Prey (PS4)

February 06, 2018

Prey (PS4)

Prey takes place in the year 2035 in an alternate timeline where John F. Kennedy survives his assassination attempt thus continuing the space race with the Russians. This leads to huge advancements in space exploration technology.

You play as Morgan Yu, a scientist aboard the space station Talos I, a research facility for studying alien technology and neuroscience. However, after a visit to the test facility you wake up and discover that something is very wrong. Almost the whole crew is either dead or missing and you will have to find out what has happened and survive long enough to escape the space station.

The premise of the game is very compelling and the atmosphere is great. It combines stealth, exploration and combat neatly. The weakest link however is the combat, which is unresponsive and kind of boring. Going stealth, laying traps or hacking turrets is more fun than gunning down the enemies. The enemies themselves aren't that interesting either. But like I said, atmosphere, sound and story is spot on.

Prey can best be compared to Bioshock, Dead Space, Alien Isolation and Deus Ex or a combination of them. Unfortunately it's not as good as any of them. It's close but no cigar. The thing that bothered me the most was towards the end where you had to get from one end of the station to the other and every door had a long-ass loading screen, it broke the immersion completely and it was annoying as hell. The best moment I had was when I discovered that I could use a toy crossbow to shoot touch screens and buttons I could not otherwise reach.

Of course every game has it's flaws and can be good despite it, but that is exactly what Prey is, a good game but not a great game. You can get the game pretty cheap by now and it is well worth the 20 euros I spent for it.