Prey. Is anyone buying it?

[Jericho]

Has anyone played the Prey demo, and is anyone buying the full game?

I'm in 2 minds.

Pros

1) The setting and aesthetic looks very nice. Almost art-deco space station.
2) The voice actor for the male protagonist sounds like Tim Kang (Kimble Chou from The Mentalist, probably the best character in the show).
3) Supposed to be an air of mystery.

Cons

1) The game looks just like Bioshock, even down the horrible gold onscreen prompts. It looks like a Bioshock fan mod.
2) It looks clunky. The engine just looks chunky and not smooth enough for a FPS.
3) I wonder if it is being mis-represented as a FPS when it is actually a bit more tactical/powers/horror.
4) Endless shooting of small black crab things. Doesn't really float my boat.

[matthewfarmery]

Got it wishlisted on steam, but not going to get it unless I seen some solid good reviews of the game.

[pjknibbs]

I don't buy games these days until I've seen the reviews, and probably not even then until it goes on sale, unless it's something I'm really looking forward to. This isn't one of those...

[Jericho]

I'm the same, waiting for the reviews tomorrow.

I just wish they continued with the bladerunner-esq bounty hunter in the alien city Prey 2. That looked gorgeous. Even the live action teaser trailer set on the airliner.

[Memnoch]

Bethesda did it again apparently, withholding press copies until the last minute so no-one can get a review out in time.

Fine, Bethesda. I'll just wait until some reviews appear.

[mrbadger]

We're all supposed to being good little mindless drones and making pre-orders, not waiting for silly things like actual unbiased (or at least non Bethdesa originated) information on the game....

I will admit to being interested, but I'm waiting till it's been out for a good long while.

[pjknibbs]

I just wish they continued with the bladerunner-esq bounty hunter in the alien city Prey 2.

I actually liked the original Prey. It had some really cool ideas in it--like the room where you're looking at a miniaturised globe, then you go through a portal, look up, and realise you're standing on the surface of that globe while an enormous alien looks down at you.

[Jericho]

Bethesda did it again apparently, withholding press copies until the last minute so no-one can get a review out in time.

Fine, Bethesda. I'll just wait until some reviews appear.

Indeed.
I don't really understand this practice. They can put a review embargo in place (But I guess that embargo lifts on the day of release? But surely they have to agree to the terms of their review copy?)

I think that Mass Effect Andromeda was my last ever pre-order. Such a disappointment....

That said, the new COD looks awesome. Might have to pre-order for the M1-Garand 'ping' ring tone

(Activision, if you're reading this, that was my idea, I own it)

[pjknibbs]

I don't really understand this practice.

When world, dog, and all the little fishies too will pre-order your game anyway, why do you need to please the reviewers?

[matthewfarmery]

I have picked up the game, while it's not got anything to do with the original game with the same name, (really should have used a new name)

Anyway, the PC version is pretty well done, (it does have some quirks like no FOV slider ( will be added in an upcoming patch) but you can turn off motion blur and change the FOV via the config file.

As for the game itself, it has a system shock 2 / bioshock fee to it. There are skill trees with a lot to unlock, (hacking, repairing, able to lift and carry more etc, Guns can be modded as well, only found a few so far.

Also, depending on your skills, there are several ways to approach a problem.

the first enemy you encounter is the mimic, able to become objects, fairly easy to kill on their own, but later you encounter much more powerful enemies.

So yeah, I'm enjoying the game, not got that far into it, but it sure does give me the system shock 2 vibes.

And PC, the PC version is pretty well done.

@Jericho

this is pretty much like a bioshock / SS2 game, so not really a FPS, so you need your wits to survive. I loved SS2, and this certainly floats my boat.

[Jericho]

@Jericho

this is pretty much like a bioshock / SS2 game, so not really a FPS, so you need your wits to survive. I loved SS2, and this certainly floats my boat.

Cool. I loved System Shock 2 (Right up until the moment the cyber-assassin things appeared, and then I just lost interest)

Shodan appearing scared the crap out of me.

[matthewfarmery]

To me, the game is a llot closer to SS2, ok the small mimics can be annoying, but trust me, once you meet the larger 2 legged enemies, then you need to change tactics, (even the deployable turrets aren't much use against them.

But the tech trees are interesting, with a lot of suit upgrades.

Spoiler

Show

Once you reach your office, you find some equipment that will make your life a bit easier)

But I'm digging the game, and has scared me in places. There is a lot to find and explore.

edit

The game is starting to have a large bug list attached to it, from items vanishing (if you pick something else from the floor) to quick saves no longer working for some reason, (game crashes) and a lot of other bugs. Seems the game was been poorly tested. which is a shame, as the game is really good, but some of the bugs are gamebreaking. probably best of holding off from getting it until there is a patch or two, but no word on that.

[BigBANGtheory]

I like the look of Prey and will I'm sure give it a go.

I just resent buying it early, paying full price for it to be in a 50% sale in 6months with all the bugs fixed. I'll take a look at it in the Autumn....

[silenced]

From what I've seen so far it seems like they 'borrowed' a lot of stuff from System Shock / System Shock 2 and BioShock. So far it looks interesting, but I will wait until it's on sale. For like 9€ or less.

On the other hand, I'm getting old and too slow for first person shooters ... it's ... geez. Don't even ask. ôÔ

[Memnoch]

It's a great game, I have to say. Very reminiscent of Bioshock and System Shock 2.

SS2 in particular as you get to wander the silent, and sometimes not, halls as the game allows you to revisit areas you have already visited many times as you progress the story.

Given that, in my eyes at least, this is a very good game I don't understand why they withheld press copies till the last minute. I could understand ifthey thought they had a turkey on their hands but this is anything but.

One word of caution though. There appears to be a nasty bug which causes items to be removed from your inventory but it only seems to kick in when you are towards what I assume is near the end of the story.

For me it happened when the

Spoiler

Show

Coral

has spread to the Arboretum. When I entered there I had a "good weapon". I visited the Bridge and came back and found my weapon had disappeared. It appears to be a known bug.

The only workaround is to do a manual save before visiting or leaving there and only proceed if no items have been removed. If they have reload the save and try the area transition again. It can happen multiple times and the item appears to be random.

[matthewfarmery]

Yes I did do an edit to mention that bug, as well as don't use quick saves either, as they can be corrupted. from one person on the steam forums has been contacted by support to say that a new patch is in the works, hopefully this week.

I think I will stop playing it until these bugs are fixed, very annoying to have some nasty bugs in the game.

I also don't understand why they withheld press copies, probably becauses this has nothing to do with the original game of the same name? and they thought it wasn't going to do well? who knows, the game is good if you like SS2, hopefully the devs will fix the annoying bugs.

[clakclak]

[...]
2) It looks clunky. The engine just looks chunky and not smooth enough for a FPS.[...]

Is it really the engine that is a fault here? Crysis did run pretty good using the CryEngine.

[matthewfarmery]

Just a heads up, a new patch in the beta branch has been released, it fixes the save corrupting bug, (at least it seems to, but I was unable to load a save that has been damaged.

full patch notes

​​A new update for Prey (v0.5) is now available via Steam as a Beta update – see below for instructions.

The Steam beta update v0.5 includes:
​Fix to prevent Save games from becoming corrupted. Fix also returns corrupted Save games to uncorrupted state.
----->Also addresses some additional crashes on map loads.
Hacking during the Power Plant reboot no longer causes the reboot to fail to complete.
Fix to prevent the Player from becoming stuck in certain circumstances.
Nightmares will now always search for the player once spawned.
Saving and Loading PC settings will now save correctly for users with special characters in their Windows usernames.
Numerous fixes to GLOO to prevent breaking and bypassing collision, prevent corpses from passing through walls and floors.
Updated Recycling to prevent infinite material creation.
Fix for occasional combat freeze when attacking Phantoms
Kaspar’s objective indicator should no longer disappear.
Updates to audio mix to adjust volume of music, audio logs, cutscenes.
Note - The public-beta-patch branch shares the same game Saves as the default branch. If a previously corrupted Save is fixed by switching to the public-beta-patch branch, switching back to the default branch will reintroduce the chance of corruption (this issue to be fixed in a future patch). If a Save file has been previously edited manually, it may not function properly.
Deletion of level.dat files may cause game progression to not function properly.

If you run into issues or have questions please let us know in the Bethesda.net forums here: https://bethesda.net/community/category ... eta-update

How to access the Steam Beta:
​Log into Steam.
Right Click on Prey in your Library.
Select Properties.
Select Betas.
A drop down menu will appear. Select public-beta-patch.
Select OK.
Wait for the game to update.
When done, Prey[public-beta-patch] should appear in our Library.
If it still appears only as “Prey” in your Library, repeat the above steps.

Thanks for your support!

the items disappearing from the inventory is still been looked into, so not included yet. Hopefully more bug fixes will be incoming, as the game still has some annoying bugs to deal with.

It is a good game, hopefully once the game is a bit less buggy, it will truly shine.

[Jericho]

Just a heads up, a new patch in the beta branch has been released, it fixes the save corrupting bug, (at least it seems to, but I was unable to load a save that has been damaged.

There is a huge stink over at IGN as they gave it a 4/10 on PC due to being unable to continue the review thanks to broken saves.

The forums have gone mental, calling the reviewer various names, and saying that the console version has the same issues so why give it a 4/10?

Now Gamespot has given the PS4 version 6/10, so not really a grand release.



I've heard the combat is weak but the story is good... Yet gamespot are saying that the story is thin...

Sigh, can't justify full price. Think I'll wait until the winter nights draw in and I can play it in the dark. Not much point playing a dark scary game with sunlight streaming through the windows at 9:30 pm.

[matthewfarmery]

Both review sites simply can't be trusted, yet they both give high scores to the likes of skyrim which was shallow, most of the COD and battlefield games and many others which end up been lame.

The problem is, review sites like IGN end up been biased especailly when they show adverts of a said game.

I really wouldn't take those scores seriously. Yes the combat is a bit weak, but it's also very strong in the way that you can play, again, if you like system shock 2, this is a must buy, granted it will not appeal to everything. But anyway, giving the game a 4 simply due to a bug isn't right at all, hell skyrim had loads of bugs, even the PS3 version was broken on release.

If you read the steam forums, most are in favour of the game, whoever reviewed the game for IGN clearly didn't like the game, or isn't a SS2 fan. But really, I wouldn't take the review seriously.

edit
Drat, the save corrupting bug is still present, so its clearly not fixed. guess I'm going to have to put the game onhoad for a bit longer.