Prey Game.

Prey games ideology originally emerged nearly a decade ago, but was set aside in favour of other projects. Eventually this game was handed over to a new developer last year. The resulting product is a standard firstperson shooter that offers thrills a seasoned gamer would expect from it. However, despite the great looking graphics combined with interesting game play ideas, the game lacks challenge, considering the fact that it features English speaking aliens and straightforward action.

Prey begins with the main character yelling at himself in a bathroom mirror.

The protagonist Tommy, a Native American Indian, who really does not care about his heritage, wants to leave the reservation with his girlfriend Jen. However, before he gathers up the courage to convince Jen to leave, an alien invasion sucks Tommy, his grandfather, and Jen up into some sort of spacecraft. With the help of some unknown supporters, Tommy manages to get free and sets out on a quest to rescue his girlfriend and save the planet in the process.

There are a few plot twists here and there, but some of those twists feel like they have been lifted directly from other games.

The straightforward level design means that garners spend most of the time engaged in combat. Enemies crop up at a pretty consistent rate, though their numbers are never overwhelming. The game's liberal use of portals that bring the protagonist from place to place and a bag of gravity tricks that are meant to keep the gamer wondering which way is up are one of the few perks of the game. The portals are open and let you see and fire weapons through to the other side. The potential of these portals is revealed early on when you walk through one that shrinks Tommy down and puts him inside a small glass case with a sphere inside.

Playing around with gravity is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Prey. You'll encounter powered walkways that let you walk up walls and onto ceilings. Also, some portals will drop you into a room you've already been in, but you'll be walking on what you previously thought was a wall. In a few other cases, you'll be able to shoot objects to change gravity, which forces your view to rotate as you fall to another surface.

These segments of the game serve as the majority of its puzzles, but they aren't difficult to figure out. The designers at Human Head have also added some special abilities to the protagonist. Early in the game he seems to have died but later on he is taken to some kind of spiritual realm where the spirit of his grandfather helps him master his "spirit walk". Not only can he walk through certain objects in this mode but can also attack with a mystical bow and arrow.

Most of the weapons in Prey are of the bio-mechanical alien type - ranging from plasma rifles with a sniper scope to high powered energy weapons that can be recharged at certain stations on the ship. ' The gamer can even change the "ammo" the gun uses to fire a freeze blast on your enemies. Other items like organic grenades, a grenade launcher and the good old rocket launcher are also on hand in the game including Preys variation of the shotgun which fires not the standard spray of buckshot but acid that eats through your enemies.

The enemies in this game range from pure monsters to more intelligent aliens who prefer to use the sniper mode on the plasma rifle to attack from a safe distance. There are also some truly massive enemies like a floating gasbag with a nasty sting, and huge goat-headed creatures with machine guns. The game looks great with some impressive character models, weapons and some weird alien levels and environments. Sometimes the looks of the levels can be somewhat repetitive but Human Head does keep things interesting like showing locations that the aliens have beamed up from Earth, like a bar, a jumbo jet and a school bus. Prey comes with a multiplayer option that supports up to eight players, however it only offers two modes; death match and team death match, which offer a bland experience and give you the feeling as if the multiplayer was included as an afterthought.

_{source Spider Mag.}