This is definitely a game where discretion is often the better part of valor. Also, it does give you a lot of alternative ways to do stuff, some of which are not immediately obvious. It’s also kinda spooky.
I’m really liking the set of stories and side-quest stuff draped around the main quest. It sometimes gets a bit sprawling and confusing, but there’s a lot of cool stuff here, very reminiscent in terms of feel and narrative elements to the System Shock and BioShock game worlds.
That sounds truly awful. And frightening. So glad you were able to deal with it in time. HF
Well, right now, this is my GOTY. This is about as System Shocky as it gets without being a direct sequel. I hope the guys doing System Shock 3 do well, because right now, this is the game they have to beat.
I went back as advised and with no points in hacking yet I couldn’t get that safe open. Until I finally guessed the missing digit. But that made me start pumping points into that skill. And I literally spent the points to get it to level 2, then found a safe barely a minute later, cracked it, got 4 upgrade units and 2 weapon improvement kits.
Which makes me wonder: does anyone know if the #s for every safe are located in the game? I’m curious if saving those upgrade points by not spending them on hacking during a 2nd play through would be a viable path.
Minor spoilers follow.
Finished it on hard after 34 hours. Completed most of the side quests, but not all. Certainly not the treasure hunt ones. After the mid point in the game, I didn’t really have any difficulties with the combat. I chose the psi “bomb” ability that does 100 damage in a 7 yard range at max rank, which really wrecked most things (including me). I also fully upgraded the shot gun, and maxxed stealth damage bonuses. Finished the game with 12 neuromods in my inventory and the ability to make another 5 or so if I wanted. There wasn’t really any need to buy additional powers. Although I probably should have repaired those fucking panels, they were always zapping me. I didn’t take any hacking, and only one level of repair for basic stuff like fabricators and grav shafts.
Killed a couple of Nightmares, but generally avoided them as it wasn’t worth the effort.
I did hit a few bugs with side quests, most notably Mikhaila’s quest to find her dad. Instead of getting that quest, I instead re-received the quest to kill the cook. Sad.
Is there a way to save the named phantoms? The end game suggests there might be a way. I tried to save everyone who was mind controlled by zapping them with the stun gun, though a couple managed to get too close to me and blew themselves up.
I thought the zero-G stuff was the weakest part of the game, especially in the G.U.T.S., though overall it wasn’t bad. I thought the arrival of Dahl was a great turning point in the game and really made it a lot more interesting.
It was a great game. One way that I measure the greatness of a game or a movie is how much I want to play it again or see it again. I want to replay Dishonored 2 as Corvo and murder everything, which is the opposite of what I did as Emiliy. But I’m not so sure a replay of Prey would yield vastly different results. I did manage to see 4 different endings, though 3 of them were mostly the same.
The endings I saw were -
1. Take the escape pod
2. Follow Alex’s advice to use the Neuro-thingy on the Coral
3. Blow up the station and escape on the shuttle
4. Blow up the station and go down with it
Some game music
Everything Is Going To Be Okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOdIKi8sDmI&list=RDQM0dqnNNUZ73E&index=4
So, um, was that Walton Goggins?
Yep, I did not recognize him at all though, even after all the Shield and Justified. Only saw his name in credits.
And Mae Whitman does Danielle, and also the awesome song in Tulip bar. Know her from Parenthood.
My thoughts are the same.
Talos is one of the best, I don’t know what to call it, “game world” of all time. If not the best, and it’s certainly the genre’s shining example. As amazing as Rapture was, Talos has huge advantage in that (1) because it’s just a moderately sized space station and not slices of a gigantic underwater city there’s tons of awesome detail all over the place (2) they account for every crew member and (3) they not only make the station feels incredibly lived in, but realistically and hastily abandoned as it’s being overrun. #2 sets up both of these things so incredibly well.
How can you avoid these? The first one I’ve seen is sitting right at the top of a lift, and as soon as I exit, pow, dead. I tried an alternate route but the stuff out “there” is just as bad…
Agree. Conceptually, it is nigh-on perfect.
I assume that’s the same one I encountered in the crew quarters. Basically turn round immediately go back through the load screen. Wait it out. Go back in.
I am more a modern gamer, I like handholding experiences with big explosions are are obvious to see because you never are looking in the wrong direction. I have never really connected with Prey for this reason, the game have never “clicked” for me. There are things in the design that put me off.
I still could see how this game is in many than 5 ways better than the Bioshocks and the Deus Ex games. Has mentioned before in this thread, in Prey you find a body, and is a named body. Somewhere you can find his room or his bed with his name in it. Maybe some emails, because he was a person, with a role in the ship. The levels of “this make damn sense” are so deep that I can’t totally warp my head around it.
In the end, I think the Bioshocks and the Deus Ex HR games are more easy palatable for everyone. They are somewhat a hybrid this raw experience that Prey produce, and linear corridors shooters with set pieces.
I just miss more games like Prey. Enough to understand them, and maybe grown has a gamer. One problem of Prey is that you have to be clever to figure things. The devs have added things to the game that most players will never see. We have forgot about this way to play videogames, because the “relax and watch the movie” style is so easy and commonplace.
I really wish there was a way to annotate the map. I mean, I wish that were true in most games I play, but it’s really necessary in Prey.
If you encounter one in an area you’ve been to, it’s easier. When coming into a new area, I always make sure to note places to hide - ventilation/maintenance shafts, rooms with doors (yes, you can lock doors in this game and it will keep bad guys away), etc. I always know where to run when the s*** breaks loose. If it’s a new area, it’s a lot harder, sometime you just have to run, and hope you can avoid the lesser troubles and find a place to hide (you can lock rooms!). But I have also found that NM have terrible “vision”. If you are the dark, crouching, they can barely see you even if you almost by them. They seem to respond more to movement than sight. I found one in an area in a dark area and crouched behind a planter. It came right up beside me (I could have touched it!) and it didn’t see me. The planter was not hindering it’s vision but as long as I did not move it did not recognize me. So being very still in darkness also works.
Jim Sterling’s review is brutal!
Prey is almost nothing like its namesake and almost everything like System Shock, which is great if you don’t mind the use of unrelated intellectual property as a delivery vehicle for an inferior System Shock successor. Some of us will miss what Prey 2 was supposed to be, but there’s no changing that.
I wouldn’t mind it so much if Prey was superior to the game it aped in any way – any one meaningful way – but when we cut to the heart of it, we’re looking at a fan tribute to the Shock series lacking the atmosphere and imagination that made any of the official games so endearing. It seems “helping out” with development of BioShock 2 was not adequate experience to pull off a full game.
This week, Prey managed to top the PAL charts, but only managed to sell an abysmal 12,000 copies across three platforms, which means it still hasn’t reached Dishonored 2’s not-too-hot first-week numbers.
I think this might be Bethesda’s first outright bomb since the days of Brink and Hunted.
And I really don’t get it. Sadly seems it’s “One of the best games you never played” list material. Arkane deserves better.
I don’t know what it’s been like in the US, but over here there’s been next to zero marketing for it. And the UK is traditionally a very marketing-driven market.
Zenimax/Bethesda are way more concerned with filing lawsuits than promoting games from their smaller studios like Arkane. And I seriously wish that was a joke, but it’s not. Prey also suffered from horrendous QA, once again that is a Zenimax/Bethesda issue, not Arkane’s fault. But you can’t squeeze a hundred million illicit dollars out of your own beta testers.
[quote=“MrTibbs, post:418, topic:78708, full:true”]
Jim Sterling’s review is brutal![/quote]
I totally disagree. It’s interesting that he complains about many things that are found in System Shock 2:
He is also wrong about weapons and damage. A fully upgraded shotgun will take out phantoms with between 2 and 4 rounds, easily with Combat Focus.
He’s entitled to his opinion, I just don’t agree with it. Metacrtic reviewer and user scores are both at 80% and the Steam rating is 90%. He’s pretty out there, so take this review with a grain of salt.