Yes.
Just like Arcane’s other games are Looking Glass successors.
Arx Fatalis to Ultima Underworld and Dishonored to Thief.
Trifecta complete, even in the right release order.
Next they need to do the Flight Unlimited successor! ;)
And bring on the Terra Nova!
I also caved and finally bought this on sale. I’ve seen it cheaper, but digital deluxe for $12 got me to cave on a whim.
I presume I was busy with other games at the time, but I can’t actually recall why I didn’t get it sooner. Possibly just a garden variety gaming slump.
Remember to play the DLC for this as well. It’s very good and different a typical DLC - plays more like a roguelike
Mooncrash is great.
It took me a while to figure out / click with it but once I figured out what it was about I didn’t stop. Roguelite by way of immersive sim. If you’ve played Risk of Rain it has a similar mechanic. (moonshark was kind of annoying / a serious blocker in the early runs until I figured out how to kill it / avoid it easily)
Do tell! Asking for a friend.
-Tom
Well it helps to know that the moonshark is nearly blind (and only heads towards you if you traverse the moon floor). So if you are in a bind do the vs. T-REX statue thing.
Avoidance is easier than killing it until you get enough resources. In general, Typhon lures or any thrown object on the moon floor away from where you wanna go + moon rock hopping.
To kill it, you exploit tentacle nests (throw an object near one, or use the grenade yourself but the timing is tricky). They are super effective and can kill the moonshark really quickly. Late game you just destroy it yourself with the Q-beam when stocking up.
Been playing this in bits and pieces over the last few days and I’m still really digging it. It feels so oppressive, there’s this real feeling of dread and paranoia, knowing that nearly anything around me could be a monster waiting to jump me when I’m not paying attention. I did my first spacwalk the other day and that was cool - I like that I don’t really have to keep an eye on my oxygen and just jet around. Until I ran into this glowy enemy thing that totally wrecked me. Oh well, I should have assumed a game like this wasn’t going to let me have an actual safe area. I’m totally going to see this one through, I really like the environment and the characters and the basic mystery of the game. Not sold on the combat; for all the cool weapons I’ve found, I’m still pretty much relying on the wrench. Seems to do the most damage, and ammo for everything else is pretty scarce. Still, I guess that’s what the fabricators are for.
oh man, the fabricators! That is one of the best inventions in recent gaming. Need a health pack? a Neuromod? Some shotgun shells? Throw your shit into here and push a button! It makes picking up random crap that much more satisfying.
Yeah, this is one of those games where it really does pay to pick up everything, because even if you don’t want it you can recycle it and use the parts to fabricate something you do. Except somewhere along the way I found this nerf crossbow thing, and I’ll be damned why I’m carrying it but I just assume I’m going to need it at some point? Maybe one of these blobs will challenge me to a nerf duel.
There are clever uses for that crossbow. Perhaps a button you can’t reach?
I did not think of that. OK, now in addition to watching every single item for potential mimicry, I’ll also be looking for hidden buttons.
Nonlethal weapons are a Looking Glass classic, like 0451. Useful for buttons, but also knocking things like mines around.
Slow burn, but high System Shock vibes so far.
Only managed to get a few hours in, but enjoying the atmosphere.
I never carried/used the nerf crossbow but I did come across things where I could imagine its use.
Overall though it is kind of niche and takes too much inventory space. I think this is just a goofy thing Arkane wanted to include.
It’s particularly useful if you are doing a no-mods run, there are areas where the darts can hit door overrides or tap computer screens that would otherwise be unreachable
I did it! Prey has been defeated. I really liked this game, it did something interesting with the System Shock/Bioshock formula, and even fit in a twist ending (I’ll get to that in spoiler space below). I liked just about everything about the game except the combat, which seemed uninteresting to me. Unless I missed something, I really only had three weapons - a pistol, a shotgun, and the zapper laser thing. I stopped using the wrench after a while, but I think that might have been the only melee weapon? And sure, the gloo gun came in handy (especially when the military operators showed up late in the game) but I’m not sure I would call it a weapon. Just didn’t seem like a ton of variety and options there.
The tension definitely decreased as I gained more powers and chips for my suit - I had some that helped me locate ‘hidden’ mimics, so I no longer felt like I had to side-eye everything around me. Plugging in weapon upgrades helped a ton too, I feel like the shotgun was definitely my go-to weapon. Maybe the game needed a sniper type weapon? None of my stuff seemed to work at long range, but maybe that’s by design.
As for some non-spoilery story bits, there was a lot of interesting stuff going on here. I didn’t pick up on the fact that this was all an alternate history universe until I saw a portrait of John Kennedy on the wall showing his date of death well into the 21st century. And the world we play in has known about the typhon for decades, early space flights encountered them and the U.S. and Russia have kind of ‘teamed up’ to get a handle on them. All right, on to spoilers:
I don’t totally get the after credits bit though. It’s interesting, and I like the idea that you think you’re human, dealing with the effects of adding typhon neuromods (and removing them) and how that alters your perception and relations with others - then finding out you’re a typhon, who is actually being tested with human implants! That’s interesting. And they did kind of lay out this idea along the way, with Alex mentioning that the typhon lack mirror neurons and therefore empathy. But then - all the game was a test? None of that actually happened? But Alex mentions that it was a recording of Morgan’s memory, so maybe it did happen, and we were just running through events that had taken place? I guess it doesn’t matter too much, I’m just a bit fuzzy on the details.
But overall, pretty big thumbs up, an interesting world and story with interesting stuff to do. As with most of these games, I end up kind of resenting how much combat developers seem to feel they have to stuff these games with, but I’ve long understood I am an outlier in these regards. Still, a minor quibble overall.
Looks like you missed the Q-beam. It can be hard to find, I think it’s only in 4 or 5 places on the station. It’s slow but can make taking down the bigger bads much easier.
I just finished my 5th playthrough (“no needles” run on PC). And I still found things I missed, and learned techniques I hadn’t used before. Hell of a game.