- 10 hours ago
Hey everone. I finially finished my video on the 2006 first peson shooter Prey. This video should not have taken me as long as it did to finish, but I am glad to finally get it done. I wanted to give this game the proper big video that it deserved. I cover the long development cycle of this game. I review the game itself, and I talk about the sequel that was in development that we never got. I did a lot of research to try to make sure that I got everything right. I certainly hope I did. This video was a ton of work. I will be sure to list my various sources below that I pot in this video if you want to check all that stuff out. thank you for watching. I hope you enjoy.
The song at the end is Towards the Unknown by Helstar.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ishWEzGFr7k&pp=ygURcHJleSAyMDA2IHRyYWlsZXLSBwkJhwoBhyohjO8%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj8PTRyBxnY&pp=ygURcHJleSAxOTk4IHRyYWlsZXI%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT_z5ABei9o&pp=ygUTcHJleSAxOTk4IGludGVydmlldw%3D%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfHCZAK7p-s&pp=ygUOcHJleSAyIHRyYWlsZXI%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lxEec0m-Rs&t=47s&pp=ygUWcHJleSAyIGxlYWtlZCBnYW1lcGxheQ%3D%3D
Personal Twitter: @fsmetal
Gaming twitter: @TheDoomedDog85
https://www.facebook.com/DigitalDelirium01/
https://valereth2.tumblr.com/
https://www.twitch.tv/thedoomeddog
https://www.minds.com/Valereth
https://gab.ai/fsmetal
https://www.parler.com/profile/fsmetal/posts
https://gettr.com/user/fsmetal
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/QM3i6EMg5BMA/
https://open.spotify.com/show/66uCQ9z9Klvz3DGmc9FFYO
https://open.spotify.com/show/3oopdo5dy2y5bbTkKetR7k
https://odysee.com/@TheDoomedDog:7
https://rumble.com/c/c-1325723
The song at the end is Towards the Unknown by Helstar.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ishWEzGFr7k&pp=ygURcHJleSAyMDA2IHRyYWlsZXLSBwkJhwoBhyohjO8%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj8PTRyBxnY&pp=ygURcHJleSAxOTk4IHRyYWlsZXI%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT_z5ABei9o&pp=ygUTcHJleSAxOTk4IGludGVydmlldw%3D%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfHCZAK7p-s&pp=ygUOcHJleSAyIHRyYWlsZXI%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lxEec0m-Rs&t=47s&pp=ygUWcHJleSAyIGxlYWtlZCBnYW1lcGxheQ%3D%3D
Personal Twitter: @fsmetal
Gaming twitter: @TheDoomedDog85
https://www.facebook.com/DigitalDelirium01/
https://valereth2.tumblr.com/
https://www.twitch.tv/thedoomeddog
https://www.minds.com/Valereth
https://gab.ai/fsmetal
https://www.parler.com/profile/fsmetal/posts
https://gettr.com/user/fsmetal
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/QM3i6EMg5BMA/
https://open.spotify.com/show/66uCQ9z9Klvz3DGmc9FFYO
https://open.spotify.com/show/3oopdo5dy2y5bbTkKetR7k
https://odysee.com/@TheDoomedDog:7
https://rumble.com/c/c-1325723
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00:00Hey everyone, it's the DoomDog. It's been a while since my last analytical video review.
00:00:05The PlayStation 2 video was rather experimental for me, and it was a lot of fun to do.
00:00:10Thank you to everyone that participated in it, but I do think it's time we get back to a more
00:00:16traditional DoomDog video.
00:00:18With that in mind, I recently did a playthrough of the 2006 First Person Shooter Prey over on Twitch.
00:00:24Let's talk about it. Join me as we take a look at Prey for the PC.
00:00:31In the wake of the newer Prey from 2017, the game that it got its name from seems to have
00:00:40largely been forgotten,
00:00:42which is a little odd since the 2006 game was a hit at the time.
00:00:48Then again, it is not hard to see why the 2006 game is not on Steam, or Gog and the
00:00:562017 game just being given its name.
00:01:01It's almost like the original game is being buried, but why?
00:01:06Does it deserve to be forgotten?
00:01:09Or is it a hidden gem that deserves a re-release or a remaster?
00:01:14Let's talk about it.
00:01:15Prey was first conceived in 1995, and it had a long journey to release.
00:01:22The game lingered in development hell for over a decade before it finally came out.
00:01:28The team had some very ambitious ideas for the game, and they were aiming for a two to three year
00:01:36development cycle.
00:01:37Obviously, they failed to meet that goal, and the original developers at 3D Realms would ultimately hand off the game
00:01:44to another development studio called Human Head Studios.
00:01:50The team had big ideas, like being able to use portals to transfer from one section of a level to
00:01:56another, and you could shoot through those portals, and your bullets would come out the other side.
00:02:03They had an engine with a working prototype by some time in 1996, but they kept running into roadblocks, with
00:02:15the tech not being able to keep up with what they wanted to do with it.
00:02:19Greg Broussard, one of the co-founders of Apogee and 3D Realms, had his own ideas for the game that
00:02:26he wanted to implement that differed and conflicted with a lot of the team developing the game, and this would
00:02:34ultimately lead to conflicts and people leaving the studio.
00:02:39Paul Shatema, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, was brought in to take control of the project, and he would
00:02:48oversee the creation of a tech demo in 1997, that would be shown off at E3.
00:02:55It showcased the portal technology, and impressed critics of the show, excitement for the game, but it was quite high
00:03:03as a result.
00:03:04This version of Prey saw players take control of a Native American warrior named Talon Brave, and he was taken
00:03:14to an artificially created world inhabited by three distinct species, with a fourth secret one called the Keepers.
00:03:22This build was shown off again, at E3 the following year, and critics were once again impressed, with praise for
00:03:33the graphics, effects, and innovative tech on display.
00:03:38The 1998 version had some changes to its story and world, however.
00:03:43The main character, Talon Brave, was now an Apache.
00:03:46He was 27 years old, and he was living on a reservation in Arizona.
00:03:49He would get abducted by aliens, and taken aboard a mothership, instead of another planet.
00:03:58The aliens with the three races, and the Secret Keeper race, however, remained the same as it was in 1997.
00:04:06At the time, 3D Realms seemed confident that the game would ship in 1999, at least publicly.
00:04:13Behind the scenes, however, they had switched priorities, moving from one project that stayed in development hell to another, as
00:04:23Duke Nukem Forever became the team's top priority.
00:04:27This did not spell good things for Prey, even without the hindsight of Duke Nukem Forever taking even longer to
00:04:34release than Prey ultimately took.
00:04:36Around this time, 3DFX was in financial trouble, and the team felt that they had no choice but to change
00:04:45development of Prey from 3DFX Glide Focus to Microsoft Direct X Focus.
00:04:52This did, however, mean that the engine would need to be rewritten, which would mean the game would be delayed
00:05:00even further, and it was already four years into development.
00:05:05The decision was ultimately made to put Prey on hold.
00:05:10They never officially cancelled the game, but they had no one at the studio actively working on the game at
00:05:18this time, leading to widespread rumors of its cancellation.
00:05:22In 2001, a new publisher, Take-Two Interactive, expressed interest in continuing development of Prey, still seeing promise in it.
00:05:333D Realms was still on board trying to get Duke Nukem Forever out the door, so the development was handed
00:05:40to another studio, Human Head Studios, that had worked on a game called Rune.
00:05:463D Realms would still oversee what Human Head was doing, though.
00:05:50A lot of what Prey was was maintained for when Human Head took over.
00:05:55Though changes were made, instead of an Apache, the main character was made Cherokee, and he was renamed Tommy.
00:06:05Him being Cherokee also helped inform his capabilities in the game, and the development started on a new engine, EdTech
00:06:134.
00:06:13The engine that would go on to power Doom 3 in 2004.
00:06:19Due to things like budget restraints, what Human Head sought to do with Prey did have to be cut back
00:06:28some.
00:06:28A gun that shoots portals much like the game portal was going to be in Prey originally.
00:06:34It had to be scaled back, and the portals were in set places because they did not have the time
00:06:42or cash to properly implement the idea into the game.
00:06:45Prey was still publicly shown off once again in 2005, with a promised release date of 2006 on PC and
00:06:55Xbox 360, and critics praised the preview of the new build heavily.
00:07:02Excitement and buzz for the forgotten game was back on once again.
00:07:07When Prey would ultimately release on July 11, 2006, it reviewed well, and it sold over a million copies in
00:07:15its first two months after release, cementing it as a success.
00:07:21Prey had made a lot of big promises over its long development cycle.
00:07:27Well, games with long development cycles often feel like they are a product of implementing new popular ideas over and
00:07:36over again to create a mishmash that might not mix well together.
00:07:42How did Prey come out the other side of after its development hell?
00:07:45Join me as we take a look and find out.
00:07:48Prey opens up with narration for the main character's grandfather, saying that the world is full of stories, and they
00:07:55allow themselves to be told from time to time.
00:07:59The game opens in a bathroom of a bar on a Native American reservation in Oklahoma.
00:08:07A woman's voice called out to the main character, Tommy.
00:08:10Her name is Jen.
00:08:11Tommy is looking at himself and lamenting the fact that he cannot bring himself to tell Jen that he loves
00:08:20her.
00:08:20After leaving the bathroom, his grandfather stops him in the hallway.
00:08:25He comes with a warning about how Tommy needs to accept his Cherokee heritage, and how it will become very
00:08:32important very soon.
00:08:34Tommy brushes this off and ignores him.
00:08:37In the main area of the bar, there are two customers bothering Jen, who is the bartender.
00:08:43She wants Tommy's attention, and she tells him to get his wrench off of the bar, and he picks it
00:08:50up and apologizes.
00:08:51This will be your first weapon in this game.
00:08:54Tommy's grandfather mentions that Jen loves him, and Tommy is unconvinced.
00:09:01He thinks she should want to leave the reservation, and he is convinced that there is something better out there
00:09:10for him and her than just this.
00:09:13He brings it up to her, but she says that this is his home here with her people.
00:09:19Tommy hates it here, and he tries to talk her into it, but it does no good.
00:09:24Something is spooking the wolves outside, and it is your first hint that something is wrong.
00:09:32Eventually, the two customers get more aggressive talking to Jen.
00:09:36Tommy speaks up in her defense, and they get up and attack him over this.
00:09:42You are forced to fight them.
00:09:44For some reason, this upsets Jen, and she speaks up, saying that you could have killed them.
00:09:52While true, they did attack him first.
00:09:55It was an act of self-defense.
00:09:57Why is she upset by him defending himself?
00:10:01Would she rather him get beat up?
00:10:04This is about where the emergency broadcast system comes on, and we get a really cool sequence where we get
00:10:14the best use of the song Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult in a video game outside of
00:10:21the FMV game with Christopher Walken, Ripper from 1996.
00:10:26Green lights come down from the sky, and the truck is pulled up into the sky, the roof of the
00:10:32bar gets pulled off, and Tommy gets pulled up into the sky along with Jen and his grandfather.
00:10:40When you come to, you are stuck together, strapped to some kind of conveyor hanging you by your arms.
00:10:48The aliens reveal themselves to you, and you are helpless as you start to move throughout the ship with a
00:10:57lot of other people.
00:10:58You are led to various parts of the ship.
00:11:00At one point, you see a guy plant what turns out to be a bomb on the track, and it
00:11:06disrupts it, and it frees Tommy.
00:11:09Jen and his grandfather are still trapped, however.
00:11:13Time to get to work, trying to get away out of this mess that you have been forced into.
00:11:20As Tommy travels throughout the ship, he starts noticing very strange things going on, with all the aliens running along
00:11:28what appears to be the ceiling.
00:11:31At least from his perspective, clearly gravity works differently than it does back on Earth.
00:11:37He comes across a machine that appears to be smashing people into paste, Jen and his grandfather are in line
00:11:45for this.
00:11:46Tommy is not able to save his grandfather, who dies a gruesome death here.
00:11:51But the process is stopped before Jen receives the same fate.
00:11:56Something unexplained happens to Tommy that makes his head hurt shortly thereafter.
00:12:03He discovers a path that can let him walk on walls or ceilings.
00:12:09This means that enemies can shoot at you from another wall or ceiling, and can attack you from all kinds
00:12:17of strange angles.
00:12:18He comes across a small rock in a glass case, and a portal opens up.
00:12:26This leads to the rock in the glass case, and an enemy approaches the glass case and sees Tommy down
00:12:33on the rock.
00:12:34He enters the portal, making them both the same size, and Tommy has to deal with them.
00:12:40Clearly, perspective is different here than it is on Earth as well, and there are portals that can lead you
00:12:48to various parts of the ship.
00:12:50Jen goes by you screaming, and Tommy encounters a hologram of the ship he is on.
00:12:56It is a sphere, and it is revealed that he is in outer space.
00:13:00At one point, Tommy is crossing a bridge that looks rather unsafe, and the enemies shoot it down, causing Tommy
00:13:09to fall to his death.
00:13:11His spirit awakens in the afterlife with his grandfather is here with him.
00:13:16Look, Tommy, I know you were resistant to your grandfather earlier in the game, but I think we can both
00:13:22agree that your situation is royally fucked up.
00:13:26I think it is time for you to shut up and listen to the man instead of dismissing him.
00:13:33Capisce?
00:13:34No, of course not.
00:13:35His grandfather beckons him to come over with him to the spirit cave.
00:13:39Here he will find the spirit of his childhood pet.
00:13:42A hawk named Talon will guide you through this game.
00:13:48I will get into how this affects the gameplay later, but Talon is cool.
00:13:52He is useful.
00:13:53You will be glad to have him by your side throughout the rest of the game, should you decide to
00:14:00play this for yourself.
00:14:02Just trust me on this.
00:14:04Anyway, Tommy objects because of course he fucking does.
00:14:10He says he does not have time for this right now because he needs to save Jin.
00:14:17I get this, but how do you know how time works here?
00:14:24You might have all the time in the world for what your grandfather wants to teach you.
00:14:29You don't know.
00:14:30And what your grandfather wants to teach Tommy is spirit walking, in which his spirit leaves his body temporarily, giving
00:14:38him access to areas that his body cannot.
00:14:41He also teaches him about using a spirit bow, which is a bow and arrow that he can use to
00:14:48attack different enemies in his spirit form.
00:14:52Both of these will come in handy.
00:14:55After gaining this ability and the bow, Tommy begs to be sent back instead of staying and learning more from
00:15:01his grandfather, like he should, and his grandfather obliges sending him back.
00:15:07Remember when Tommy experienced something that made his head hurt?
00:15:11Yeah, that happens again.
00:15:13Except he can understand it now.
00:15:17It's a female voice, presumably one of the aliens, speaking to Tommy.
00:15:22She is surprised that Tommy can now understand her, and she instructs the aliens to hunt and kill him.
00:15:29You see another person on the ship that seems to want to help you.
00:15:34He warns you about enemies lurking ahead.
00:15:38Thanks.
00:15:38I couldn't have worked that one out on my own.
00:15:41I joke, but these guys will become important later on.
00:15:45Not much further along, Tommy comes across the ghosts of dead children.
00:15:52Holy shit, this game's got balls, man.
00:15:56The female voice notes that the ghosts were not here before you arrived, and she is curious about this.
00:16:04At some point, you come across the whole bar that you started the game in.
00:16:09It is just up here as part of the ship now, with the weird growths from all over the ship
00:16:17inside it.
00:16:18Beyond this, you find a whole commercial airplane crashing through the ship.
00:16:23It crash lands right in front of you, and it seems like the aliens are abducting entire planes' worth of
00:16:31people.
00:16:32Lord knows how many people they have abducted like this.
00:16:36Men, women, and children.
00:16:39This needs to end.
00:16:41Someone needs to put a stop to it.
00:16:43Tommy eventually comes across where the plane crashed down to the ship.
00:16:47A stranger beckons Tommy to follow him.
00:16:50Then he finds a passenger from the plane who is terrified out of his wits.
00:16:55I get it, dude.
00:16:57I would be terrified, too.
00:16:58He was flying over Topeka when it happened.
00:17:01Not too long after this, you come across a haunted bus in another one of the game's more memorable set
00:17:11pieces.
00:17:11Shortly after that, Tommy finds himself trapped in an event.
00:17:17Someone below him gets mauled by a monster.
00:17:20Tommy tries to warn him, but it does no good.
00:17:23This is the first boss fight.
00:17:26After Tommy defeats the creature, the female voice contacts him.
00:17:30She is surprised that he is still alive.
00:17:32Not too long afterwards, a pair of aliens get thrown onto the path in front of Tommy.
00:17:38They are dead.
00:17:38The people that killed them run off before Tommy can speak to them.
00:17:44However, your grandfather contacts you, and he pulls you back into the afterlife with him.
00:17:50Tommy, this is the time for you to shut the fuck up and listen.
00:17:56But, of course, you won't.
00:17:57He says that the aliens are a threat to humanity.
00:18:02Something Tommy probably should have worked out by now.
00:18:05He sends him back to the spirit cave.
00:18:09Tommy has a vision of Jim.
00:18:10She is still alive.
00:18:12His grandfather wants to train him further, but he won't listen.
00:18:16He demands to be sent back to the ship.
00:18:19There are others that you can contact on the ship.
00:18:23We have seen them, but Tommy has not yet gotten to speak to them.
00:18:27He tells Tommy to find them and sends them back.
00:18:30The voice contacts Tommy again, wondering where he got to.
00:18:33Tommy comes across more of the people that he kept getting glimpses of all over the ship.
00:18:38This time, they speak to him.
00:18:40They tell him that someone called the Priestess wants to talk to him.
00:18:44Go with them.
00:18:46They lead him to a door where the doorman let him pass, and he is greeted by the woman, the
00:18:51Priestess.
00:18:52Her group is called the Hidden, and they were abducted long ago.
00:18:56They have been a thorn in the side of the aliens for years,
00:19:00and they have been causing trouble where they can while remaining out of sight.
00:19:05This sphere goes from one world to another, abducting the inhabitants of many different worlds,
00:19:11turning them all into food or more warriors, or whatever the sphere may need.
00:19:16A creature known as the Keeper is the Hunter, and the Abductees are the prey.
00:19:22Oh hey, name drop!
00:19:24Despite hearing all this, Tommy still just wants to find Jyn and get out of here.
00:19:31Dude, it is time you realize that this whole damn thing is much bigger than you.
00:19:36Dude, what good does it do going home with Jyn if the planet is devoid of life because the aliens
00:19:46abducted and killed the entire fucking species?
00:19:50The Hidden have stolen some of the aliens' teleportation tech,
00:19:54and they are trying to use it to create a portal back to Earth so that they can escape, or
00:20:00get help, or something.
00:20:01But there is one problem, though. The Keeper stands in the way of this, and the priestess asks Tommy to
00:20:09destroy the creature for her.
00:20:11They wish to analyze the creature's brain to get the final pieces that they need to make the teleporter work.
00:20:18They cannot risk confronting the Keeper, but Tommy should be able to.
00:20:23She opens a portal to the Keeper's experimentation lab, where he experiments on all sorts of living creatures, and he
00:20:31says Jyn is there.
00:20:32Tommy agrees to help.
00:20:34Tommy catches a glimpse of the Keeper, and the female voice asks Tommy what he is hoping to accomplish.
00:20:41Tommy sees Jyn on a monitor, and he comes across what appears to be a military broadcast,
00:20:47with the armed forces dealing with the aliens back on Earth.
00:20:50He finds Jyn being tortured on another monitor, and he gets a glimpse of the Keeper.
00:20:56The female voice laughs about something.
00:20:58What's so funny, bitch?
00:21:01Tommy finds Jyn trapped on the floor below him.
00:21:05He needs to find a way to get down to her.
00:21:08After doing so, he frees her.
00:21:12She says she wants to go back to the reservation.
00:21:15Poor girl, she has been through hell.
00:21:18Tommy has her follow him, and the Hidden contact Tommy.
00:21:22The Keeper has found them, and they are in deep shit.
00:21:27Make your way back to them to see if you can do anything for them.
00:21:33When Tommy finds his way back to the Hidden, the place has been ransacked by the Keeper.
00:21:37He sent the aliens to kill them and destroy the place.
00:21:39The Priestess asks Tommy to do what he can to save her and her people.
00:21:45Tommy has Jyn stay behind with her, while he heads out to try to find a way to do just
00:21:52that.
00:21:52The Hidden open up a secret panel on the wall and let Tommy through.
00:21:57To the surprise of fucking no one playing the game, the enemy flies through carrying Jyn with it.
00:22:06And she is screaming for Tommy, like all of you, I saw this coming from a mile away.
00:22:12Tommy is pissed though.
00:22:14And he vows to kill them all.
00:22:16The voice it speaks up, thanking Tommy for helping them find the Hidden.
00:22:21I guess they followed him to them.
00:22:24Tommy demands to know where Jyn is, but he gets no answer.
00:22:30He does see her fly by on the other side of a window, being carried by an alien though.
00:22:38The voice speaks to Tommy again.
00:22:41She calls him very persistent.
00:22:44She says that you are at the base of a huge tower in the sphere.
00:22:49She says that it is insanely massive and that it will take you quite some time to climb.
00:22:55She wonders if Tommy has the strength to go through with it.
00:22:58Tommy demands to know why she is doing this to him and Jyn, but he gets no response.
00:23:04She speaks to you again and asks one more time where you think you are going.
00:23:09The next time she speaks to Tommy, she is impressed with him.
00:23:14Tommy destroys whatever the hell this thing is.
00:23:18It must be very important since this action actually manages to anger the voice.
00:23:23This pleases Tommy.
00:23:25She says that he is becoming a problem, so keep up the good work.
00:23:30She contacts Tommy again and says he should have listened to his grandfather.
00:23:37That's what I have been saying all along, bitch.
00:23:41She sees potential in him.
00:23:44She also mentions that she has been helping him.
00:23:49How exactly?
00:23:51Tommy calls her the keeper and she just laughs in response.
00:23:56She says he does not understand and she mentions that Jyn is with her.
00:24:00She tells Tommy that he has come a long way, but he still has a long way to go.
00:24:04She tells him to submit to her and she will take him directly to Jyn.
00:24:10Fuck off, lady.
00:24:12No one is submitting to your evil ass.
00:24:15She presents Tommy with a series of portals.
00:24:17And she says that choosing the right one might lead him to Jyn, but choosing the wrong one could leave
00:24:23him to die in the vacuum of space.
00:24:25She says for him to prove his worth, solve the puzzle before you and Tommy winds up closer to Jyn's
00:24:33location.
00:24:34She says she kept her side of the bargain, but I don't remember making a bargain with her.
00:24:39Do you?
00:24:40She says she is impressed with Tommy's bravery and determination.
00:24:45Steps through the portal and Tommy hears Jyn.
00:24:48She is in pain.
00:24:49Approach the pod and free her.
00:24:51She cannot feel her legs and she has been infused into an alien as part of it.
00:24:59This is the next boss fight, so take it out.
00:25:02Afterwards, Jyn is still alive and she is begging Tommy to kill her.
00:25:06He does not want to do it, but he ultimately has no choice.
00:25:11This game makes you kill her.
00:25:13I say again, this game has balls.
00:25:17Tommy's last words to Jyn are that he loves her.
00:25:20The voice speaks up and says that his emotions clouded his judgment.
00:25:26This isn't Star Wars, asshole.
00:25:28She once again says that she sees potential in Tommy.
00:25:34She promises to make him immortal.
00:25:37Tommy rejects this and he calls out to his grandfather, finally willing to listen.
00:25:45Tommy, you should have done this from the start.
00:25:48I mean, better late than never, but who knows what you might have been capable of if you had
00:25:54just listened to the man.
00:25:56Tommy winds up back in the afterlife with his grandfather.
00:26:00Seven trials await him now that he is willing to listen for a fucking change.
00:26:06Each trial represents a sacred clan.
00:26:09Grandfather mentions that his ancestors are fighting off the aliens now.
00:26:15And he has Tommy head to the spirit cave here.
00:26:19Tommy is given a health upgrade.
00:26:21And the voice contacts Tommy here as well.
00:26:23Well, she says that you led them right to the land of your ancestors.
00:26:31The aliens start showing up, warring with your ancestors.
00:26:35And your grandfather calls out to you.
00:26:38Go to him and see what he needs.
00:26:40He is holding off a group of aliens.
00:26:43And he says that you have to return to the sphere.
00:26:47Tommy wants to stay and help his grandfather, but he has to return.
00:26:53The ancestors will deal with the aliens here.
00:26:56Fight the aliens until you get a portal to return back to the sphere.
00:27:01Tommy finally catches up to the keeper.
00:27:03And guess what?
00:27:04This creature has a very different voice from that of the female voice that has been talking
00:27:08to you this whole game.
00:27:10She is not the keeper.
00:27:12You could probably have guessed this when she reacted to Tommy calling her the keeper.
00:27:19The keeper wonders why Tommy is here.
00:27:23And Tommy says to avenge his people.
00:27:26The keeper scoffs at this idea.
00:27:28He says that they created humanity just to consume them later on like cattle.
00:27:33When they first found Earth, it was a barren planet.
00:27:37And they seeded it with life.
00:27:39Tommy was spared because he is unique and powerful.
00:27:44Personally, I think Tommy was spared because the hidden freed him at the beginning of the game.
00:27:48But whatever.
00:27:49The keeper seems to think that Tommy will join them and become a god.
00:27:54Tommy says that he is here to kill them.
00:27:58And the keeper says that his skills are great, but not great enough to kill the keepers.
00:28:02Like more than one.
00:28:04He says that you will fail and you will finally get to fight the keeper.
00:28:10Take him out.
00:28:11After the fight, Tommy says that it's over.
00:28:14I do not know what makes him think this.
00:28:17This creature is clearly not the voice that he's been hearing this entire time.
00:28:22So this is odd to me.
00:28:25She speaks up and says that it is not over.
00:28:28She gives Tommy a portal to another chamber where there are more keepers.
00:28:32Oh, hey, there is more than one.
00:28:35Time to fight more of these creatures.
00:28:38After doing so, she says again that she is impressed with Tommy.
00:28:43Tommy says that she can send as many keepers as she wants.
00:28:48He will not stop fighting.
00:28:50She says she could have Tommy killed instantly if she wanted to.
00:28:55And he calls bullshit.
00:28:56I have to agree with Tommy here.
00:28:58You were getting angry at him just a bit ago.
00:29:01If you could do that at any point, why haven't you done it yet?
00:29:07You either can't or you need something from him.
00:29:11If you need something from him, why does it have to be him in specific and not someone that might
00:29:17be more cooperative?
00:29:18It makes no sense, so I think Tommy might be right.
00:29:23She reiterates that your life is in her hands, though.
00:29:27And she offers to kill the keepers in the room as a sign of good faith.
00:29:32She then kills them all right in front of you.
00:29:35I am sure she has more stored somewhere that we haven't been.
00:29:42This sphere is massive.
00:29:44She gives Tommy a portal directly to her, so take it.
00:29:48Tommy winds up in front of an orb.
00:29:52Apparently this has not been seen by humans for thousands of years.
00:29:55She awaits you.
00:29:57Tommy finally reaches her, and she is humanoid.
00:30:01Formerly human.
00:30:02She was brought here thousands of years ago, and she fought the aliens just like he has eventually fought her
00:30:11way to this very chamber.
00:30:15She found the former leader of the sphere, and it recognized that she was exceptional just like Tommy is.
00:30:23It promised her that her people would be saved if she took the leader's place, and she took the deal.
00:30:32She believes Tommy will do the same.
00:30:35Time to fight her.
00:30:37Eventually the battle shield shifts to a different location, and she says that she wants Tommy to replace her.
00:30:43He came here to kill her, and she says that it's a waste of time to even try.
00:30:48I think you should try anyway.
00:30:50After you defeat her, she wants to know why.
00:30:54Tommy says he could not let the sphere go on destroying entire populations of cultures.
00:31:00She points out that the sphere and its aliens are a culture.
00:31:05While she is right about this, that culture stepped on the toes of other cultures and snuffed them out entirely,
00:31:14denying them the right to even exist.
00:31:17She asks Tommy once again to become the new leader of the sphere, and she places him in the center
00:31:25of it, where he found her.
00:31:28He feels the immense power offered by the ship, and he is tempted by it.
00:31:33Luckily, his grandfather speaks up and talks some sense into him.
00:31:37This sphere must be destroyed, and Tommy listens to the man for once.
00:31:44He places the sphere on a direct crash course with the sun, where it is ultimately destroyed.
00:31:51Tommy lines up back in the land of the ancestors with his grandfather.
00:31:55It is not yet his time.
00:31:58He wants to stay here with him and Jen, but he cannot.
00:32:02He says goodbyes, and he is sent back to Earth.
00:32:06There is a quick scene after the credits where Tommy is back at the bar six months later.
00:32:10He is having it fixed up, and the priestess steps through a portal to greet him.
00:32:15She says the portal worked, but it did not work in the way that they had hoped.
00:32:20It took them to some powerful beings who took interest in Tommy.
00:32:26She has him step right through the portal to meet them.
00:32:30This is where the game ends.
00:32:32It ends on a fucking cliffhanger.
00:32:35The ending that you are given does wrap up most of the loose ends, and it is satisfying.
00:32:42But this cliffhanger does sting because it will almost certainly never be resolved.
00:32:50I will get more into this later.
00:32:53But yeah, we have never gotten more of this game, its story, or its world.
00:32:59There is no DLC or expansion.
00:33:02There is no sequel to this game either.
00:33:04This is all we have gotten, and it sucks because I like what is here.
00:33:10I want more.
00:33:11Overall, I like this game's story.
00:33:15It is interesting.
00:33:16It sets up a fascinating world.
00:33:20It has multiple memorable sequences.
00:33:22It is rather spooky at times, and intriguing, and will keep you interested from start to finish.
00:33:29It has a few cool twists here and there to keep things interesting from start to finish.
00:33:34If you have never played Prey before, this is a story worth experiencing for yourself.
00:33:41It will not necessarily blow your socks off or anything, but there is more than enough here to chew on
00:33:47to leave you satisfied and wanting more.
00:33:50The only real problem that I have here with this narrative is Tommy himself.
00:33:55I get that his whole arc is him learning to accept and embrace what it means to be Cherokee.
00:34:02His heritage and his people, I get that.
00:34:05But he is so resistant to it for most of the game's run time, and I eventually just like,
00:34:13Okay, dude.
00:34:15It is time for you to shut up and listen to what your grandfather has to say.
00:34:20He gets on my nerves before the game ends, and he really only seems to accept it when he is
00:34:26all but given no other choice at the very end of the game.
00:34:32It irritates me, and I wish he was more accepting of his grandfather's teachings.
00:34:38Beyond that, I really like this story.
00:34:41One of the things that I did not touch on in my critique of the story is how good the
00:34:46world building is.
00:34:47Take your time to look around you at all the environments that you travel through.
00:34:53See all the moving parts and whatnot.
00:34:56Pay attention to everything around you.
00:34:59There is plenty to see and interact with as you travel throughout the sphere.
00:35:04And the world building is absolutely excellent in this game.
00:35:08One particular smart choice that they made for this game was bringing in Art Bell.
00:35:15If you don't know who that is, he made a name for himself running a nationally syndicated radio show called
00:35:24Coast to Coast AM,
00:35:26on which he would have people call in to discuss paranormal experiences.
00:35:31If you have heard Tool's album Lateralis, then you have heard a call from his radio show on the track
00:35:40Fight the Oed.
00:35:42I hope I pronounced that correctly.
00:35:44I probably didn't.
00:35:45Anyway, he was brought in to effectively do Coast to Coast segments for this game.
00:35:50At numerous points throughout the game, you will find parts of the ship where you will hear sections of a
00:35:58broadcast of his show and callers are all talking about what is going on as the sphere is abducting people.
00:36:07It is really cool and a smart addition that helps keep the game somewhat grounded.
00:36:13You can even catch a segment where the keeper calls into the show.
00:36:17So, Art dismisses this as a prank call, but we know better.
00:36:21These are worth your time to sit and listen to as you play.
00:36:26When the developers were creating Tommy, Jen, and his grandfather, they did call in representatives of the Cherokee tribe to
00:36:36make sure that they got things right.
00:36:37The end result is that Tommy, being Cherokee, wound up meaning more to this game and its story than the
00:36:46original 1998 version ever did.
00:36:48It informed his abilities such as spirit walking and the spirit guide Talon, who was his pet hawk as a
00:36:56child.
00:36:56I do not know that they got all of this stuff 100% right, as I am the wrong person
00:37:03to ask about this kind of thing, but the game was praised for how it represented Cherokee elements.
00:37:08All in all, this game tells an interesting, if so but predictable at times, story that is worth your time
00:37:15to sit and play through.
00:37:16And it has an ending that leaves you satisfied, but wanting more.
00:37:21The world it builds around you is far more fascinating and interesting though, and it is a shame that we
00:37:27will probably never get more of that.
00:37:31Tommy is rather annoying at times, but it doesn't drag down the overall experience too much.
00:37:38That's enough about the story, how does the game look?
00:37:42I should note that you are looking at the PC version of this game, though it is not completely stock.
00:37:49The game does not have modern resolutions built in.
00:37:52You cannot run the PC version at 1080p, 1440p, which is what I recorded it at, or 4K straight out
00:38:00of the box.
00:38:01You have to do a little bit of editing to the INI file to get the game running properly at
00:38:06modern resolutions, and I installed a mod that displays the HUD in proper widescreen.
00:38:13I also used a program that can run it in borderless window mode, so I could actually record it.
00:38:19Beyond that, it is stock.
00:38:21Aside from the resolution thing, you really should not have any problems running this game on modern rigs.
00:38:29It ran just fine on mine, while I was playing through it.
00:38:34If you choose to play the PC version, you should not have too much trouble getting it to work well
00:38:41to modern standards.
00:38:43Once you do, you see the results.
00:38:46It is rather impressive just how well this game holds up given that it is now 20 years old.
00:38:54This game does look quite good for its age.
00:38:56This is the Doom 3 engine with modifications to fit the developer's needs, and it shows.
00:39:03Much like Doom 3 itself and Raven Software's Quake 4, it holds up pretty well.
00:39:11When you get up close, you will see that it does show its age.
00:39:16You will see that round edges do not look quite as round as they once did, and textures are lower
00:39:21resolution compared to what you can expect today.
00:39:24But the engine was extremely high-end when Doom 3 came out, and it really helps hold up well to
00:39:31this day.
00:39:32What really helps with the Doom 3 engine in specific is how good the lighting and shadows were.
00:39:38This was the big deal with the Doom 3 engine when it came out.
00:39:42The lighting and shadows were so far beyond anything else that anyone was doing at the time.
00:39:50It definitely shows in Doom 3 and Quake 4, and the lighting and shadows in this game still look great.
00:39:57And good lighting can transform a scene from dull to amazing.
00:40:03Just take a look at Half-Life with Ray Tracing or the Ray Tracing mods for Doom or Quake for
00:40:08examples of this.
00:40:10Beyond just the lighting on a technical level is the way in which it is used.
00:40:17The way games were lit at the time, with things like stencil shadows and whatnot, was artistic in its design.
00:40:26Good art will always be good, no matter how old it gets.
00:40:31And this is part of why the lighting in this game just looks so damn good all these years later.
00:40:39And it does go a long way to disguising the game's faults that would otherwise become more evidence over time.
00:40:45The lighting and shadows are beautiful in this game.
00:40:50Beyond that, the Doom 3 engine did a number of other things quite well, like its particle effects, smoke effects,
00:40:55and fog.
00:40:56All of these can hide a game's shortcomings as well, but they can only do it effectively if they are
00:41:03used in the right way.
00:41:04Human Head understood the assignment here.
00:41:07The fog, particle, and smoke effects still look pretty good to this day.
00:41:11It's great.
00:41:11The art design is also worthy of praise.
00:41:15I mentioned earlier that you should take your time to look around the environments.
00:41:22At all the environmental storytelling in this game, and one reason that that stands out,
00:41:28is because the art design is endlessly interesting and genuinely excellent.
00:41:32The sphere is an unholy mishmash of cold mechanical steel and living biological tissue
00:41:40that gives off an eerie vibe of something that should not exist but does.
00:41:48The guns all feel like this too.
00:41:52Take a look at them all.
00:41:54They are all alive.
00:41:56They move and pulsate on their own when you hold them.
00:42:00All in all, the game holds up surprisingly well for a 20-year-old game.
00:42:05If you get this game running properly at modern resolutions, it can impress at a distance at least.
00:42:12When you get up close, the textures are obviously lower resolution, and character models are obviously dated as well.
00:42:20When fighting enemies in the environments with all the cool-looking weapons, though, it still looks quite good.
00:42:29And you wouldn't guess that it is as old as it is.
00:42:33How is the audio, then?
00:42:35How does it sound?
00:42:36Putting simply, this holds up even better than the graphics do.
00:42:40While the graphics do show their age in a few areas, the audio certainly doesn't.
00:42:46The game gets high watermarks across the board in the audio department.
00:42:51And I am not sure I have a single negative thing to say in this regard.
00:42:57This game just sounds great.
00:42:59Let's start with the audio design.
00:43:01The weapons tend to have decent power to them.
00:43:04They all sound good when you fire them.
00:43:09And this applies to everything from the basic hunter rifle all the way to the more powerful rocket launcher type
00:43:17of weapon, the crawler cannon.
00:43:20They all have power behind them when you fire them.
00:43:23You guys know I love good weapon audio on my first-person shooters, and this game certainly does have it.
00:43:30It's not quite at the level of fear, but few things are.
00:43:32The environmental noises are great, too.
00:43:35There is a lot of living tissue spread throughout the sphere in this game, and it makes all kinds of
00:43:41gross noises.
00:43:42You walk on it, pass by it, or open doors.
00:43:47Monitors and computers and electronic equipment all have different beeps and boops that help bring them all to life.
00:43:55The noises that the portals make do not sound out of place at all.
00:44:01The sphere sounds so alien, and it gives off a good atmosphere of a place that should not exist, that
00:44:12you should not be in.
00:44:14Enemies sound appropriately threatening with grunts and growls as you attack them.
00:44:20And they have gargling sounds and whatnot when they die that are satisfying.
00:44:27The keeper has an appropriately uncanny, inhuman voice that works great for his role in the story,
00:44:34and the lady that speaks to you through the game is most human-sounding enemy in the game, and it
00:44:42is appropriate that she was human once.
00:44:46It all sounds great.
00:44:47The voice acting is great, too.
00:44:49All the characters are quite well played in this game, and there is not a bad performance in the mix.
00:44:54The main cast is rather small overall, with it mostly just being Tommy, Jen, Grandfather, the woman at the center
00:45:05of the sphere,
00:45:06was she ever even given a name?
00:45:08I don't think so.
00:45:09So, the priestess and the keeper.
00:45:13All of those characters were well played, and even lesser roles, like those two assholes at the bar at the
00:45:20beginning of the game, are well played as well.
00:45:22One interesting note about the cast is that Tommy and Jen were both played by natives.
00:45:27They're from a Canadian tribe, but still,
00:45:30Michael Greyeyes plays Tommy, and Crystal Lightning plays Jen.
00:45:34Grandfather, on the other hand, was played by John William Galt.
00:45:39He did great with the role, but given that they got natives for the other two Native American roles,
00:45:45this is a strange pick.
00:45:47He was the voice of Lo Wang in Shadow Warrior.
00:45:51I like sword. That's a personal weapon.
00:45:54You got something with a bigger back seat?
00:45:56Hmm?
00:45:57Oh, baby, what's up you there, pipe?
00:46:00Lo Wang, come for you, little snake coward!
00:46:03You not slither away a second time!
00:46:06Tora, Tora, Tora!
00:46:09Yeah, I'm sure that voice is offensive to someone.
00:46:13Whatever, he did great with the role here.
00:46:16Finally, let's get to the music.
00:46:18And it is great, too.
00:46:19Sometimes I will just sit on the main menu for a bit before I start to play the game,
00:46:24because the main menu theme of this game is awesome.
00:46:28And there are some licensed tracks in this game, as well.
00:46:31I mentioned Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, but it has some killer tracks like Barracuda by Heart,
00:46:38You've Got Another Thing Coming by Judas Priest, and Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent.
00:46:43It all adds onto an OST that was already pretty damn good.
00:46:48All in all, this game's sound design is excellent, the weapons sound good, the environments and effects sound appropriately gross,
00:46:57The music is excellent, complete with some licensed tracks, and the voice acting is great.
00:47:06Like I previously said, I have nothing negative to say as far as the game's soundscape is concerned.
00:47:13It holds up quite well 20 years after release, and it just lends to this game holding up well overall.
00:47:22Human Head Studios understood the assignment, as they say.
00:47:26A game can look and sound amazing, and it can have an interesting story,
00:47:30but all that can be completely wasted if the gameplay sucks.
00:47:36How does Prey play?
00:47:38I personally think it plays quite well.
00:47:41In a lot of ways, it does play like a fairly typical shooter at the time,
00:47:48but it was also quite innovative in a lot of ways as well.
00:47:54Don't hear me saying typical is a bad thing, though.
00:47:57It can play fairly typical and still be great and well made,
00:48:02and this is the case here.
00:48:04When you are in combat, this game does not do too much different from other corridor shooters at the time.
00:48:13Like many a shooter in the post-Halo World, Tommy moves at a slower pace.
00:48:19You travel through a linear corridor,
00:48:22you fight a variety of enemies with a variety of weapons that,
00:48:25while somewhat unique, also fall into archetypes for the genre.
00:48:30It is fairly standard in this regard.
00:48:33You have played shooters that play similarly to Prey,
00:48:37at least in some ways with regards to its combat.
00:48:43Having said that, the enemies are fun to fight.
00:48:46The AI isn't bad.
00:48:47They do not just stand there and take up the teeth.
00:48:51They will do things like duck and move into cover,
00:48:55and they will toss grenades your way to flush you out.
00:49:00They do a decent job of fighting back,
00:49:03and you are bound to have fun engaging with them as a result.
00:49:08They aren't pushovers.
00:49:10They do not feel frustrating or unfair either, though.
00:49:14The level design, while linear, is well designed,
00:49:18and they provide a wide variety of environments for you to fight enemies in,
00:49:24and scenarios for you to engage them in as well.
00:49:27It's good.
00:49:29Like I said, I do not pair standard and think that I am insulting the game.
00:49:35A game can be similar to others in the genre,
00:49:38and still be a blast because it is well made.
00:49:42Prey's combat is exactly that.
00:49:44The combat loop and level design are both quite good,
00:49:48and it keeps combat fresh and interesting for the game's runtime.
00:49:53I mentioned that the weapons were both fairly unique and fairly archetypal at the same time.
00:50:00Let's talk about it.
00:50:01The first weapon that you get is a wrench.
00:50:05There's nothing special about it.
00:50:07It's just a wrench.
00:50:08You hit things with it.
00:50:09Beyond this, you will notice that every weapon is alive,
00:50:12though it does not play much into how they function.
00:50:17It's just cool to look at.
00:50:19Your second weapon is the hunter rifle.
00:50:22This works as a basic rapid-fire machine gun type of weapon,
00:50:27as well as a more powerful sniper with a zoom function.
00:50:31The other thing that you will notice is that weapons have an alt-fire.
00:50:36Tommy also gets a weapon called a leech gun.
00:50:39Now, this is the most unique weapon in this game.
00:50:43It leeches off of power outlets on the wall,
00:50:46and there are three types of outlets in total.
00:50:50One gives you fire-based damage,
00:50:52one gives you lightning-based damage,
00:50:55and the last one gives you ice-based damage.
00:50:59Fire is a rapid-fire type of damage.
00:51:02Lightning is a more powerful burst of electricity,
00:51:06and ice will freeze enemies in their tracks.
00:51:09This might be my favorite weapon in the game.
00:51:11I love it.
00:51:12It is such a cool concept.
00:51:13The autocannon is a weapon that you will get
00:51:15when you chop off the enemy's arm in the first boss fight.
00:51:20As the name implies, it is a faster firing weapon,
00:51:24it has a faster rate of fire than the hunter rifle,
00:51:26and it does more damage.
00:51:27You get less ammo for it, though.
00:51:29Its secondary fire is lobbing explosives at the enemy.
00:51:34So, this works more like some machine gun from Half-Life.
00:51:38It does look a hell of a lot cooler and more alien than that does.
00:51:43The acid sprayer is the game's workhorse shotgun.
00:51:47Every first-person cheater needs a shotgun type of weapon, right?
00:51:51This one splatters acid on the enemies.
00:51:54It has a slower rate of fire, of course,
00:51:57and it has a wider spread than the previous weapons.
00:52:00It works like a typical shotgun, but it fires acid.
00:52:04There are crawlers, too.
00:52:06These are grenades.
00:52:07You know how grenades work.
00:52:08Pull the pin and throw.
00:52:10Wait for shit to blow up.
00:52:12The final weapon, as you would expect,
00:52:15is a rocket launcher type weapon called the Crawler Cannon.
00:52:18And, you guessed it, it fires explosives at the enemy.
00:52:22In this case, crawlers.
00:52:24It works exactly like you would expect it to,
00:52:26and it packs quite a wallop when it hits enemies.
00:52:30It can one-shot lesser enemies,
00:52:33but I swear there are enemies that have a shield against it.
00:52:37Maybe it's just me, but I swear sometimes it seems like they do.
00:52:41Whatever, the thing is still rather powerful,
00:52:44as a good rocket launcher should be.
00:52:47What was forward-thinking about Prey, however,
00:52:50was that the game did portals a year before the game Portal.
00:52:55You cannot cast them like you could in that game,
00:52:59but they are still used for some cool mind-bending puzzles.
00:53:03That will get you thinking.
00:53:06The game also messes with gravity.
00:53:09It has these strips that you can stick to,
00:53:14and you will walk along them.
00:53:16They will lead you on the walls and the ceilings,
00:53:19and this means that enemies will enter the room above you,
00:53:24or below you, or to your left, or to the right.
00:53:27Shooting someone that is to the left of you,
00:53:32and is standing upside down, or whatever,
00:53:34is pretty wild,
00:53:35and seeing what direction the corpse falls when you kill enemies
00:53:41is so fucking cool.
00:53:43Gravity really keeps things interesting.
00:53:46Spirit walking is another mechanic in this game that Tommy has.
00:53:50Tommy's spirit can temporarily leave his body,
00:53:53and he can do things like pass through force fields,
00:53:57and enter into areas that his body otherwise cannot.
00:54:01This is mostly used for puzzle solving,
00:54:03but you do have a bow that you can use to engage enemies,
00:54:05and some minor combat should the need arise in your spirit form.
00:54:09It's pretty cool.
00:54:10Puzzles start off as simple as walking through a force field
00:54:14to press a button to turn it off,
00:54:17but they get more complex later on in the game.
00:54:20Talon also comes into play in the gameplay as well.
00:54:24As your spirit guide,
00:54:26he will show you where to go for sure,
00:54:29but he can do more than that.
00:54:33When he lands near a screen,
00:54:35the alien writing on it gets translated into English,
00:54:38allowing you to read it.
00:54:39He can also engage enemies.
00:54:41He can distract them so that they will stop attacking you
00:54:44and have to deal with him instead,
00:54:47allowing you to get off some shots without being fired back at.
00:54:53He's awesome and helpful.
00:54:55Death is a mechanic in this game as well.
00:54:57When you die, you are taken to the spirit realm.
00:55:00There will be spirits that look like birds flying in circles around you.
00:55:06If you manage to shoot them with your bow,
00:55:10they will add to your life.
00:55:12Red ones add to your health,
00:55:14and blue ones add to your spirit health.
00:55:17You are only given a short amount of time
00:55:19to shoot them to regain your health
00:55:23before you are taken back to your body.
00:55:25It is a cool mechanic at first,
00:55:27but you will eventually realize
00:55:29that it does kind of take all the challenge out of the game.
00:55:32You can die as many times as you want
00:55:34and you will just return back to your body
00:55:38where you left off.
00:55:40There is no penalty for dying at all.
00:55:43One more thing.
00:55:44Prey does have a few vehicle sections as well.
00:55:48These are not on rails,
00:55:50nor are you stuck to the ground.
00:55:52You are in a flying vehicle.
00:55:55You have specific points where you will have to land,
00:55:59and enemies can shoot the vehicle down.
00:56:02If that happens,
00:56:03it is straight back to the afterlife
00:56:04to do the death minigame that I just discussed.
00:56:08But the controls well,
00:56:10the combating enemies is fun,
00:56:12and the tractor beam,
00:56:13as it is all at fire,
00:56:15can be used for some light puzzle solving
00:56:18here and there.
00:56:19It is fun to use.
00:56:20I think that about covers it.
00:56:22Prey plays great.
00:56:24It is a hell of a lot of fun.
00:56:25The campaign gives you a good mix of puzzle solving,
00:56:28and plenty of combat in between story and world building
00:56:33that keeps things fresh and interesting
00:56:35for the admittedly rather short run time.
00:56:38Prey is awesome.
00:56:40It is fun as hell.
00:56:41It plays just as well now as it did 20 years ago.
00:56:45Father Time has been kind to this game
00:56:47and its gameplay.
00:56:49And it does not feel dated in its design.
00:56:53The puzzles are clever,
00:56:54and the combat loop is still fun.
00:56:56What about replayability?
00:56:59This is where you get a bit of a dent in the armor.
00:57:02Good luck finding online games 20 years later.
00:57:05I am not sure it even had a big online win when it was new.
00:57:10Beyond that, there are no alternative endings.
00:57:12There are no collectibles.
00:57:14There are no branching paths in the story or anything.
00:57:17You get a five to seven hour campaign
00:57:20that is fairly linear,
00:57:22and that's it.
00:57:23Whether you want to replay it depends upon how much you enjoy it.
00:57:27For me, I have beaten it more than once on both PC and console,
00:57:32and I can see myself replaying it again in the future.
00:57:37Prey is the complete package.
00:57:39Everything from the story to the world building
00:57:41to the graphics and sound design and gameplay
00:57:44all hold up well all these years later.
00:57:47This game is an absolute joy to sit down and play through,
00:57:51as it was 20 years ago when it first released.
00:57:55Sometimes development hell hurts a game in the long run.
00:57:59This is not one of those times.
00:58:00Prey came out the other side,
00:58:02delivering on its promises
00:58:04and firing on all cylinders.
00:58:06I cannot recommend it enough.
00:58:08This game fucking rules.
00:58:10Go play it.
00:58:11What you have been looking at
00:58:13throughout the majority of this video
00:58:14is the PC version of the game.
00:58:17And this is the best version as you would expect.
00:58:20It is the best looking version of the game,
00:58:22and has the best frame rate.
00:58:24You can mod it,
00:58:25and it is not difficult to get it running properly
00:58:28on modern resolutions for modern hardware.
00:58:32There is only one problem.
00:58:34You cannot buy this anywhere.
00:58:36It is not on Steam or GOG
00:58:38or any other digital storefront,
00:58:41making the PC version difficult to obtain legally.
00:58:45Night Dive.
00:58:47This would be a good candidate for a remaster.
00:58:50Please?
00:58:51It deserves it.
00:58:52It is, however, not the only option.
00:58:55It came to the Xbox 360 as well.
00:58:57This version of the game
00:58:59is not as good as the PC version.
00:59:01It has lower resolution textures,
00:59:03it has jaggies all over the place,
00:59:06and the frame rate is 30 FPS.
00:59:08At the best of times,
00:59:10it does not hold 30,
00:59:11and can dip quite a bit on the Xbox 360.
00:59:15When it gets hectic,
00:59:17the frame rate is prone to dipping below 20 FPS,
00:59:21and it is definitely noticeable.
00:59:23You can buy this version digitally, though.
00:59:25This version is the easiest to obtain nowadays.
00:59:29There is a good bit of news,
00:59:31then, that this version of the game
00:59:34is backwards compatible.
00:59:36If you purchase the Xbox 360 version,
00:59:39it does run on the Xbox One or the Xbox Series.
00:59:42Here, it is running on the Xbox One X,
00:59:45where it will run upscaled to 4K.
00:59:48It is nice,
00:59:50but the real bonus of playing it this way
00:59:52is the frame rate.
00:59:54It still dips, mind you,
00:59:56but it does so a lot less often,
00:59:58and the dips are a lot less severe.
01:00:01Playing it on the Xbox One X,
01:00:03it will dip to the high 20s,
01:00:06but never seems to go down even as much as 25 FPS.
01:00:10This makes this game much more playable
01:00:13than it otherwise would be on original hardware.
01:00:16It also loads faster on the Xbox One X
01:00:20than it ever did on the Xbox 360,
01:00:22where it tends to suffer
01:00:23from fairly lengthy load times.
01:00:25This is probably the best option
01:00:28for retaining the game legally nowadays.
01:00:31Before I close this video,
01:00:32I did mention earlier
01:00:33that the game ends up on a cliffhanger
01:00:36that will probably never be resolved.
01:00:37I promised that I would talk about that.
01:00:42Well, about that.
01:00:43Prey proved to be a success for 3D Realms,
01:00:46and a sequel was greenlit rather quickly.
01:00:48Human Head Studio would start development
01:00:51on Prey 2 shortly after.
01:00:53The sequel was announced to the public
01:00:55in August 2006,
01:00:56and it hit a snag in the road
01:01:00almost immediately.
01:01:01Take-Two had no interest
01:01:03in funding a sequel,
01:01:04so Human Head Studios
01:01:06had to find someone else
01:01:08to fund development of the game.
01:01:10This earlier version of Prey 2
01:01:11was never seen by the public,
01:01:13and we do not know much about it
01:01:14except that Tommy was going to return in it.
01:01:18However, the Prey 2
01:01:20that people in the know
01:01:22are familiar with
01:01:23entered development in 2009,
01:01:25when ZeniMax,
01:01:26the parent company for Bethesda,
01:01:28acquired the license to Prey.
01:01:30The game was announced to the world
01:01:33with a big trailer in 2011,
01:01:36and it was scheduled for release in 2012
01:01:38for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
01:01:42This game was once again
01:01:44going to run on a heavily modified version
01:01:46of EdTech 4,
01:01:47the Doom 3 engine.
01:01:49The game would feature a new character
01:01:51named Killian Samuels,
01:01:53and he would be a bounty hunter.
01:01:56It would take place on an alien world
01:01:58reminiscent of Blade Runner,
01:02:00and Tommy would be involved in a story
01:02:02with various audio logs in the game
01:02:03where Killian would talk about meeting him.
01:02:06It would take place in an open cyberpunk world
01:02:09inspired by Blade Runner.
01:02:10Killian was a U.S. Marshal
01:02:12that got abducted
01:02:13during the events of the first game,
01:02:15and he awakens in an alien city
01:02:17with no memory of how he got there.
01:02:19The player would also be able to
01:02:21wander around the world
01:02:23and talk to various NPCs that inhabit it,
01:02:27and they would give him bounties
01:02:29of aliens that they needed to be taken out,
01:02:31and the player would explore
01:02:33and find and take out the targets.
01:02:36The core of the game would return,
01:02:39the alien species would return,
01:02:41there would be more spheres,
01:02:43the keeper would return,
01:02:45the predator and prey relationship
01:02:47where the keeper are hunting people
01:02:50would make a return,
01:02:51and the team was faced with the challenge
01:02:54of making all of this work
01:02:56with the main character being a bounty hunter.
01:02:59Prey 2 had acrobatics
01:03:01as part of its combat loop as well.
01:03:03Killian could slide,
01:03:05he could jump,
01:03:06and he could ledge grab.
01:03:08All the abilities helped
01:03:09quicken the pace of combat
01:03:10from the first game.
01:03:12Killian was to be a more agile character
01:03:15than Tommy was.
01:03:16All of this was shown off at E3 2011,
01:03:19and critics of the show that year
01:03:22came away impressed.
01:03:23It is unfortunate that E3 2011
01:03:26also marked a turning point
01:03:27for the relationship
01:03:28between Human Head Studios and Bethesda.
01:03:31What exactly happened behind the scenes
01:03:34is not 100% certain.
01:03:36Bethesda was happy with the progress made
01:03:39and how the game demoed at E3
01:03:41and promised more development time.
01:03:43Though they still shot for a 2012 release,
01:03:48Bethesda was also allegedly unhappy
01:03:50that Human Head was using a dated engine
01:03:52as Doom 3 was 7 years old at this point.
01:03:55The fucking audacity
01:03:56when they were working on the same engine
01:03:58building it up since Morrowind.
01:04:01But whatever.
01:04:03They were allegedly not happy with this.
01:04:05Apparently, Bethesda never wrote it
01:04:07to a contract that Human Head
01:04:09would get more time to develop the game.
01:04:11And Human Head was not happy
01:04:14about this understandably.
01:04:16This allegedly resulted in financial problems
01:04:19for the studio,
01:04:20and then the team had to do contract work
01:04:23for other games,
01:04:24most notably Bioshock Infinite,
01:04:27to continue to keep the lights on.
01:04:29Bethesda also allegedly tried
01:04:31to purchase Human Head Studios
01:04:33when they did not want to be bought,
01:04:36and the team went on strike
01:04:38to stop this from happening.
01:04:39The team making the game
01:04:42did not get real work done
01:04:44the following year because of this,
01:04:46and Bethesda wanted to just
01:04:49wait out the contract
01:04:50and take control of Prey outright,
01:04:53ripping the game away from the studio
01:04:56that had been working hard on it,
01:04:59and from all the gamers
01:05:01that were hyped up for it,
01:05:04myself included.
01:05:05For the record,
01:05:07Pete Hines has denied the claims
01:05:09and interviews later on,
01:05:11but I have questions.
01:05:13Bethesda did ultimately wind up
01:05:15with the IP,
01:05:16and Prey 2 never happened.
01:05:18What is and isn't true
01:05:21isn't really known,
01:05:22but what we do know
01:05:24is Bethesda repeatedly used
01:05:27the same line when asked
01:05:29about Prey 2,
01:05:30and it getting delayed and whatnot.
01:05:32The game failed to meet
01:05:35their quality standards.
01:05:37Given the launch set of Fallout 76,
01:05:39I cannot help but feel
01:05:40that this was more the result
01:05:41of Bethesda,
01:05:42Human Head,
01:05:43or both being petty
01:05:45behind the scenes.
01:05:46If Prey 2 did not meet
01:05:47your standards,
01:05:48but that broken trash fire did,
01:05:51what exactly are your standards?
01:05:53The developers reportedly insisted
01:05:55that their work was high quality.
01:05:57Well, the first Prey was high quality,
01:05:59so I leaned more toward Human Head
01:06:01being correct on this one.
01:06:03Unfortunately,
01:06:03Prey 2 was cancelled,
01:06:05and we got a different game in 2017.
01:06:07That year,
01:06:08we got a spiritual successor
01:06:10to System Shock
01:06:10that happened to be named Prey.
01:06:13It was really the final nail
01:06:14on Prey 2's coffin.
01:06:16Bethesda just gave the name
01:06:18to another company.
01:06:19I do not hate the 2017 game
01:06:21for being called Prey
01:06:23while having nothing to do with Prey.
01:06:25I do not hate Arkane either
01:06:28for making a game called Prey
01:06:30that had nothing to do with Prey either.
01:06:32I begrudge Bethesda
01:06:34for insisting that the game
01:06:35be called Prey
01:06:36despite having no connection
01:06:38to the previous game.
01:06:39I have not played the 2017 game,
01:06:42but by all accounts,
01:06:44it is a great game.
01:06:45Fans and critics alike
01:06:47have all praised it a great deal.
01:06:50Friends of mine have told me
01:06:52that it is great
01:06:54and assured me
01:06:55that I would love it.
01:06:57And I probably would.
01:06:58I love System Shock 1 and 2.
01:07:00You tell me
01:07:01that you are working
01:07:03on a spiritual successor to it,
01:07:05and it sparks my interest.
01:07:06I cannot hate it,
01:07:08but I will forever wonder
01:07:10just what would be lost
01:07:11with Prey 2.
01:07:13Because everything
01:07:14that we have seen from it
01:07:16looks awesome.
01:07:18Fingers crossed
01:07:19someone somewhere
01:07:20gets a build of the game
01:07:22and finishes it
01:07:23or we get an official release
01:07:26of it
01:07:27or its ideas
01:07:28are taken
01:07:28to create a whole new Prey 2.
01:07:31But it's probably dead forever.
01:07:34Well, that was a depressing note
01:07:36to end on,
01:07:36but thank you for watching.
01:07:38This video was an absolute beast
01:07:41to put together.
01:07:41And I wanted to cover all my bases
01:07:43and give this game
01:07:45the love that it deserves.
01:07:47What do you think
01:07:48of the 2006 game Prey?
01:07:50Did you like it
01:07:51as much as I did?
01:07:52Let me know below.
01:07:54Be sure to subscribe
01:07:55and ring the bell
01:07:56and make sure you
01:07:57get future notifications
01:07:58from this channel.
01:08:00If you could
01:08:01give this video
01:08:04a like
01:08:04and a share,
01:08:05that would help out a lot
01:08:07as well.
01:08:07Talk to you later, everybody.
01:08:09Doom Dog out.
01:08:18Doom Dog out.
01:08:18Doom Dog out.
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