Prey

I recently played Prey, which is kind of an old release 2016, but considering I still do the Macarena it’s fairly current for me. It starts out in the usual fps tutorial way: you wake up and don’t have a clue what’s going on, but it’s okay because some disembodied “ally” voice is ready to guide you.

The graphics are great and the interface is fairly intuitive, and when you first run into those pesky mimics it is quite tense. Hint: always carry a turret with you.

The premise is .. well I’m not entirely sure. You start out thinking you’re on earth, even go for a little helicopter ride to the office because no one takes a taxi in San Francisco any more(?). But it turns out your on a space station that has been attacked by shape shifting alien space filth known as mimics.

The game is part puzzle, part shooter, part survival horror and the atmospherics, music and soundscape definitely make it an immersive experience. When I did my space walk I was actually concerned about floating off into nothingness.

However, it was shortly after that that I stopped playing. Maybe I quit too soon but following the spacewalk you’re given information that renders all future effort futile: your mission is to destroy the station, and you with it, to prevent the alien organism from reaching earth.

So that was it for me. Survival horror titles usually have that glimmer of hope that you’ll get out alive (even if you don’t). For me, this rendered continuing pointless.

And that’s it. Great looking game, battle dynamics are good, puzzles are logical, and maybe I quit too soon?

It would seem that perhaps I did: http://m.uk.ign.com/wikis/prey-2017/Endings