Prey!
Graphs
as was to be expected, this was pretty much the new & improved brother of Doom3 & Quake4. the game ran better & looked better than his older brothers, which is of course a good thing. i had to put on Vsync though, to prevent getting sick to my stomach. i dont know if that was due to my pc setup, or to the game itself. i usually never play with Vsync on.
as i said before, the game itself ran quite well on my pc (which has a rather limited CPU, a P4b 2.53Ghz without HT). i was quite impressed how high i could pull the filters before getting graphic slowdowns.
the graphical environment is really nice & the models are well designed, although they do not have enough diversity imo. i do wish the girlfriend was modelled better, she did nothing for me. (i dont want some huge breasted lara croft who uses her tits as airbags each time she jumps to grab a ledge, but i dunno, the girls face didnt do it for me.)
General gameplay
the game has about everything that a normal shooter has & brings some new toys to the table. it features dynamic gravity switches, which are quite novel & fun at the beginning, but grow tiresome at the end (especially if you have to start wandering around for 10 minutes trying to figure out just where you need to go, when your way is blocked by half a million steel pipes). there is also extensive use of portals, which we have seen before, but it's pretty nicely implemented. the combinations of portal + gravity switches can sometimes mess with your head though. if you're a fan of rollercoasters, i think you'll enjoy it. if you're not, than i advice you not to play it for an extended period of time, or it'll melt your brain.
the guns are nice. they're pretty basic, BUT they look as if they're novel. i know it sounds weird, so let me give you a few examples. first we have the machinegun/sniperrifle combo. it's basically little more than the quake4 SMG/AR, but due to it's alien look & design, it makes you think it's something new. same goes with the acid sprayer, which is simply a shotgun in disguise. btw, the acid sprayer model leaks... i REALLY wouldn't want a leaking acid gun in my hands tbfh. the 'rocket launcher' launches pods/eggs that contain explosive animals & so on. so visually, they're things you havent seen before, but the concept remains the same.
there are some special weapons, but nothing extraordinary: the rechargeable gun, which depending on it's load can be a kind of plasma cannon, a frost gun, a lightning gun or a fusion beam. the grenades are a cross between a normal grenade & a snarl or snark or whatever the name of those beasts were in HL1.
it's strange however that they chose to make 2 difficulty settings, with the higher disabled until you finished the game on normal. as a veteran FPS gamer if found the game way too easy on normal. when you die, you get a kind of easy 'minigame' (if you can even call it that) that allows you to come back to life, instead of quickloading. thats rather nice.
there are also a bunch of other minigames, but none of them are worth playing. they're either too easy or too boring.
i think i finished the game somewhere in about 7 hours, but cant be sure, since i didnt keep track.
Story
first off, it's not like a normal american game or movie. things, will get rather ugly. so expect the unexpected.
secondly, i'm amazed how they succeeded in selling the story as immersive & believable. it's an indian with superpowers that tries to rescue his girlfriend from evil aliens. sounds pretty damn bad doesnt it? still, it works & you dont spend too much time thinking about it.
of course, this remains an FPS without any RPG elements, so you cant change anything to the story at all, not even an alternate ending or something like that.
Atmosphere/ambience
the game's ambience is quite well. both due to graphical representation as due to the story & voiceacting. it's common for the hero to comment on things, like duke did with the difference that the hero remains serious, while duke was plain silly at times. i think the alien weapons add a lot to the atmosphere. it's obvious they were modelled with great love & care.
overall, i think this will be one of the better FPS games this year, but nothing really revolutionary. if you liked Doom3 or Quake4, this game is definately for you. most FEAR fans will like it as well, but dont expect any fine aim or realistic damage in this game.
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