An enjoyable rollercoaster-ride!

You play as Tommy, a native american living in a reservation with his girlfriend, Jen. Tommy has lost faith in his ancestors and his people, one could maybe say he is struggling to find his identity, however this is not elaborated any further in the game. After a short fight in the bar, you are sucked up in an alien space ship, where you have to find your girlfriend and kick some alien ass. The storyline gets a bit silly in some places and the quality of voice acting can vary, but the graphics makes up for this.

“Prey” looks great. The game is powered by the Doom3engine, but even though it is two years old now, it does not show much sign of aging. The engine has been expanded with outdoor areas in space, portal technology, as well as a form of gravitational physics in the maps. The environment looks as ever spectacular and “Human Head Studios” has especially done a great job with the textures and shaders.

The game is not just a straight-forward shooter. During the game you encounter several spirit-puzzles which needs to be solved. Unfortunately they are usually just simple tasks, such as walk across an area where you could not as a regular player and push a button, disable force fields, or find hidden door codes, but even so, they add a new dimension to the game. About half-way through the game you will also get to fly an “exoskeleton”, which is quite fun. Very frequently you will also encounter gravity puzzles and walkways. It takes some time to get used to being able to walk on the floor, then walking up in the ceiling, and suddenly switching the gravitational incline of the player, but once you get used to it, it is very cool. All of these elements provides a nice variety to the gameplay, as well as a fresh and unique feel to the game. On the downside, the game is a bit short. It only took me about 7 to 8 hours to play through it in total.

The weapons in the game looks good. They have an organic feel and most of them have a secondary fire. You get to use a standard melee weapon, an assault/sniper rifle, spider grenades, a leech weapon which uses three different firing modes, a sort of a gattling gun with grenade launcher, and more. Even though there is a good variety of weapons, the sound of the weapons feels bland, they really lack that extra punch.