Conclusion

Visuals

Since the game is using the Doom 3 engine as its basis, there is little question that Prey looks terrific, with some detailed character models, weapons, and environments. While Doom 3 had some organic visuals, Prey ups the bio-mechaniod like art style to the nth-degree here. The portions of the demo in the alien ship show the alien flesh intergrated with the metal portions seamlessly and can offer up some really weird setting for the game. Likewise, visual effects like fire, weapons effects and lighting are all top notch. The game ran pretty smoothly on my rather run of the mill PC (2.2 GHz Pentium 4 with an NVIDIA 6800 video card) so it looks like you won’t need that Quad SLI set up to check out the game.

Multiplayer

On top of the first five levels of the single player portion of Prey (we took about 45 minutes to complete it), this demo also has two deathmatch levels. In addition to all of the weapons in the single player game the deathmatch levels give you access to even more weapons, including Prey’s version of a grenade launcher and rocket launcher (both with biomechanical elements), and the game’s equivalent of a chain gun that fires tons of the weapon’s rounds at once. While we wish that the game had more gameplay modes than deathmatch, what may really save Prey’s multiplayer from the norm is the use of the gravity and portals that are in the single player game. Simply put, players who are used to deathmatch games in Quake III Arena and UT 2004 will have to deal with levels that can flip you sideways and upside down, and portal you to locations instantly. It should be something to see an enemy launching a grenade at you while he or she is standing upside down (or is that you that is upside down?).

Other Features

Human Head and 3D Realms have taken some lessons from Valve in their gameplay approach to Prey. The single player demo doesn’t use pre-rendered cut scenes but in-game engine scenes to set up the storyline and then takes you directly to the game itself. While you will still see load screens after each level, they are fairly short and don’t break up the pace of the game too much. The voice acting and music is also quite solid and the use of classic rock tunes gives the game a different feel in the audio department. One interesting thing is the use of well known radio personality Art Bell (at the moment retired) as a voice in the game. Bell was known for his programs about, among other things, alien conspiracies on Earth and the use of his voice in a portion of the demo game was entertaining and somewhat surreal.

Conclusion

If the rest of Prey’s single player campaign is as entertaining and unique as the demo’s first five levels, the long, long wait for this title may be worth it. Once again, we have not revealed everything you will see and do in the demo to keep the surprise up so on Wednesday night/Thursday morning (depending on your time zone) you can safely download it without having to worry that you already know everything about it. I think its an excellent way to introduce the game to its intended audience and makes me want to play the full version ASAP to find out what happens next. In the end that’s exactly what the best demos are supposed to do.