The likes of gaming has steadily paced from popular arcade shooters to the story based Point & Click games and between these was a time when a lot of games were made which were amalgamations of a decent story, sandbox gameplay mechanics generally accompanied by a decent score to keep you alive to the rhythm and this is what Prey(2017) is.
PREY(2017) is a slight departure from the genre trope of video games these days. It features a silent protagonist who has got a lot to say if you unravel the plot through notes and utilities open to you. While Half Life and System Shock are conspicuous antecedents of this game, it still has something very unique to its style and this is where the various classifications come in.
Plot: You are Morgan Yu (A unisex name) who is either male or female and of Chinese and German descent, based on who you choose to be. You’re a test subject in a space station Talos I set in an alternate future where the assassination of the 35th President of the USA, John F. Kennedy fails. A group of aliens have infested the space station and brutally murdered almost every worker on the station but it is now your own responsibility to save yourself from all the trouble and find out exactly what’s going on with the help of your backup called January.
World Design: PREY takes its cues from the minimalistic aesthetics of the 60s.The interiors of the space station are pretty eye-candy and glossy, having materials of various colors and not just set to a specific tone. It sets you in a space station, namely Talos I, infested with alien organisms namely Typhon.
P.S.-There’s quite a few Looking Glass, developers of System Shock, references. There’s literally a glass through which you can see recordings or communicate which is directly called “Looking Glass”.
AI Design: Enemy AI consists of eight different types of species of the Typhon organisms that have attacked the space station. All of them vicious aliens, except the mimic, are gruelingly hard to defeat, albeit keeping you attached to the game. All of them have special abilities, the Phantoms being very annoying when they constantly teleport from one place to another like it’s Scorpion from Mortal Kombat spamming teleportation.
Sound, Audio and Music: Ambient music is absolutely perfect. It is exactly what you would expect in a Sci-Fi game set in space. It’s dark, it’s sometimes catchy when in battles and sometimes just silent. There’s also a proper amount of reverb and echo that can be heard when things are dropped, thus signifying the spaciousness and emptiness of the now almost dead space station.
Music is mainly composed by the renowned Mick Gordon and it suits perfectly with the game. The catchy, powerful beats keep you in the mood for a good fight against the invaders.
Gameplay: Clearly a game with RPG factors right in place.
The game starts you off with a wrench and then as you progress through the halls of the space station, you find all the necessary utilities and gun. There’s crafting and item building in this game, which you’ll learn through exploration and yes, there are ALIEN abilities!
Alien Abilities are gained after a specific portion of the game, after which you can seamlessly take your soul into a cup and yes, become the CUP! You can literally morph into anything you like-A pizza box, an apple, a banana, anything. I’m really sorry that there aren’t broccolis in here or I’m sure we’d all like to obliterate them. But be careful, using your alien abilities too much will cause the turrets to consider you alien and a dangerous Typhon would follow you thereon.
THIS isn’t a game which guides you around like a tender baby. This is a game where you have to find your way into and out of the rooms, searching for information and all your necessary equipment. This might not be a perfect game to many who prefer having destinations set and a linear way to solving a problem but to a person who loves character progression and solving the same thing in different ways just for the sake of experimentation, this is a now great and classic video game and something to reminisce in the coming future.
Crafting in this game goes like “Recycle, Fabricate, Repeat”: Always take all the items you can and recycle using one of the several recycler machines spread throughout the space station, Talos I. Use them in the Fabricator to build whatever is necessary ranging from bullets for your silenced pistol(More like your valentine) and shotgun and GLOO Cannon and medkits and everything else in between by collecting Fabricator plans first, which are usually very guarded and aren’t shown to you by default. You got to explore a lot baby!
Although the game plays out smoothly with a controller, the keyboard controls are favorable to many.
PC Requirements, Xbox One and PS4 Specifications:
PREY runs on the Xbox One at 900p with 30FPS and PS4 at 1080p with 30FPS.
The PC version obviously has “Basic Settings” and “Advanced Settings”:
Basic:
Advanced:
Apart from that, it runs pretty smoothly even on the lowest end cards on the lowest resolution and lowest settings so considering that, it’s pretty well optimized over most other games. On the PC, you can hit the FPS sky high, one limiting factor being your hardware.
This is just the official minimum requirements and recommended requirements listed below but it clearly is playable on my older GT 610 so you’re safe:
Minimum Requirements:
1. CPU: Intel i5–2400, AMD FX-8320
2. GPU: GTX 660 2GB, AMD Radeon 7850 2GB
3. Memory: 8 GB
Recommended Requirements:
1. CPU: Intel i7–2600K, AMD FX-8350
2. GPU: GTX 970 4GB, AMD R9 290 4GB
3. Memory: 16 GB
Final thoughts: While PREY isn’t exactly either a shooter or a stealth based game, it has both of them enough to satisfy you and keep you searching for more and more, delving deep into the secrets of the space station. It’s an homage to the great video games of old and surely is a potential cult classic.
