Prey Review

When it comes to playing first person shooting games it is DOOM 3 or QUAKE 4 but when it comes to first person shooting plus high level of interactivity, the answer is PREY. Developed by Human Head Studios PREY, is based on a modified version of the DOOM 3 engine.

Prey is about a character called Tommy who gets sucked from a hotel into an alien spaceship called the Sphere. Along with Tommy are his girlfriend and grandfather. The real story starts from here when he has to battle with many alien forces that are heavily armed but not tough to handle. The in game action is simple and interesting as you use various weapons like the wrench which is given at the beginning followed by the rifle, the leech gun, the auto cannon, acid sprayer and the launcher. We also get a crawler i.e. we can pick up tiny green colored crawling creatures and use them as hand grenades by breaking off one of their legs and then throwing them at our enemy. Though completing the game is not a tough task, the puzzles inside the game are sure to puzzle you. However this has been taken care by introducing a special ability like the spirit walk. In spirit walk the character can leave his body and his spirit can go to places that are almost impossible to reach physically, for example, like walking on fire and even entering rooms that are protected by doors which are instead magnetic fields that can be turned on and off. Even if we get killed by an enemy our spirit remains alive and we are transferred to an unknown dimension where we have to battle some flying creatures for extra health and finally transferred back to the real world from where we left. Thus even if we die there is little worry and this makes it easier for us to move ahead without any fear of dying. Thus it is not necessary to start the game all over again from the previous save. Another interesting add-on in this game is that you can walk on walls and also get teleported to different places.

By keeping the video settings low, the game can be played even on a low end PC with lesser amount of jerks. Even if there is a reduction in the graphics quality the game can be completed with ease. Those who want to play the game at high graphics settings without any jerks have to use a PC with enough memory and a latest graphics card like the ATI Radeon X800 series or higher video card. NVIDIA users should use an NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series or higher video card. The sound is ok but a lot of attention has been given to the character voices which makes the game interesting. At the start of the game we can explore the hotel where we can play videogames as well as listen to music by selecting a list of albums from the jukebox.

The multiplayer option known as ‘multiprey’ has an interesting number of maps. Maps can be selected and can be played in a deathmatch or a team deathmatch mode which are far better than the single player campaign.

However due to its high requirements this game can be played online without any delay only through a high speed internet or LAN connection.

One good thing done by the developer is the quick save and the quick load option which helps in saving the game when you want, without having to wait before the next auto save.

Though this game is interesting, one major drawback is its need for high system requirements which takes up a lot of system resources and memory. But those who are well equipped with a high end PC needn’t worry about the above problem.

This game is highly recommended for gamers who have played the DOOM and Quake series and are in search for more hardcore first person shooting.