2 reactions
Just beat Arkane Studios' Prey, from 2017 - My thoughts with some spoilers. TL;DR - it's like Dishonored meets Bioshock.
I was a big fan of Dishonored 1 and 2, and I'd put a few hours in back when Prey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q38yi0NmAm0 came out, but got sidetracked until a friend reminded me of it a few weeks ago and I decided to make a serious attempt.
Playing it was very enjoyable, probably mainly because I played on Easy mode. (Constantly dying or being near death isn't super fun to me.) I'm a sucker for Arkane's alternate routes, maintenance hatches, walking on ceiling lights, and sneaking around, and that definitely carried over from Dishonored. They made neuromods so easy to find or manufacture that I had two of the top three skill trees totally filled out by the end, and I was the biggest baddest thing on that station.
The story was interesting and engaging, although sometimes I had a hard time tracking who everyone was, especially people I only saw through emails, notes, and corpses. But getting a glimpse of the lives and doings of the people on the station was really neat, and added a lot of depth to the story. I thought the game was visually gorgeous, as it was a mix of art deco and retrofuturism with Soviet elements. In this alt-history, Kennedy was never assassinated, and went on to form a scientific partnership with the USSR in space.
The first time you see some of the aliens, especially the mimics, the Weaver, and the Nightmares is very chilling and impactful. It could be annoying backtracking sometimes - especially for the treasure hunt and smuggling quests - but definitely worth it. However, as I fled the station at the end having saved everyone I could, it was a little bit, "That was it?"
Alex turned out to be a more interesting and empathetic character than I expected, and I wish I'd gotten more time with him, or heard more from him. There was supposedly a dilemma between blowing up the station and deploying the nullwave transmitter, but I only heard a little bit of chatter near the end about it. I wish they'd spent more time on that. (Also I forgot to actually craft the nullwave transmitter, so maybe I missed out on some stuff there.)
So as the credits rolled, I was left just a little underwhelmed, I thought they would have put more weight on my choices. There had also been a few scenes of mental flashes, but nothing that really led anywhere.
Then the post-credits scene played. >!Getting an achievement called "I and Thou" as Alex, Mikhaila, Danielle, and Igwe talked about the choices I did make hit MUCH harder than I expected. As usual, I'd played as morally good as I could. Honestly for most RPGs I think killing is a bad gameplay choice, because it cuts off any content that character might provide in the future, and that strategy really paid off here.!<
I'm going back now to New Game+ to see how the Typhon powers are - so far so good. However, being able to fully explore the lobby and hack nearly everything right away is pretty awesome. In games, I tend to prioritize abilities that a) generate more XP and b) let me access more areas, so being able to be almost fully powered (minus some suit and scope chipsets) is pretty great.
I don't know if I'll do another full "evil" playthrough, though I think I can get through it faster now than I did before, having done every single side mission - but I'll get through as much as I want before going on to Mooncrash.
Your mileage may vary, but I think $30 is a fair price to pay for this game, and anything less is a good deal. I spent 47 hours on my first run through alone.
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I was a big fan of Dishonored 1 and 2, and I'd put a few hours in back when Prey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q38yi0NmAm0 came out, but got sidetracked until a friend reminded me of it a few weeks ago and I decided to make a serious attempt.
Playing it was very enjoyable, probably mainly because I played on Easy mode. (Constantly dying or being near death isn't super fun to me.) I'm a sucker for Arkane's alternate routes, maintenance hatches, walking on ceiling lights, and sneaking around, and that definitely carried over from Dishonored. They made neuromods so easy to find or manufacture that I had two of the top three skill trees totally filled out by the end, and I was the biggest baddest thing on that station.
The story was interesting and engaging, although sometimes I had a hard time tracking who everyone was, especially people I only saw through emails, notes, and corpses. But getting a glimpse of the lives and doings of the people on the station was really neat, and added a lot of depth to the story. I thought the game was visually gorgeous, as it was a mix of art deco and retrofuturism with Soviet elements. In this alt-history, Kennedy was never assassinated, and went on to form a scientific partnership with the USSR in space.
The first time you see some of the aliens, especially the mimics, the Weaver, and the Nightmares is very chilling and impactful. It could be annoying backtracking sometimes - especially for the treasure hunt and smuggling quests - but definitely worth it. However, as I fled the station at the end having saved everyone I could, it was a little bit, "That was it?"
Alex turned out to be a more interesting and empathetic character than I expected, and I wish I'd gotten more time with him, or heard more from him. There was supposedly a dilemma between blowing up the station and deploying the nullwave transmitter, but I only heard a little bit of chatter near the end about it. I wish they'd spent more time on that. (Also I forgot to actually craft the nullwave transmitter, so maybe I missed out on some stuff there.)
So as the credits rolled, I was left just a little underwhelmed, I thought they would have put more weight on my choices. There had also been a few scenes of mental flashes, but nothing that really led anywhere.
Then the post-credits scene played. >!Getting an achievement called "I and Thou" as Alex, Mikhaila, Danielle, and Igwe talked about the choices I did make hit MUCH harder than I expected. As usual, I'd played as morally good as I could. Honestly for most RPGs I think killing is a bad gameplay choice, because it cuts off any content that character might provide in the future, and that strategy really paid off here.!<
I'm going back now to New Game+ to see how the Typhon powers are - so far so good. However, being able to fully explore the lobby and hack nearly everything right away is pretty awesome. In games, I tend to prioritize abilities that a) generate more XP and b) let me access more areas, so being able to be almost fully powered (minus some suit and scope chipsets) is pretty great.
I don't know if I'll do another full "evil" playthrough, though I think I can get through it faster now than I did before, having done every single side mission - but I'll get through as much as I want before going on to Mooncrash.
Your mileage may vary, but I think $30 is a fair price to pay for this game, and anything less is a good deal. I spent 47 hours on my first run through alone.
#games
source
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