how about a sprint, so you can hurry through this crappy game? Nope. Not there either.
However, when the character dies, he gets to shoot a bow & arrow (something I understand all Indian... sorry Native American, spirits have) at what appears to be the spirits of blue and red sting rays. These give you spirit life and human life, restoring you to the normal world you just left. This, in essence, means you'll never die. Never. You'll get killed in game, go to the spirit world, kill some sting rays and go back to where you originally were. Yeah, so challenge just went out the window.
And how can I forget the vehicle. Yes. One vehicle. A single vehicle. Basically, you never get to see it. I think it's some type of orb with thrusters on it, and... aww forget it. This things moves like a trashcan strapped to a couple of bottle rockets. It's pretty slow, has a tractor beam that's pretty useless, and shoots missiles/ bullets that are about as effect as the 1st or 2nd gun you get. It does allow use to have a few cool scenes on the outside of this big spaceship/ planet- thing that you're on, but otherwise it's just kind of boring. Even the character gets excited at first when he discovers it saying "Hell yeah, a vehicle!!!" (one of his few moments being something rather than angry and ignorant), making you think "all right, now we're gonna get some vehicles in the mix, this should change the game up a bit." Nope. One lonely, sad little orb with a potato gun strapped to it and a tractor beam that would make a trekkie say "aww, look how cute."

Overall, this game has some cool ideas that it puts into practice, however few are original, and few are little more than irritating.

Production
Voice acting is important. And for the most part, the voice acting in Prey is not bad. It lacks a little in the excitement area. Tommy sounds bored and unenthusiastic most of the time.
The sound design is actually pretty good, as it has been for Quake4 and Doom3. The sounds are creepy at times, fitting for most scenes. The voice effects are minimal but sound good. One place it lacks though is in the sound for the gun shots. They sound terribly small and weak. I can't explain how much bigger a gun feels when it makes a big boom. Trust me, it makes a difference, and in Prey, you just don't get that feeling like you're carrying around something that'll destroy and enemy. Likewise, the visual result is that they are often barely phased by the guns you shoot at them, so I guess it's all relative. As far as room recreation (using real-time reverb(s) to give the character a feeling of location or size), I didn't notice any. Nor did I get much in the way of useful panning of sounds. Occasionally I'd hear an enemy to my side or the thrusters on the side of my useless single vehicle, but for the most part, the sound (in this respect) is middle-of-the-road. (Note: I'm gaming on a stereo setup, not 5.1, so I can't say if this game truly takes advantage of surround sound).

Overall
Overall, this game is just mediocre. If you get it for cheap... no biggie. It'll eat up your time if you want, but you could do better for the money. I mean that. Even if you spent $15-$20 on this game, you could have found something a bit better, especially for PC.
I can't get over how the main character is such an ***hole. He really makes me not like this game. He doesn't want to be there, and thus, makes me want to go play Call of Duty 4 (see my review on this game as well) instead.
I finished this game begrudgingly. I started it, and just said, "well I just wanna finish it now; I don't even care what happens." It ended up being more like a chore than something I looked forward to doing or playing. That, I think, says it all.