Prey Review for Xbox 360
By Boot Scraper
As a long time FPS fanatic, it surprises and delights me to see a game like Prey. It’s hard for me to admit this, but FPS’s have gotten rather stale lately. They have the same plot, same gimmicks, same weapons, and more often than not, the same type of characters. So I can get pretty jaded, especially when I start to play a new FPS. But not two minutes into the game do I notice something: this game is different.
The story puts you in the shoes of a Native American man who has become fed-up with his life on the reservation. He goes to his girlfriend’s bar to talk her into leaving with him. Then, you get your worst-case-scenario. Aliens abduct everything and everyone in the bar. But at least you get to listen to “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult on your way up (definitely my choice of song if I were to be abducted).
Then you are thrust into the off-beat world of Prey: a world of ugly environments, expressed in a beautiful and graphically amazing way. You quickly realize that this is not your average shooter. First thing you notice is that your character doesn’t really care about stopping the evil aliens as he is with getting his girlfriend off the ship. However, when you run into the aliens, you have no choice but to kill them all. And boy is that fun!
Your weapons in Prey all seem to be organic. By that I mean they are moving as if they are made out of some sort of alien organisms. Strangely, this does not take the impact or feel of the weapons away. Every time you hit an alien with a bullet or ray or slime, you get the visceral feeling that you hit something meaty. Each weapon is different and balanced. No throw-away weapons or too powerful weapons here. A personal favorite of mine is the acid gun. It sprays a green and powerful acid from a canister to melt your enemies “Aliens” style. The spray and punch of this weapon make it the equivalent of a shotgun.
The portals are another area where this game shines. There are portals that open up everywhere in this game. Sometimes you enter them and come out on the other side upside down, but that’s okay because they have anti-gravity walkways which are another great and original feature. It may seem like a bother, but once you get used to it, it becomes very fun and entertaining to make yourself dizzy. You can even enter a spirit walk mode in which you are a ghostly figure of yourself with a bow and arrow. Even death is not handled in a traditional way. You can die, but once you do, you enter a spirit realm in which you must shoot the flying souls of those you have killed to bring you back to life. All of this might have ended up as just gimmicks in other, lesser games, but Prey turned them into rational parts of the already amazing gameplay.
Everything in this game is way above average. Well, this game was in development from 1997, but with a game this great, 9 years was actually worth the wait.
I give this great FPS gem a 5 out of 5.
This review is AWESOME. I’m going to check this game out asap! Great review.