Hands-On: Prey -- Page 2

Strange Days
The game takes place on a massive alien mothership call "The Sphere," an organic living creature stretched across a sun-like central energy core. The single-player demo we saw showed moments from early in the game, and showed the protagonist--Tommy--moments after arriving on the ship.

It was immediately clear Prey is an unconventional shooter built upon traditional FPS fundamentals. For instance, you can't actually die in Prey. When you health hits zero, you'll "Death Walk" to a phantom world where you must slay squid-like apparitions before re-entering your body, recharged and ready for action. Another key concept in Prey is "Spirit Walking." By casting your spirit out of your body, you can scout ahead into dangerous territory, ambush enemies with a deadly spiritual bow-and-arrow, pass through impenetrable barriers, and access hidden areas.

But when it comes to strange gameplay conventions, the centerpiece has got to be Prey's portal technology. In one level, you must navigate a disorienting "mirror maze," in which you can actually see yourself running through the hallway (it's almost as confusing as it sounds). But Prey's technology allows for more than just mind-bending camera tricks. In some levels, the gravity will shift to the ceiling, or the wall. It's not as disorienting as it might sound, and running up the walls and onto the ceiling often proves to provide a distinct tactical advantage in tough firefights.

Unconventional Weaponry
As Tommy made his way through the living mothership--which bore a distinct similarity to an inflamed intestinal tract--we got a closer look at the game's arsenal. Despite the glistening, gooey appearance of the weapons, it was clear that they were all modeled after well-known FPS standards...with a twist.

The Hunter Rifle, which combined attributes of a chaingun and a sniper rifle, inflicted only moderate damage on enemies but was handy for precision shooting. Far cooler was the Leech Gun, a unique device that could suck energy from nearby power sources and spit it out in a variety of ways: a freezing mist, gobs of super-heated plasma, a bolt of lightning, or a blinding laser beam. Another standout was dubbed the Acid Sprayer, and its primary attack worked much like a close-quarters shotgun. But the alternative fire expended an entire vial of acid with one shot, a dose powerful enough to melt any foe--human or alien--in a nanosecond.

Other weapons were more organic in nature. The Crawler is actually a small, spider-like organism that could work either like a grenade or a proximity mine, depending on how many legs you ripped off. The Crawler Launcher was a step up, and functioned much like a typical rocket launcher. The secondary fire emitted a semi-permeable, gooey riot shield that deflected enemy bullets.

Predator and Prey
As we plunged deeper into the single-player game, we got a closer look at some previously-unseen enemies. We saw a sneaky beast called the Vomitor, a living booby-trap that squirts acid and body parts at passerby. We also noticed hairlike cilia clustered throughout the mothership; triggering one would cause small, gooey beasts to come out of the walls and attack. Rhinehart pointed out that these beasts were the ship's antibodies, but they went down quickly with a few whacks from Tommy's blood-soaked wrench. Other standouts included shambling, partially-digested human drones that reminded us of the Stroggified marines from the end of Quake 4. They went down easy.

Tommy also clashed with Predator-like Hunter aliens, which served as the primary foot soldiers onboard the mothership. Still, we were disappointed that we didn't see more of the game's oddball enemies. Where were the demonic children and the big, ugly alien baddies from the E3 demo? Maybe next time.

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