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Prey Demo Preview June 20, 2006 John JCal Callaham |
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Summary: JCal snags early time with the Prey demo, giving his impressions (and minor spoilers) of the content in the upcoming download, as well as 43 screenshots of this Doom 3-powered baby.
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 4 ) |
The demos at both E3s concentrated on the game’s visuals, which were impressive for the time period. They were fully 3D levels (at a time when 3D was still a relatively new feature in first person shooters) with impressive looking character models. The biggest feature was the use of “portals”, which in the game were tears in space-time that allowed for some cool visual tricks in the game like making a room bigger on the inside that it was on the outside.
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Unfortunately, the 3D Realms version of Prey didn’t come to fruition. Schuytema as the game’s main leader departed 3D Realms a few months after E3 1998 and it seemed like the game was lost forever, especially since the company concentrated on the still unreleased Duke Nukem Forever, and helping other developers with their games, most notably Remedy with their third person action game Max Payne.
And then in 2005 an unexpected turn of events occurred as 3D Realms officially announced that Prey was in development once again, this time with the development team of Human Head Studios (Rune, Dead Man’s Hand) at the main helm and 2K Games as its publisher. Oddly enough the actual storyline and gameplay from 3D Realms’ original stab at the title seemed to have been maintained, right down to the portal visual effects. In a bit of a surprise, 3D Realms and Human Head elected to license the Doom 3 engine from rival developer id Software as the graphical basis for the game. At E3 2005 I got to see the new version of Prey running in a live single player demo and it looked terrific. Once again, however, the E3 2005 demo was under control by Human Head team members and I didn’t get to actually play the game. At E3 2006 last month Prey was in playable form but only in the deathmatch multiplayer potions of the game. Once again, actually playing the single player game of Prey was but a dream.
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That isn’t the case anymore, however. Thanks to the nice folks at Human Head, 3D Realms, 2K Games and the Distream digital download service, I finally got a chance to play the first small portion of the single player campaign in Prey. It’s the same content that everyone else will have access to when the official demo of the game is released to the world. It’s certainly one of the more impressive demos of a game I have played in a long while.
This article will give you some impressions of the single player demo along with what is contained in the multiplayer portion as well (two deathmatch-team deathmatch levels will also be included). Since everyone else will get to play this demo very soon I will not be giving away everything I saw or did in the demo version, and the screenshots of the demo that accompany this preview only show the first two of the five levels in the demo. We'd rather not spoil all the fun. If you'd rather not get even these bare plot details, you may wish the skip the next page.
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| The Beginning | Page:: ( 2 / 4 ) |
You might want to wander around the bar in the first level. As 3D Realms did in Duke Nukem 3D and later in Shadow Warrior the bar has a bunch of interactive elements, from a working jukebox that cranks out rock tunes from Ted Nugent and Heart among other bands, through a TV that has a couple of odd looking black and white films, to bar games like poker that you can actually play. There’s even an arcade game with a subject that is sure to please fans of Human Head’s first game.
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Things get dicey when the last two people in the bar get fresh with Jen and Tommy (that’s you) breaks out the pipe wrench (Prey’s default weapon) to do some seriously bloody work on the offensive bar patrons. That’s nothing, however, compared to what’s about to happen next. An alien spaceship hovers over the bar and begins to fire green beams of light that teleport pieces of the bar and finally Jen, Grandfather and yourself up to the ship itself. That’s where the first level ends.
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The second level begins as you find yourself locked in a conveyance on the vast alien ship, along with Jen and Grandfather. You are moved around to several locations in the conveyance and see some members of the unnamed alien race, which are indeed some of the most detailed and perhaps grotesque (but in a good way) aliens ever seen in a first person shooter. It looks as if you and the other humans are toast, but while moving around someone on the ship seems to be an ally of your cause. He manages to sabotage your particular cart and you fall into the bowels of the ship, while Jen and Grandfather are taken to another location. Armed at this point with your wrench you begin your quest to free your extended family. As the demo goes on through the rest of the single player potion, you encounter not just various types of aliens (both intelligent and animal) but also some weird space time warps, switching gravity in the ship itself and discover that maybe your Grandfather had it right all along and that your heritage may be the way to not just saving Jen but the entire human race.
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| Weapons, Aliens | Page:: ( 3 / 4 ) |
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One other aspect to the game is the “spirit mode” which is hinted at in the beginning of the demo and is finally revealed later on. Again, while not giving everything away, the spirit mode will allow you to not only go through certain obstacles as well as another kind of attack but will actually be a sort of replacement for dying in the game. Human Head and 3D Realms have come up with a rather unique way on dealing with your character dying that doesn’t have anything to do with just saving a game and loading up the last save point. In fact it’s so unique that we won’t spoil it for you.
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As far as the aliens you have to face, Prey does keep you on your toes. Yes, there are the expected aliens with big guns, but there are also some creatures, like the ones you face at the beginning of the demo, that just want to eat you. You will also have to deal with some humanoid zombie-like creatures that sometimes won’t stay down. One of the cooler things about Prey is that you have to deal with some biological environmental threats as well, from tendrils that come of the walls to openings that spew toxic waste that can seriously hurt you. There’s even a kind of biological version of the toxic barrel that can explode that is seen in tons of other first person shooters. However, there’s more to this feature than at first glance.
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And what about the ship itself? The Prey demo doesn’t disappoint here either. In addition to the portals that can transport you from one portion of a level to another instantly, you also have to deal with pathways that make you walk sideways and upside down, and you can even move certain portions of levels around by firing at specially placed locations. Enemies even use portals to make surprise entrances. The level designers at Human Head clearly had a field day coming up with some unique puzzle like situations in the game and moving around through the portals definitely messes with your head. People who get dizzy easily might want to approach playing the demo with some caution, but for everyone else the portals and other perspective tricks in Prey will offer up some interesting challenges. By the way, the game has just one level of difficulty at first which is supposed to adjust to your game style. While this was not available in the demo version, once you complete the entire game in normal mode it will unlock the supposedly miuch tougher “Cherokee” difficultly level.
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| Conclusion | Page:: ( 4 / 4 ) |
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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?).
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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.
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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.
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