An incredible intro sequence paves the way to a great midgame, that kind of falls apart at the end (like many ImSims). Figuring out creative ways to bypass enemies and get into places by using your environment and some simple tools is an absolute joy. Unfortunately, as you gain skills and powers, you increasingly bypass these more esoteric solutions by simply hacking a console or lifting a piece of cargo. Still, the game is worth it for the incredible intro and the first few hours, and while the last third isn't quite as good, it's still worth completing.

An almost perfect near 10/10 experience. This is one of the very few modern immersive sims that has the same level of openness (both in terms of gameplay and story choices) as a classic like Deus Ex. Reading the wiki after finishing the game I’m struck by how many gameplay mechanics and small story alterations there are that I never thought of while playing. What you can do with the mechanics of the game is almost only limited by your own imagination.

This freedom can be a bit of a double edged sword however. Prey tells you at the very beginning that you can “play your way,” and as a result it is possible to play in a way that ultimately ends up being kind of boring.This isn’t necessarily a criticism but more of a warning to future players.

This is a game primarily concerned with how the player inhabits and manipulates their environment. The entire concept of the Mimics and the fact you can learn to use their copying ability is a testament to this. Accordingly, the most enjoyable part of Prey is the act of exploring Talos 1 for the first time and discovering what you can do with that space. Once you’ve fully explored the station and settled into which gameplay mechanics you want to use the game starts to lose steam. By the end you’ll probably be mindlessly traveling from level to level to finish off remaining objectives and sitting through very long loading screens in the process. This thankfully only happens in the last hour or two of the game, so it doesn’t spoil the overall experience. In a similar vein it’s also very likely that players will become overpowered by the end of the game unless they impose their own difficulty increasing limitations on gameplay to counter this. For example the player has the option to avoid installing any neuromods (abilities and upgrades) during their playthrough which would certainly make the endgame much more difficult and rewarding. If you attempt to upgrade your character as much as possible, however, your endgame very well could be jumping and gliding past every single enemy with ease, which can be a bit boring. This - again - is more of a warning than a criticism. It’s a testament to Prey’s openness that you can pretty easily break the game by the end if you want to. System Shock 2 - Prey’s most obvious influence - is quite similar in this sense and can fittingly be broken in almost exactly the same way. (Brief spoiler alert: on standard difficulty if you fully spec into ballistic weapons, health, and mobility increasing abilities you can turn both of these games into the easiest Doom levels you’ve ever seen)

Story and writing - like with System Shock 2 - isn’t the deepest or most critical, but works really well for a sci-fi horror experience. Piecing together what happened on Talos 1 and the different relationships between characters is incredibly engaging. The fact the 200+ NPCs are all actual named characters with jobs and email correspondence that can be located in the game world is a stroke of genius for this kind of audiolog and environmental based story telling. This kind of story telling in other games - Bioshock for instance - can often be engaging but very artificial feeling. (A lot of digital ink has been spilled commenting on how ridiculous and nonsensical the existence of audio logs is for Bioshock’s world). Prey’s take on this story telling - in line with its immersive sim gameplay - feels incredibly real and adds to the feeling of Talos 1 as an actual place that can be interacted with as such. The way Prey handles its NPCs is IMO one of its best inventions and something I hope other developers have seen and been influenced by. Overall, Preys writing shines brightest when it comes to portraying the relationships between characters and creating a compelling mystery for players to unravel, and it makes some important strides when it comes to storytelling techniques to achieve these ends.

Prey does have some philosophical and political aspirations, and while these don’t fall flat in a juvenile “makes you think” kind of way (cough Bioshock Infinite) they’re not terribly complex. The big questions and moral dilemmas that Prey interrogates don’t go much deeper than the trolley problem and the question of how much we’re willing to sacrifice in the name of progress. This isn’t really a bad thing though. Prey successfully engages with these topics in a way that organically encourages players to think critically about them. I always appreciate it when games try to engage players in this way, and I think Prey deserves some praise for its efforts.

Overall this is a fantastic game and one of the very few contemporary titles that can stand along side the classics of the immersive sim genre. (It’s honestly the only one I’ve played so far but I’ve heard very good things about ctrl+alt+ego and don’t want to discount it before playing). Prey also does quite a lot to advance storytelling techniques and gameplay mechanics in this genre, and I hope it can serve as an inspiration for future designers.

Just about as good as a game can get, in my eyes.

Overall: 8.3/10 (8)

Gameplay: 10/10
Story/Narrative: 8/10
Graphics/Visuals: 8/10
Audio/Soundtrack: 7/10

As my 2nd playthrough, I can only appreciate Prey more and more for what it was able to do.

An immersive-sim with a punch that earns it a place among the greatest of all time for the genre.

Environmental storytelling, interconnect quests and rippling effects, a stylish well written grounding, character impressions and a lot else that it nails almost perfectly. That is besides the story that packs a lot in a humble package. There's a lot to praise prey for and little in terms of criticism or comments.

It is worthy of being Arkane's magnum opus on so many levels that I feel unprepared to give it a nuanced and detailed review. It is an absolute must-play.

Good, solid -shocklike (whatever you want to call it). If you are curious to try the System Shock games, this is honestly a pretty good first game to try.

The story is well-paced enough and has enough character archs to get invested in that it nothing feels frivolous. The combat mechanics end up making encounters feel more like puzzles than like something truly difficult in terms of execution. This fits well with how stealth is more emphasised in this game than in many previous -shock games.

Definitely a game worth giving a shot.

I was completely caught off guard by this game. I knew of it, but never really paid attention to what it was. Once I got around to playing it, though, it turned out to be a thrilling experience! You really feel like you take on the role of Morgan Yu and are experiencing the horror through their eyes. The space station Talos I is both a fascinating and frightening environment, and traversing it via a sort of Metroidvania style progression allows you to gradually uncover its secrets. The Typhon are also among the most frightening enemies I've come up against in recent games. On top of all this, a compelling story takes shape the deeper you get!

The game is another amazing immersive sim alongside the likes of system shock and bioshock. the interactivity in this was really fun and the memory loss story of morgan works really well with the audio log style of the game.
The game does have a lot of weird audio issues though like the audio mixing for characters you directly speak to are way too loud, music sometimes just gets stuck and repeats the same ambiance even when it doesn't fit forcing me restart. audio logs also don't carry on playing between area transitions so you have to constantly wait for it to end before being able to travel.

If you are thinking about playing this game and haven't already had story elements spoiled for you then I am very happy for you; going into this game uninformed is the way to do it. Nothing in the following will spoil anything story related other than the fact that hostiles exist in the game.

I love that lots of doors can be opened by hacking, finding keycards, hacking, or finding an alternate route and it's just as varied when it comes to ways to deal damage. You have a lot of combat options with different weapons and abilites. Hucking enormous objects at enemies is a wonderful and very ammo efficient way to get kills. The fact that a foam dart crossbow is a useful weapon is wild to me, whenever I end up using it to do something it just feels so awesome.

Usually getting through the current zone and into the next is intuitive, occasionally I get a little lost but the map can get me where I need to go eventually.

I like the npcs that are encountered and the environmental storytelling is great, to flesh out the world and characters. The journey the player goes on leads to many interesting situations with the environment and hostile npcs.

Yes to this whole thing! I love this game so much, is it something I will play through over and over again in short succession? no, probably not but I am currently half way through my 2nd playthrough and trying out a playstyle and abilities I hadn't before is a blast.

Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLymbpuce_n7mvdMFx37KYnG3kOJ-Yp2Y4

A good game, i originally fell off of it but decided to pick it back up and enjoyed my time quite a bit. i really dislike the combat though, the whole time you fight just like black ink monsters and they are not fun to fight at all. the mimic is a cool idea but pretty annoying to fight i think, towards the end of the game i just stopped fighting enemies all together. i did really enjoy how you have to think of clever ideas to get past enemies and obstacles in your path by using all these tools you collect, i just wish i liked the enemies you fight more. the story is also very solid, the intro is one of the best i've ever played, it's fucking crazy. the ending i also liked even though it was a but crazy. it basically recites all the choices you made in the game and hearing all the good things i did always makes me feel good in a game, i managed to save everyone and was really happy with my ending.

Após zerar Starfield foi bacana encontrar outro jogo mais antigo da Bethesda que se passa no espaço também! Inclusive, podemos encontrar vários elementos aqui que foram reaproveitados no próprio Starfield recentemente.

Um dos pontos mais altos do jogo com certeza é o local onde se ambienta, a estação espacial Talos I. O seu designer é complexo e rico em detalhes. Seguindo aquela proposta Metroidvania na gameplay! Onde tudo é conectado, e vamos de maneira recorrente encontrando poderes e objetos inéditos que nos permitem acessar lugares novos nos mesmos cenários que passamos anteriormente.

Assim vamos aprendendo mais sobre a história do que aconteceu naquele local e progredindo nosso personagem. Dito isso, já fica claro que a exploração é recompensadora e bem incentivada nesse game.

Outros pontos positivos deixo para a trilha sonora que é muito boa. Principalmente no inicio da campanha, trazendo aquela vibe Synthwave anos 80. E também pontuo aqui o quesito gráfico que é bem agradavel até hoje. Não somente pelos efeitos e texturas, mas pela própria composição dos cenários que foi planejado com capricho.

Na parte da gameplay eu curti, mas confesso que demorei um tempo pra pegar a vibe da proposta. O jogo lhe oferece diversas possibilidades, tanto no combate quanto para se locomover no cenário. Isso abre um espaço bacana para a criatividade de cada player.

Mas mesmo com essas possibilidades, eu sou do tipo Rambo jogando kkkkkk Então muitas vezes tentei optar pelo simples confronto direto, mas isso não é muito recompensador nesse game. As munições são bem escassas e as armas dão bem menos dano do que voce pressupõe a principio.

Partindo desse ponto, o mais interessante creio que seja voce mesclar um pouco de tudo: Tiroteio, stealth e a própria fulga em si. Por exemplo na reta final, eu investi muito na força do meu personagem e agilidade para correr e pular. Esses elementos somados ao fato de já conhecer os cenários, possibilitava que eu fugisse dos inimigos muito facilmente! Tornando algo bem melhor do que peitar todos eles, mas isso vai do perfil de cada jogador certamente.

Engatando com o parágrafo anterior, aqui nós temos uma arvóre de habilidades bem robusta. Podendo upar desde atributos fisicos como correr, pular, carregar coisas etc, até super poderes! Como o de se transformar em objetos do cenário.

Os pontos mais negativos vai pra alguns designers de missão. Algumas situações pontuais aonde precisamos voltar muitos cenários atrás pra pegar algum objeto que vai possibilitar abrir uma porta. Ou nas próprias ultimas missões que ficam extremamente lineares e sem muita criatividade comparado ao restante da campanha!

E como acontece em outros jogos da Bethesda, tem aqueles momentos que falta clareza do que precisa ser feito para a história prosseguir. Obrigando voce a dar aquela consultada no Youtube se não estiver com paciencia kkkkkk

Os inimigos são um ponto fraco pra mim, pois são bem repetitivos. Os únicos que fora mais interessantes na minha opinião são os mimicos. Pois eles se disfarçam pelo cenário, e voce pode ser surpreendido por algum ao coletar objetos.

A história é boa, apesar de não ter um foco tão grande. Vale principalmente pelo final que é de explodir cabeças! O jogo conta também com algumas secundarias bacana que complementam ainda mais o background desse universo.

Mesmo tendo achado vários pontos positivos na minha jogatina, o game curiosamente não me prendeu tanto quanto esperava. Talvez por que a gameplay e a história em si não se desenrolaram da maneira como eu imaginava! Mas, é um bom jogo. Vale a pena só por ser algo um pouco fora da curva dessa leva triple A.