It's a shooter, Jim, but not as we know it
Now for a long time I’ve been gagging for a developer to start using their imagination and taking advantage of the platform they’re writing the game for, and perhaps Human Head have telepathically heard me as Prey almost knows no limits. Thinking way, way, way outside the box for FPS games, Prey takes all the traditional FPS concepts or run and gun, fits them into an alien environment and throws in a bit of Cherokee Indian dogma too.
A short distance into the game you visit the Spirit World where you meet up with your minced Grandfather (thankfully whole again), who fills you in on the Cherokee heritage you’ve been turning your back on all these years. He introduces you to Spirit Walking where you send your spirit out of your body, allowing you to get to inaccessible areas and walk through forcefields to enabling the physical you to progress, (once you’re back in ‘you’, that is).
Click for larger imageBut the whole spirit thing pales when you see what Human Head have done with the gravity. Now we’re all used to gravity going down, yeah? Well Human Head have taken that concept, but decided to see what happens when you can change which way ‘down’ is. Dotted around some areas are gravity pads: shoot one and that’s the way gravity falls. So if you’re at the bottom of a huge shaft and shoot a gravity pad on the wall, gravity shifts to the side and now the shaft is essentially a long corridor.
But just to keep you on your toes there’s gravity walkways too. These a glowing footpaths that, provided you stay on them, let you walk up the wall, across the ceiling and just about anywhere the footpath goes. Puzzles in the game will often involve a combination of switching gravity directions, activating the walkways and deactivating forcefields. But be careful, the aliens can turn the walkway whilst you’re on it, bringing you back down with a thump.
Click for larger imageThe really clever bit is how Human Head have decided to use the portals by not just placing them in obvious spots as a means to get somewhere else, but using them wherever they fancy as an integral part of the gameplay. For example, early on you enter a room with a small glob of rock in a display case. Over in the corner is a box with a portal and as you go through, you find yourself on the surface of a small asteroid… except the asteroid is actually that small rock you just passed by… you realise this when a humungous alien runs up and sees you in the case…
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