I’m now somewhere closer to the 2 hour mark (of the main campaign, not mooncrash) and I’m just as ambivalent as I was when I put it down the first time, which I wasn’t expecting to be!
the mysteries and the level design and the monsters are all pretty mmmmmmmmmm to me at this point
maybe I will just play mooncrash if I don’t turn around on it in another couple hours
Narrative won’t really step past that, but you should enjoy the drop-ceiling, drop-floor, drop-walls level design; it’s much more flexible and allows for their trap materials to pop up in as many scenarios as possible.
Hub world is ok if too empty on first pass, engineering lab is next and better, but the psycho labs level after that is a standout; horror-themed, claustrophobic, and dense. I think it’s the high point of the game.
thank you for repeating this for me so many times because I’ve finally got it through my head and entirely agree – this is the first direct sequel to the first system shock, not including deus ex doing its own thing, that is actually well executed from top to bottom. I didn’t fully appreciate the mentions of Bioshock because I completely ignored Bioshock at the time of its release, but yes – got it. Now putting it down in favour of Mooncrash.
[I’m sorry but I’m probably reiterating but I like how they did this, so]
Bioshock is the most interesting reference point because they take it on as a narrative project and try to fix it while paying homage. I love the thrust of sins, hidden, coming into focus, and asking whether you take responsibility for things you have no consciousness of; it’s a good parable to contemporary systemic injustice dialogue.
It tackles Bioshock’s themes of self-actualization by stuffing it in the customary Deus Ex choice ending and that’s a) a really funny way to dismiss it, and b) whatever; the back third gets bogged down in their side-quests wrapped through the station, one of their new additions that doesn’t fit well, but those sins are minor next to the richness offered.
Prey is at its best when it’s Arx Fatalis in space and at its worst when it’s dishonoredshock in space
Can you break that down a bit? I’ve never dug into Arx, though I like everything about it, because I can’t work the magic/mouse gestures.
Arx fatalis is almost ultima underworld 3, so what I mean is an emphasis on nonlinear problem solving and exploration, de-emphasis on linear narrative progress
Gotcha.
I think I half agree with you. As I briefly mentioned above, I think the loose, hub-like nature of the game causes the biggest problems when the power curve shifts, the player loses their fear and survival tensions, and they start to get control over the environment, and they start ticking through side content. I think the horror tone, especially, dies when the scaling features can’t keep up and that’s the biggest argument against reusing levels instead of treating them in linear order, if hub-and-spoke based within themselves. The horror tone is not a major factor of UU by comparison and having people in that world gives it a reason to persist; Prey only halfheartedly pulls that off with its heard-but-not-seen NPCs.
Retracing ground gets dicey if it’s as tight as horror needs to be, so it tends to fall into painful tedium unless tightly managed. Prey doesn’t find a workable balance between emptied levels and the higher-tier respawns, ending both somewhat tedious and lacking tension. Now, obviously the terrain refuse is also an issue forced by modern production being more expensive, an issue that bit Deus Ex: Human Revolution especially harshly. Here it feels like the intended design, albeit unsuccessful.
the horror tone didn’t work for me and didn’t appeal to me, so I saw mid-game increased traversal ability and the trivialization of threats to be a huge boon to play rather than a tedium. The appeal of the hub-and-spoke model was uncovering secrets, for me.
Agreed that the lack of persistent + present npcs is a drawback of Prey but I attribute that to their system shock lone-person-stuck-on-space-station design.
If that’s what you’re in it for, that makes sense. For me, the horror tone makes everything slow, portentous, meaningful; it’s extremely similar to the experience I get out of a Souls game, poking at each thread until I find the loose one.
finally getting around to playing this. I can’t believe how much it feels like system shock 2. beyond just the basic mechanical/setting similarities, like movement level geometry and overall atmosphere feel so much like system shock 2. I’m honestly about it, it still feels like this game is doing its own thing. I’m just impressed at how detail oriented it is in terms of its influence.
also I’m finding it to be like way too easy so far even though I ticked off all optional “survival mode” settings and am playing on hard. maybe I should switch to nightmare? I already feel like I have way more supplies than I’ll ever need and I’m only like 6 hours in.
I’m still enjoying it a lot I just wish it was pushing back against me more. no major enemy type feels remotely threatening. hopefully they ramp it up.
I switched to Nightmare at about that point and still never really had issues; with a contiguous world, I think they had trouble balancing between the scavenging raccoons who find everything and normal, well-adjusted players.
I love how generous they are with every type of -Shock descendant but don’t seem blind to BioShock’s faults. It’s full of love but considered, not slavish. That said I’d need more if I need a sequel; between this and the Montreal Deus Exes and Dishonored I think there’s very little left in this, my favorite type of game, until some major fundamentals change.
Maybe I’m just itching to make stealth a new game without falling into the stealth-action trap of the late 2000s Splinter Cells, that really only lives on in the reasonably solid stealth of modern everything games.
tbh I want to play a game like this but it’s under a dead rising style time limit
The expansion pack, Mooncrash, kind of fits the bill – you’re trying to optimize paths through a fairly small space while being handed different loadouts. It’s pretty neat.
I started playing this about a month ago when I got a couple months of Xbox Game Pass for free. I enjoyed the exploration aspects and story, but felt kinda underwhelmed by the enemy design, and lost interest when I started getting the purple enemies who are exactly the same as other enemies but explode and hurt you when they die. I also really enjoy building my skill tree toward having a bunch of things (turrets, brainwashed goons, etc.) fighting for me in games like this, and I’m still not clear if that’s going to be an option. I have yet to unlock any of the superpowers, however, so maybe they’re in there. I keep meaning to give it another try. Maybe I’ll do that now-ish.
A lot of aspects of it remind me of Alien Isolation which I enjoyed a lot. It also keeps reminding me of SOMA which I liked a lot, and has a similar sort of core feel but very different gameplay.
cool, only 10 hours in and I just now discovered you can press R stick to focus on any computer screen you’re looking at, instead of trying to weirdly interact by centering any button you want to click on. I am genius!
this game is annoying because it is entirely too easy. like on nightmare I feel like I’m already this unstoppable juggernaut even though I’m basically just running around shotgunning everything. it has some of the same design problems as bioshock except that game actually made you sweat it out for a few hours before you become unstoppably overpowered.
I still like it a lot more than bioshock, because the writing and plotting is genuinely clever and engaging and the level design is excellent so far, and I’m loving all the subtle twists and turns so far. I just got past the first ethical dilemma the game throws at you (and it’s HILARIOUS to me that they actually put trolley problem memes in intro sequence to foreshadow this) but it’s honestly still so much more of a true dilemma than anything in bioshock.
something about arkane’s games just feel good to me. the movement is always so snappy and precise, and the audiovisual feedback is punchy without being obnoxiously loud (which is another problem I had with bioshock). there’s just a touch of system shock 2’s detached floatiness here but I feel like that’s appropriate for the style and setting, or maybe it just feels familiar in a good way.
I just wish this game had an actual hard mode. maybe I just was a scrub back when I played ss2 but I feel like it was actually difficult and punishing. am I wrong?
Absolutely wrong, ss2 was easier than prey.
fair. I haven’t played it since I was in college.
My favorite part of Prey is the level design and how each area logically fits with each other area. By the end of the game I was like yeah this a real space station and I was finding all sorts of different entrances/exits between the areas.