There should be a few scattered around too.
I never found a “loose” Q-beam. One thing about the game: it doesn’t hold your hand about which side quests are kind of important (getting the Q-beam), and which are more for loot or XP.
I cannot understand that with very high production values and an apparently deep and expert understanding of design and player agency in these Shockish/Metroidvania games, that they could use monsters that are best described as uninspiring and frustrating.
It’s a real head scratcher, it must suck away any atmosphere of dread.
I love these type of games and I love that Arkane have brought back the art of level design. Dishonored was a ripper, the sort of game that otherwise died out with end of the Looking Glass era.
But I have minimal desire to play this one, and there is wide agreement that it’d be a much better game with a substantial foe. The ending too… that’s so poor I didn’t mind it being spoiled.
I can’t help but think this monster design sounded good on paper, and everyone in the project was too emotionally involved with the foe to point out the elephant in the room, that they are a bit shit. They are way too smart to not be thoroughly aware of this, I guess the implementation was too far along to scratch them.
Maybe some gaudy space pirates would have fit in well with the motif. It’s good that they’ve gone for something different, but there are certain fundamentals that never change. Such a shame, as from what I can see everything else is top notch.
I will buy it on sale. Biggest bummer is waiting a few years for their next effort (any news on what it’ll be?) and the pc going out of date.
Still a bit shocked that Harvey Smith produced such high grade after a few super fucking subversive turkeys (makes you wonder how much of the gaming guts is a result of his higher level input, and I guess he did well out of them and bought into Arkane). Dishonored was big step up in quality from Dark Messiah and Arx Fatalis, not just as a result of the years either.
What on earth are you talking about? The monsters are freaking awesome, and there are a ton of different types of them.
Yeah, I’m a bit confused by this comment too. Prey is probably in my top 3 for games for generating tension/dread. The unique enemy ability design is absolutely part of it. Which part do you think is disappointing? The visual design?
(Incidentally, RPS had an article on that a couple of days ago: State of the Art: The monsters of Prey | Rock Paper Shotgun)
No Xenomorphs
They look like angry tadpoles, and I find the idea of an alien life form turning into a chair Pythonesque. They lack shape as part of their design, but it appears to result in them lacking distinction.
Perhaps they’re supposed to contrast against the art deco design, but black on colour doesn’t provide contrast, and they pale in comparison. I expect it would’ve worked much better with some enemies with more colour or variety, not just black cloud.
I think they lack personality, taking an obvious inspiration look at splicers or big daddy. Very distinctive designs with character, and it’s a bit of an opportunity missed. I’ve seen a number of comments about it, and most of the reviews seem to barely mention them. Ymmv.
Xenomorphs, well, obviously out of place Scharmers.
Well, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but I believe you are way over thinking it. Did you create an account just to complain about the Prey creature design? Contrary to your name, you seem quite “fussed” about this.
So… I broke down and got this before the Steam sale ended.
But the voices make this unplayable for me. They’re LOUD. Like my speakers start to vibrate and audio starts to clip loud. Every time a person says something my ears are actively hurt by it. The Audio settings literally do nothing. I experimented with the repair woman, 100 sounds like 5 sounds like 30.
It’s fucking deafeningly loud. Distance doesn’t exist either. A dude 30 feet away talking to me sounds like he’s living in my ear canal and screaming at me.
Any hope for this or should I just go for a refund? Because it’s that bad. I can’t play with whatever is going on here.
Come now, surely some gaudy space pirates would have been the way to go! Throw out that whole inter-dimensional paranormal alien ecology thing! ;)
When you start uncovering the in-game lore about how/why that works I thought it was actually pretty cool. And it certainly works well as a gameplay device.
Well I got the voices to where it wont damage my ears… I think.
I had to go to 2. TWO. Great sound mixing guys, you really nailed it. 5-100 does basically nothing, but around 2-4 things sort of work so far. Zero turns them off, which is… something I guess.
Pretty sure if 2/100 results in normal range of hearing you’ve completely fucked the dog on the audio end of things.
I had to bump it up to 4 so that calls aren’t stupid quiet and dude talking to me didn’t blow out my ear drums and speakers. Going to 5 is like having a drill instructor yell at me for laughing.
I haven’t had any sound issues, but that doesn’t make yours any less frustrating to you.
One thing I did realize is that I don’t think I’m very good at this. Took me several tries to beat my encounter with 2 phantoms.
I had sound issues at launch, but it seems better now.
I’m running a Dolby Digital encode from a dedicated sound card to my home theatre.
I swapped to my headset and turned it down to like 2-4 range so far it seems okay, but it’s hard to tell.
The one area I was using for testing seemed mostly okay, so he’re hoping.
The first time you encounter phantoms (mine was in the optional Trauma Room) there is one that’s… a more advanced version of them and it made me think they were all that crazy hard to defeat. Regular ones aren’t too bad, and you have a lot of advanced warning when they are around. I’m at the point where I can one-shot them, so it gets easier. I think they are supposed to be like “WTF” hard at first, so don’t sweat it.
No sound issues here, I left all my volume sliders at 100 but I put music down to 60 like I always do (and then I eventually turned it off - immersive games like this are better without music just suddenly happening out of nowhere, imo).
Got this at launch, then set it aside until a few days ago. Picked up where I left off, and managed to avoid a Nightmare (once I figured out, um, not to actually fight the SOB). I’m sort of in between the two extremes I see here–on the one side, folks having a lot of trouble with mobs and combat, and on the other, folks saying it’s easy as pie. I am always out of ammo, and I find navigation really confusing, so I end up backtracking (and running into respawns) a lot. I have upgraded my weapons, but the lack of a long range gun and a constant lack of ammo makes combat more frustrating than fun sometimes. I have eschewed Typhon mods because I didn’t want the turrets to hate me, but if I do this again I may go full on that way. I probably spread my initial neuromods out too thinly, too, rather than really honing in on a min/max approach.
I do love the layout, the atmosphere, and the whole storyline, really. The monsters are sometimes really creepy and alien, which is good, but I do think the mimics are less scary than annoying. Some types are really bad ass, though. I tend to prefer human opponents, though.
It really is quite an accomplishment overall, however.
I am about 3/4 of the way through and am bouncing of this HARD. I am out of ammo and trying to backtrack through old areas that are now repopulated has made this game infuriating.
Perhaps I am missing something but there appears like there is no way to resupply when you backtrack. IE Monter respawn but no supplies.
Any thoughts? What am I missing here?
Those ended up being the second ones. The first ones I had to take out with my wrench and blob gun. The second group I had slightly more firepower, but not a lot.
Explore, recycle, craft. Use the wrench for easier enemies, especially if you got the implants and skills for it. Other than that, simply run away from enemies, you don’t have to kill them all. Stealth goes a long way in this game, both for offensive and defensive purposes.
Some sound sources are messed up. A few npcs sounded like the audio was coming from your helmet/suit while others had the correct audio levels relative to their position in the 3d space. The first woman in the game you talk to (the janitor?) falls in the first category and it’s very jarring.
I’d maybe say “run past enemies” instead, since “run away” carries such strong connotations of retreating.