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March 28, 2024, 10:11:00 AM

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Prey (2017)

Started by Blue Jam, May 01, 2017, 01:02:57 PM

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Blue Jam

Quote from: biggytitbo on November 29, 2018, 02:05:30 PMas it is games like Prey and Deus Ex are dying a death because people just don't buy them.

To anyone who enjoys games like Prey and Day o'Sex: I'd recommend you give Control a try. Nothing really new and groundbreaking but the world of that gane is beautiful, the combat is immensely satisfying, and it just gets everything right.

Hiya biggy mate if you're out there

bgmnts

I would also recommend Control but I wouldn't say it's much like either of those games.

It has the Remedy weirdness and charm, though and the maze bit alone is worth it. Games like Prey and Dishonoured and Deus Ex are their own beasts entirely.

Mister Six

Shit, I still haven't got around to playing Dishonored after picking it up cheap.

Stigdu

I haven't played either of the Dishonoured games (or Thief) as well.... Feel like I'm missing out, but there are so many games on my list to play, feels like I probably never will.

Blue Jam

Played the first Thief, was a bit underwhelmed, didn't finish it. Played Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider and enjoyed them, but they're not a patch on Prey even if it is pretty fair to call that game "Dishonored in space".

Played the Bioshock remaster over lockdown and just couldn't get into it. I feel like I owed it more of a chance given its obvious influence on Prey but I just found the combat unsatisfying, and it seemed very "on rails", though I guess it's just of its time and I'm being unfair.

Still waiting for the System Shock reboot, where the fuck is it?

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 04, 2022, 09:12:59 PMTo anyone who enjoys games like Prey and Day o'Sex: I'd recommend you give Control a try. Nothing really new and groundbreaking but the world of that gane is beautiful, the combat is immensely satisfying, and it just gets everything right.

Hiya biggy mate if you're out there
It's also perpetually on sale in the Steam store, so I ought to give it a bash.

Zetetic

I feel that Epic has given it away multiple times.

My attempts to play it mostly came up against it not getting everything right and crashing repeatedly in inscrutable ways.

evilcommiedictator

Had trouble with Control tbh - got so lost so many times and felt navigation was just frustrating. Got the "throw stuff at people" skill, and it didn't excite me as much as it did for everyone else.

Need to finish my "alternate" Prey playthrough and then try the DLC.

Mobius

Yeah the map is really shit in Control. It's easy to get lost and run in circles.

Control is fun in short burst, but I think I like the idea and concept of it more than actually playing it. I get a bit bored reading all the notes and things you find, and you do seem to just use the same move over and over, against identical looking enemies.

Looks great though, and has a cool style. I started getting quests that were "run through areas you've already been" which got on my tits.

Prey is a bit the same to me. I used to love RPGs, reading dialogue, but now I just feel to lazy to read all the emails and books and things you can interact with.

Mister Six

The DLC is so good. I might reset my progress and just play it through again when I'm done with Yakuza.

Pink Gregory

Drifting out to the fucked shuttle from the Arboretum, seeing your tiny shadow against the panels of Talos 1, realising that you've drifted down almost the entire length of the station and now you need to climb back up.

Can't think of any other game that gives you such a sense of sheer scale.

This might honestly be their greatest game.

Mister Six

*be the greatest game.

Pink Gregory

#102
God damn the noise of walking around on a fracture is horrible.

What I am impressed by is that, partly through my own choice in not taking on that many Typhon powers, the various Typhon organisms are still proper scary if you don't come prepared.  Went back through the GUTS to get back to the Hardware Labs to finish a task and it's thrilling trying to glide past a Technopath that's just hanging out down there before it zaps your propulsion system and you careen into the walls in zero gravity.

Pink Gregory

Went all the way back to the Hardware Labs from the Crew Quarters, through the GUTS again, outrunning cystoids and technopaths barely scraping by, in order to get the fabrication plans for Q Beam cells, because that's what I've ended up using/upgrading. 

Got that done, thought 'hang on, there's a hull breach in the Crew Quarters, I can spacewalk there from the Hardware Labs'.  So I drift halfway up the station, using up all my Q-Beam cells on two technopaths that are just hanging around outside and flinging me off into space, I find the breach, manage to bypass a third technopath and get into the rooms to find...the fabrication plan for Q-Beam Cells.

Pink Gregory

Finiiiished.


WHAT A FUCKING GAME.

Mister Six


Pink Gregory

Collecting my thoughts...

Loved it, feels like a really singular statement for something as usually flexible as the immersive sims that it's clearly emulating; there's not really anywhere I can think of in which something could be noticeably improved, which is rare.

It's clearly a triumph of level design, while it doesn't quite have the sense of place of its predecessors and isn't that original in its environment design in and of itself, the contiguous nature of the station - especially once you're able to hop in and out of the airlocks or the GUTS - creates this same continuity in the playing of the game.  You don't just go to one place, do one contextual thing and then leave forever.

I played on Hard, so for a surprisingly long period combat was tense, imprecise and nervy; even towards the end being faced with more than one Phantom at once was a challenge, god forbid a techno/telepath.  Of course being a pack rat I ended up with a fully upgraded Q-Beam, Gloo Cannon and apparently 155 consumed neuromods, but I think that's more of a me problem.  It wouldn't make sense that there wouldn't be enough materials on Talos 1, so while I'm going hog with the fabricator I can't really find fault in it.

The fabricator/recycler are fascinating wrinkles in what is a game of, at least partly, resource management.  Even if you end up with stuff you don't use, throw it in the recycler, fabricate something you want. I can hardly believe that it took so long in the glut of crafting mechanics in games for something so elegant to appear.  What this manages to do as well is encourage exploration for its own sake rather than dungeon diving for loot, as it were.  I genuinely was interested in seeking out the scattered crew, and they're rarely have anything on them other than a bit of ammunition and a banana.

Arkane really upped their game in the writing and voice acting for this one as well.  Compared to the perfunctory plotting and script that peoples my beloved Dishonored, Prey is bursting with fascinating little stories that are usually only hinted at, and are largely of no gameplay consequence.  This is that fabled thing, worldbuilding.  At the centre, an admittedly fairly binary but genuine ethical dilemma, although I appreciate the unhurried nature of the largest parts of the game.  Not entirely sure about the post-credits bit and the fairly clunky  'here are the actions you took' exposition though, especially when the 'choice' elements of thr game aren't especially telegraphed or are a choice between playing some more of the game and...not?

I don't know how much of a re-player it is, but it's very near the apex of my 20+ years playing games.  Bit disappointed that I'm not especially interested in Deathloop, but I'll take 3 exemplary games from Arkane and that'll do me.

Blue Jam

Through the G.U.T.S? You didn't fix the lift then?

;)

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 28, 2022, 03:12:51 PMThrough the G.U.T.S? You didn't fix the lift then?

;)

I did!  I still took the G.U.T.S sometimes because it was often safer than trying to get through the middle of the lobby.

Blue Jam

You're a fan of the Nerf gun huh?

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 28, 2022, 03:28:00 PMYou're a fan of the Nerf gun huh?

I forgot about it after a while but it filled me with joy for a bit.  I never found a reliable way of dealing with the poltergeists so sneaking into a dark room, firing off squeaky little bolts (and the crossbow lololololol) was surprisingly tense.

Blue Jam


Lost Oliver

Picked this up for 4 quid from CEX and am loving it. I'm dying all the time but it's got something special about it. Haven't picked up a nerf gun yet somehow. I've just made it to the Arboretum so maybe it's around there?

Pink Gregory

Quote from: Lost Oliver on July 29, 2022, 08:54:57 AMPicked this up for 4 quid from CEX and am loving it. I'm dying all the time but it's got something special about it. Haven't picked up a nerf gun yet somehow. I've just made it to the Arboretum so maybe it's around there?

i got mine in the hardware labs, but there are a number of terminals elsewhere where you can pick up the fabrication plan.

Blue Jam

I think there's one in the
Spoiler alert
Crew Quarters
[close]
as well

Ferris

Got mine from
Spoiler alert
the lab
[close]
if memory serves. Really clever bit of gaming:
Spoiler alert
took me ages to figure out you can use it to press buttons/open doors you can't reach!
[close]

Famous Mortimer

I'm having fun with it, but perhaps it's my mindset while playing, but I assume there's a way past everything, and I've just found my first Technopath. It seems a little on the tough side at the moment, so maybe back the other way for a bit.

Mister Six

Oh yeah. My tried and trusted method of fixing up turrets to deal with all problems rapidly became tried and untrusted.

God, I really should play through it again. What a game!

Blue Jam

Quote from: Mister Six on November 23, 2022, 05:11:27 PMOh yeah. My tried and trusted method of fixing up turrets to deal with all problems rapidly became tried and untrusted.

You having fun with the Typhon powers then? ;)

Mister Six

I actually didn't get any Typhon powers except one that I needed to get into a room blocked by rubble, due to my compulsion to see every part of the map. Of course that proved bloody stupid as there wasn't much good stuff in there, and I missed out on the achievement for only having non-Typhon upgrades.

Can't remember how I beat it. Might have just been a lot of desperate running and gunning.