Prey First Play
I’ve played quite a few first-person shooters in my time and previewed plenty of them. Out of all of these shooter previews, there have only been a small handful of them that were able to get me excited about playing the final product. After playing a demo of Prey, I am happy to say that I’ve got another game to add to that list. Prey so impressed me that I can’t wait to get my hands on the game that will probably be the hottest title of the summer when it is released in July.
In Prey you play as Tommy, a Native American who just can’t wait to leave his reservation and take his girlfriend with him. The game opens in the men’s room (just what is it with FPS games and bathrooms?) of the rundown bar run by Tommy’s girlfriend. The game’s opening locale gives you a glimpse of the level of interaction and detail you’ll find throughout the game’s levels. You can play with the toilet seats, turn on the water taps, and use the soap dispenser, and when you tire of this bathroom fun you can kick around the boxes in the back of the bar. Walk into the bar itself and you’ll find video games and electronic casino games such as blackjack, poker, and slots. All of the games are fully functional and you can spend time playing each one. A jukebox in the bar is operational as well, and you can select from a variety of licensed tunes for your listening pleasure. Walk over to the TV and you’ll find that you can flip through the channels to select a show. Soon after you get a chance to try out the game’s melee combat something happens that will probably end up as one of the all-time great movie moments. The jukebox plays Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult as the bar begins to shake and bright lights shine through gaping holes in the bar’s ceiling. You are soon lifted off your feet and sucked toward an alien ship as BOC’s classic refrain floods your ears…
Once on the ship you’ll find yourself strapped to a board and riding a rail through an enormous alien ship that’s part high-tech and part organic. After taking a ride through the ship ala the bedroom door storage facility out of Monsters Inc and listening to the screams, cries, and prayers of your fellow abductees, you make your escape. Now you must not only find a way to survive, but to rescue your girlfriend and grandfather as well.
The alien ship is filled with strange and dangerous creatures, including the armored warriors who are evidently in charge of things. Even parts of the ship itself are alive and quite dangerous to you as well. A very weird setting indeed, but things soon get even weirder. First of all the ship is packed with portals that let you easily pass into other rooms in the ship. The portal effects are really cool as they often sit on stands like large mirrors and you can peer into the room on the other side before passing through the portal. You’ll never know quite exactly where you are going and there are some interesting surprises in store for the intrepid portal walker. In one instance a portal leads you to the surface of a small rock suspended in a glass case at the center of the room. When you pass through you are shrunk down to the point where walking on the rock is like walking on a small moon.
