Prey Preview

The E3 presentation of Human Head Studios' first-person shooter Prey was rather brief, but it threw some more light on the game, which has now spent several years in development. Prey was first announced several years ago, when it was under development by 3D Realms. The work on the game has now been continued, with 3D Realms supervising the project. The game has obviously lived through many changes during its progress, so we were finally able to get a hint of what a near-to-final version of the game would look like. Prey is a Doom 3 engine-powered game. When it comes to the narrative, only several details have been revealed, so I'll spill a few words on it. The game's main protagonist is Tommy Hawk (Not Tony), who has been abducted by an alien spacecraft along with other people and objects in the bar he was sitting in. This proves to be only the beginning of Tommy's pains, as he ends up fighting against several alien races. (This happens an awful lot in New Mexico, and the news often reports on it. I am no way creative enough to make this up. - Smap)

I "prey" the game won't just look good.

A Native American super-soldier? Leave it to 3D Realms to come up with wacky ideas for video games.

The detail that introduces a lot of dynamics into the gameplay are transport portals, which allow Tommy to access different areas in the game. These portals also allow his enemies to spawn through them, and when Tommy enters the portal whatever may be lurking on the other side will come after him. This provides a variety of different environments to fight in, but it also serves for raising the tension significantly. Every environment demands that Tommy plays according to its rules, meaning the gravity will sometimes change significantly and thus allow Tommy to use it to his advantage. Our hero is prone to taking a nice walk up the wall whenever the gravity allows him to. Floors turn into ceilings and back into floors again, allowing Tommy to engage in combat, which literally plays all over the place. This could help make the combat more intense and engaging, allowing for more freedom in fighting the alien scum. (I've already said a couple of times, and I'll say it again: I cannot understand why the aliens are always the evil ones. Judging from my experience, humans are always to blame).

Not only does the variety of different environments with a different gravitational pull have a positive influence on the combat dynamics, but it also creates some rather bizarre situations. The major part of the game takes place on the alien ship, but Prey will support both indoor and outdoor combat, allowing the player to immerse themselves in corridor as well as open-space combat. What's also good for raising the tension may be the fact we are to expect highly destructible terrain. Now, it may be true that the entire concept of warping time and space isn't exactly new, but it seems it has been used in quite a refreshing fashion, allowing for quite a unique gaming experience.

Prey features a world where normal rules do not apply (I guess everything's gone to hell the instance Tommy's been sucked up by the alien spacecraft), so Tommy will be defying laws of gravity quite a lot, and moving in environments that may at first cause dizziness. In some cases, the physical puzzles are solved by making use of the specific laws of gravity, like in the demonstrated scene of switching the specific button in order to rotate the room. Game demonstration also allowed us to understand the possibility of making use of gravity by presenting our hero shooting at different sections of a cube in order to rotate it. Pressing the switches or shooting them is thus the key to manipulating the environment. I guess you're getting the general idea behind this concept. A small part of the presentation was also dedicated to Tommy piloting a shuttle, engaged in a dogfight with alien shuttles.

Apart from being able to walk up walls, Tommy also has a connection with an Indian spirit, which serves as his spiritual guide. Tommy communicates with the spirit in order to obtain an out-of-body state, which allows his spirit to leave his body and access areas that are out of Tommy's reach. When in this state, Tommy can also perform other things that he isn't able to do in his corporeal form. Still, he is allowed to eliminate his enemies in this form as well, so this makes for quite an interesting concept. The most interesting thing about it may be the fact our main protagonist cannot die. If he is killed, for example, in the middle of a battle, he transcends into his spirit form and continues to move in the spiritual world, fulfilling different challenges and fighting his way back into his material form. He will, however, be able to continue right where he left off, as his shift from the spiritual to the material world will put him back in the exact moment he was killed.

As far as combat is concerned, we're expecting to see some smooth action in which Tommy will demonstrate the excellence of his combat skills. The enemies themselves are nicely designed, with some of them looking rather terrifying, while some happened to be quite bizarre or decorated with some nasty-looking accessories. Most of them are just alien freaks, but there are some that look really intimidating (whoever it was that said size didn't matter should take a look at these babies). The AI seemed solid overall, with different enemy strategies and reactions to be seen, but I guess there are still ways to go before the proper AI code is in place. Some monsters were suicidal, while some displayed a solid amount of combat tactics. Finally, most weapons have the futuristic, biomechanical feel about them. There were several weapons shown, such as the futuristic rifle or the bizarre crab-like objects that were used both as grenades and as ammunition for a rocket-launcher type weapon. There is also a bow-and-arrow type of weapon, which Tommy uses in his spiritual form. This may sound weird but it actually isn't - the addition of a futuristic bow seemed quite nice.

As for the graphics, Prey looks really promising; featuring nicely designed and very detailed environments and neat special effects. There are some resemblances to Doom 3 (it uses the Doom 3 engine, after all), but although there seems to be some familiar material the game does not seem to be a blatant copy. Prey does not have the dark feeling of Doom 3, in the sense it is much easier to see where you are and what you're doing. The dark undertone is present as an underlying element, so you won't be spending most of your time stumbling in the dark. The levels can indeed boast with some nice design, making for the rather impressive visuals.

All in all, Prey seems to be an intriguing title, and the whole concept sounds very exciting. The atmosphere seems right, verging somewhere between pure, adrenaline action and horror. There are some very effective scenes, such as the one with two kids locked in a room where an "evil spirit" takes control of the girl, consequently killing the boy. The air of mysticism introduced by the native Indian symbolism strangely seems to work, making an interesting blend with the futuristic core of the game.

It's encouraging that things have started moving in the right direction once again, but let's not jump the gun here - Prey is scheduled for release in 2006, and many things may still change by then.