Prey!

[Renzatic Gear]

Oh man, oh man, oh man.

I was expecting more than a bit from this, the neat portal features and the ability to play with gravity made it seem neat from what I saw of it. But what you actually get once you start delving into it a bit more...well, you won't be prepared. They really took what was a neat little feature and throttled it.

First off, I'll get the bad out of the way. The combat itself is pretty bog standard Quake 4. The AI is decent, but it's basically just a point and shoot affair.

But what offsets this completely are the enviroments. Walking on walls and ceilings, flipping your center of gravity around, going through portals that can reorient you completely (like walking straight into a portal will end up dropping you down an elevator shaft or throw you upside down on the ceiling of the same room), it gives everything a new sheen and changes the gameplay completely. You have to worry about enemies coming at you from 360 degrees, kinda like Descent was back in the day, but far weirder and occasionally more disorienting. Needless to say I got a huge kick out of it.

And of course the graphics. You can tell it's running on the Doom 3 engine, but it's so much sharper and higher poly than either D3 or Quake 4 ever was. The textures are better, the polycount is much higher, and it's just pretty overall. And yet despite all this it somehow manages to run better than Q4...I guess Id and 3D Realms have been busy tweaking the hell out of everything.

I honestly can't say enough good things about it. I got something far better than what I was expecting, and the game really shines. The only constant bad thing most people are saying about it is that it has the tendancy to make some people seasick...and that's AWESOME!

If you haven't already, go out and grab the demo.

[Renzatic Gear]

This'll give SBS a huge kick...Art Bell has a cameo in the game. During one part you hear a guy calling up Art and giving him a report on all the strange lights and flying objects being spotted throughout his hometown. It's an interesting little touch, specially since it happens shortly after your abduction.

I also like how the jukebox skips and starts playing Don't Fear The Reaper during the abduction scene. The game is filled with awesome little bits like that.

[BoyVsCar]

Sweet... I have RDP'd into my home workstation and started downloading this so it's ready when I get home.

RG, what's your systems configuration?

[Renzatic Gear]

I have an:

Athlon 64 3200+
1 Gig Corsair XMS Pro PC3200 DDR
Asus Geforce 7900GT 256
AC'97 Soundcard

It's more than a decent machine, so if you're up to my spces you won't have any problems running the game at all.

[Renzatic Gear]

I can't believe it...I've gone all this time without posting a single screenshot.

THAT I SHALL REMEDY!

This is the first really trippy part you come across. Notice that half the room is set sideways to how I'm standing (http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/prey1.jpg)

So I walk up to that portal and look into it. And I see myself looking into the portal I'm standing in front of... (http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/prey2.jpg)

WHO IS UPSIDE DOWN? (http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/prey3.jpg)

This one isn't particularly weird, it just shows how much better the textures and lighting are in Prey in comparison to D3 and Quake 4 (http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/prey4.jpg)

There are plenty more than just that, and supposedly there's much weirder in stock in the main game. There's actually one part where you can follow yourself through portals over and over again in a neverending circle. It's cool as hell.

[BaneNWN]

Heard nothing about this game at all.Damn it looks like something i could get into.going to download the demo now and if i like it buy it.

[BaneNWN]

This'll give SBS a huge kick...Art Bell has a cameo in the game. During one part you hear a guy calling up Art and giving him a report on all the strange lights and flying objects being spotted throughout his hometown. It's an interesting little touch, specially since it happens shortly after your abduction.

I also like how the jukebox skips and starts playing Don't Fear The Reaper during the abduction scene. The game is filled with awesome little bits like that.

I listen to art bell everynight well actually its george nory now but art bell still does shows on weekends.I been a long time listener of his for about 10 years.anyone whos interested in ufo's,ghosts,bigfoot stuff like that really should listen to the show.The show can get quite freaky like one night at 2 am in the morning im driving down a dark road and the show was playing recordings of exorcism's i about sh$t myself

[BaneNWN]

Oh man, oh man, oh man.

I was expecting more than a bit from this, the neat portal features and the ability to play with gravity made it seem neat from what I saw of it. But what you actually get once you start delving into it a bit more...well, you won't be prepared. They really took what was a neat little feature and throttled it.

First off, I'll get the bad out of the way. The combat itself is pretty bog standard Quake 4. The AI is decent, but it's basically just a point and shoot affair.

But what offsets this completely are the enviroments. Walking on walls and ceilings, flipping your center of gravity around, going through portals that can reorient you completely (like walking straight into a portal will end up dropping you down an elevator shaft or throw you upside down on the ceiling of the same room), it gives everything a new sheen and changes the gameplay completely. You have to worry about enemies coming at you from 360 degrees, kinda like Descent was back in the day, but far weirder and occasionally more disorienting. Needless to say I got a huge kick out of it.

And of course the graphics. You can tell it's running on the Doom 3 engine, but it's so much sharper and higher poly than either D3 or Quake 4 ever was. The textures are better, the polycount is much higher, and it's just pretty overall. And yet despite all this it somehow manages to run better than Q4...I guess Id and 3D Realms have been busy tweaking the hell out of everything.

I honestly can't say enough good things about it. I got something far better than what I was expecting, and the game really shines. The only constant bad thing most people are saying about it is that it has the tendancy to make some people seasick...and that's AWESOME!

If you haven't already, go out and grab the demo.

Ya i tried the demo and i have to say that ya the combat is pretty standard but the guns are a blast to play with.Kinda cool how you can pick up this little crab mutant and throw it and it explodes green poison all over your enemy.I will deffinetley be getting it.The art bell bit was pretty good lol.This is the kind of game ive been waiting for a ufo invasion type game and adding art bell for his little tidbit made it seem authentic.

[DBS]

It sounds like a good pick up. I have not bought Q4 so this might take that spot sometime. For now I have enough fps to finish first....

[Mochan]

Prey is out already?

Anyway if it runs fine on your PC, it should run fine on mine.

[Mochan]

Renz, are you playing with AF? It doesn't seem like it's on.

[BaneNWN]

Prey is out already?

Anyway if it runs fine on your PC, it should run fine on mine.

It runs alot better for me then doom 3 and quake 4 its silky smooth at 1280/1024 so mochan you will beable to run with all eye candy turned on im sure.

[Renzatic Gear]

Renz, are you playing with AF? It doesn't seem like it's on.

I have it set to 2x, which it defaults to. I never bother with setting AA and AF...kind of a throwback to my Radeon 9800Pro days.

[Mochan]

Ah ok. No wonder the floors liked unfiltered. Default of 2x doesn't really make much difference from no AF at all. I usually play at 4x - not as sharp as 8x but the difference is palpable and performance hit is negligible.

Renz, you may want to bump your default AF to 4x; your card should be able to handle any game at 4x with no hitches. In fact, you can do most games at 8x (and many at 16x -- some of the heavier ones show some substantial slowdown though at 8x, that's why I default mine to 4x).

Well I will check this game out soon. My only regret is that we just moved houses, so I have no internet right now (I'ma nswering from work as usual). Since I haven't seen it in shops here yet, and no internet, I won't be able to get my hands on this for a while.