Prey(And the Prey Demo)

[Mr Bean]

Ok Prey... Prey is going to be an intresting game people. One because it has a rather odd story, combined with pretty graphics(Doom 3 engine) and fun physics tricks.

The story however I will mention first.
You are a Native American, congradulatiosn this is your first major apperence in a video game. Go equal representation! Sadly your not a superhero or anything. Your an out of luck, broke down repair mechanic. And you get to start the game in a broke down, shitty bar. The kind you only go in to drink to forget.

Skip some story expostion but let me tell you that it's kinda clunky(HL2:Episode one has officaly spoiled me as far as well done story exposition goes) Let me say that Grandpa is an odd bird, toss that in there.

And let me tell you, the broke down shitty bar? Looks just like a real broke down shitty bar! Inculding a rather futuristic looking jutebox, with old crappy 70's 80's bands in it. But a few notable songs as well. It's a nice touch. And hey they have Don't Fear the Reaper so I'm happy.

Cue the first story stupidity.
Ok we have two drunk rednecks on an Indian reservation, and they are hitting on your girlfriend and being pretty damn raciest at the same time.
...How these Darwin award winners got here I don't know. Being a racistist dumbass on an INDIAN reservation with something like a 95% NA poplulation, and oh the COPS are NA as well! That's pretty much the equivlant of a KK rally in Harlem equivlancy of stupidy.
But anyway, them bad, you angrey loser. So you bash their fucking heads in.. I kid you not, you have what looks like a solid 25 pound all metal allen wrench and you @#$% cave their skulls in with it, when they bare-knuckle attack you.

Anyway, so with that fight out of the way(And your GF lamely saying that you "could" have killed them.. I'm kinda sure I did) it's time for the Alien invasion!

And damn is it well done.

I'll skip the rest of the intial on a rail fun in the ship besides to mention that the NPC helper who saves you is odd to say the least. And I'll toss in the fact that it looks like they are abuducting humans for the sole purpose of turning us into McAlien meals. I kid you not, that's what it looks like to me by number of mutliated corpses laying around and the giant tubes of metal near obvious proccessing area.

So you escape, start smashing in alien heads in with your wrench, then with a crappy Alien Assualt Rifle. Then living alien grenades, and then the Leech gun. Which I might add is a nice addition to say the least. You "leech" off diffrent colored little vents around. Leech a purple one and you have your own medic gun. Red you have a insane ROF Plasama gun. Ice you have a freeze shotgun and so on.

Also worth mentioning is the alien portal technology. Let me say, it's a head trip when combined with the alien's gravity technology. Inculding things like coming out a portal into the same room, but now your running along the wall and fighting enemies on the ceiling and when they die their guns drop to the acutal floor while their bodies are locked in place on the roof.

It's alot of fun and it's a big part of the game and it's used well.

I'll skip the native american mystism thing entirely since it was a very LONG, very BORING bit of plot devolpement that had me mentaly groaning the entire time. The "Spirit" and "Death" walk powers however are pretty dang fun and play a big part in many puzzles from there on.

So in summination. Prey looks like it's a hit or miss at this point. A few intresting weapons, badly done plot devolpment. Fun physics tricks and lots of neat odd's and ends. However level design is also kinda odd in points.

However it does have ART BELL! Art Bell, the AM/FM radio host of a 1AM talk show devoted to the paranomiral and the odd. You can call in and say anything you like on the show as long as it's related, from UFO's kidnaped my baby, to claming to be possed by Elvis. In other words, very funny stuff because these people acutaly believe what they say on that show. And Art's a great host to boot, and knows every conspiracy story out there. He's in the game "hosting" his radio show which the aliens have happy tuned you in for as various people from around the reservation call in and various shit happens. It sounds exactly like any normal Art Bell show, which is what makes it such a great addition.

Anyone else had a look at the game yet?

[Bounty]

You are a Native American, congradulatiosn this is your first major apperence in a video game.

*cough*

[Mr Bean]

You are a Native American, congradulatiosn this is your first major apperence in a video game.

*cough*

Where does it say that Turok was a NA? Aside from the name all I remeber from Turok games was ridable dino's. Lots of odd weapons and swarms of enemies.

[Arrow]

I tired the demo last week, and thought it was pretty fun. The plot is cheesy, but in a MST3000 kind of way (I though being cheesy was the whole point of the plot). Single player was good. Multiplayer was a blast, though. The acid gun kicks loads of ass, and spirit walking lets you get stealth kills up the ass (on guy did it for the whole round, and thoroughly owned everyone else. I don't know where he hid his body, but I don't anyone every found it).

Assuming I've finished modding the shit of Oblivion, and I don't pick up Titan's Quest in the meantime, I'll probably pick up Prey.

[Bounty]

You are a Native American, congradulatiosn this is your first major apperence in a video game.

*cough*

Where does it say that Turok was a NA? Aside from the name all I remeber from Turok games was ridable dino's. Lots of odd weapons and swarms of enemies.

He was a NA in the comics that the game is based (at least the Valiant run) on and both his weaponry and outfit with the theme.

[Mr Bean]

*cough*

Where does it say that Turok was a NA? Aside from the name all I remeber from Turok games was ridable dino's. Lots of odd weapons and swarms of enemies.

He was a NA in the comics that the game is based (at least the Valiant run) on and both his weaponry and outfit with the theme.

Ahh COMICS, but not in the game. The only thing vaugly NA about him was a bow. Which I remind you the NA's don't have a lock on and the in-game model was a modern compound bow not anything NA'ish.

As for the rest of his weapons, we can find still more example of his NA's as it's well know that most native americans used weapons such as the Auto-shotgun, the Quad-Rocket Launcher and the Fusion Cannon

Needless to say my point stands, this is the first major video game outing of a Native American charater.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Was I the only one who got into the plot? Sure, it's cheesy, but so's the Original Star Trek. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.

[Captain tycho]

I thought it was pretty fun. The gravity/portal trickery was cool, the graphics are very nice, and the combat is mildly entertaining.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Without doing anything but play the game I thought Turok was quite blatantly Native American.

...and Prey is great fun. Multiplayer is a bit disorientating to begin with since a lot of walls end up becoming floors.

[Master of Cards]

(

Cue the first story stupidity.
Ok we have two drunk rednecks on an Indian reservation, and they are hitting on your girlfriend and being pretty damn raciest at the same time.
...How these Darwin award winners got here I don't know. Being a racistist dumbass on an INDIAN reservation with something like a 95% NA poplulation, and oh the COPS are NA as well! That's pretty much the equivlant of a KK rally in Harlem equivlancy of stupidy

no KK rally in Copton

[wautd]

Wow, I was pleasently suprised by the demo. Looks like this game is going to kick some ass

[Stark]

"They come to cleanse the land of all living things." And chairs.

Not bad at all.

[Hotfoot]

Ahh COMICS, but not in the game. The only thing vaugly NA about him was a bow. Which I remind you the NA's don't have a lock on and the in-game model was a modern compound bow not anything NA'ish.

As for the rest of his weapons, we can find still more example of his NA's as it's well know that most native americans used weapons such as the Auto-shotgun, the Quad-Rocket Launcher and the Fusion Cannon

Needless to say my point stands, this is the first major video game outing of a Native American charater.

Wait a minute, you're saying that the choice of weapons is what determines if a character is Native American or not? Do you realize how stupid that is? By that standing, Tommy from Prey isn't NA at all! He uses crazy alien guns to shoot things up, and when he doesn't have them, he uses a monkey wrench, clearly not a NA weapon. The only thing close is a spirit bow, but last I checked, Custer had real arrows in him, not crazy magic spirit bows. Sorry, that's a fail.

Turok is, always has been, and by rights always should be a Native American. If you can't tell by this picture, well, frankly, you're blind.

This may be the first major outing on the PC with a character who's blatantly Native American, but by no means is it the first video game with such.

[Mr Bean]

Turok is, always has been, and by rights always should be a Native American. If you can't tell by this picture, well, frankly, you're blind.

This may be the first major outing on the PC with a character who's blatantly Native American, but by no means is it the first video game with such.

The only video game connection we have that Turok was NA was the comics(Whch don't count since those are not video games), and the box-art. Since the game itself made little of any mention of Turok's NA status.

On the flip side we have Tommy from Prey who, they go out of their way to make NA looking, toss in a bunch of NA spiritialism and whatnot.

Admit it Hotfoot, Turok does not count as a NA charater. His status as a NA had no impact on the story what-so-ever. They could have givin him slate eyes, made him an albino and called him Canadian. It would have mattered jackshit to the acutal game or story. He was Turok, he was a Dino Hunter, end of bloody story. He had about as much video game personaility as the DOOM Marine.

[Hotfoot]

So you would deny that Samus Aran is the first major female character in video games as well?

What you're arguing is not whether or not the character is Native American or not, but rather whether the game itself has a serious thematic stake on that fact. They are two very different things. Was Turok a largely mindless shooter? Yes, they were trying to cash in on the success of Goldeneye.

In any case, I seriously doubt that unless the game was an Unreal Tournament style hack job that they would have completely glossed over the origin of Turok and what the very basic storyline was. Even the worst games made from a licensed work of fiction pay basic lip service to the original concept.

Did Turok have Sci-Fi in it? Yes. That was actually part of the theme, believe it or not. The original Turok concept was updated to be something as a cross between the Phantom and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The Lost Land is depicted as a strange pocket in space and time, and being Turok is something like a mantle that members of a certain family must don.

The Lost Land, being the weird little pocket of space-time that it is, is home to both high technology and ancient creatures long since extinct. Hence the plasma guns and stuff. As for the bow being modern, the character in question was the most recent Turok of the time, someone from the modern-day world.

How much of this was actually explained in the game? I don't know, but the reviewers certainly managed to pick up on most of it from playing the game, so either they "cheated", or your memory of the story in Turok is somewhat incomplete. Either way, the fact remains that while Turok may not have been the best example of a NA character in video gaming, he was, by as far as I can tell, the first.

[Lord Woodlouse]

It's like saying black characters in games are not black because there's no details given about their Zulu heritage.

[Mr Bean]

So you would deny that Samus Aran is the first major female character in video games as well?

Nope, since while it never came up until the ending of the game, there still WAS definite mention of the fact that Samus Aran was female. Even if that mention was depending on how fast the beat the game, she took off more or less clothes.

How much of this was actually explained in the game? I don't know, but the reviewers certainly managed to pick up on most of it from playing the game, so either they "cheated", or your memory of the story in Turok is somewhat incomplete. Either way, the fact remains that while Turok may not have been the best example of a NA character in video gaming, he was, by as far as I can tell, the first.

Would you then agree(I'll conceed the point that he was NA and therfor the first NA) that the NA portion/tie-ins of the game was non-existant?

It's like saying black characters in games are not black because there's no details given about their Zulu heritage.

Because of course, if your Black your Zulu! Bad comparsion yes?

[Hotfoot]

Sounds fair enough, though I can't say for certain that this was the case in all of the games.

[Lord Woodlouse]

It's like saying black characters in games are not black because there's no details given about their Zulu heritage.

Because of course, if your Black your Zulu! Bad comparsion yes?

If you must insist on nitpicking then replace Zulu for whatever African culture they derive from. It makes little difference, at the end of the day they're still black if they're black, regardless of what cultural background they go into. Same as the whites are whites and the chinese are chinese. The background cultural information is irrelevent.

Turok was quite plainly a Native American just by looking at the chap.

*shrug*

[TheMuffinKing]

Sorry for the necro... Did anyone notice some of the parallels between the dyson sphere construction and the Strogg environments from Quake4? I'm not saying they are related, but that the biotech alien scenario is in full swing.

[MKSheppard]

Took fucking long enough for Prey to be released. Does anyone even REMEMBER when it was originally announced? It was to be a QUAKE I killer.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Well it's certainly better than Quake 1, so I'd say it succeeded.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Took fucking long enough for Prey to be released. Does anyone even REMEMBER when it was originally announced? It was to be a QUAKE I killer.

Actually I think it was designed to be released a fair length after Quake (DN3D was designed more to go against Quake, I think). But, aye, I think Prey has been in development at least as long as Duke Nukem Forever.

[Pcm979]

Wow. Er. I'm sold. Even if the game was just going to be hours of what the demo offered, I'd get it.

[Vendetta]

Took fucking long enough for Prey to be released. Does anyone even REMEMBER when it was originally announced? It was to be a QUAKE I killer.

Shortly after Unreal was released, and a year after DNF was announced. It was originally going to use the Unreal engine (which also had portals you could see and shoot through).