Prey

If your friend, or really anyone tells you to play this, you'd better listen to them. Prey is a wonderful game, the setting, soundtrack, and story all fit together perfectly to make this masterpiece of a game.

In 2024, it's easy to say that the immersive sim is in a renaissance. Rather than just attempting to recreate what came before, the immersive sim of the 2020's critically examines the foundations of this genre and then distorts them in bold, experimental ways. Games like Shadows of Doubt, Ctrl Alt Ego, Weird West, and so on are emblematic of this approach, and the immersive sim is far from the only classic genre to be caught up in this experimental frenzy. That is not what this review is about. Rather, it's about a game released in a time when those classics were only starting to be revived. If you've played just about any game with a title that goes like "Something Shock", Prey feels very similar to them. You're dropped into an unfamiliar and hostile place, and you must accomplish a specific objective while trying to uncover the mysteries of how everything went wrong. Along the way you acquire a suite of tools(one of the interesting things about this genre is how it understands the role of weapons as just another tool that can be used in all sorts of ways) and abilities that unlock new ways to traverse the world. Nowhere can this be seen better than the GLOO gun. This tool can be used in combat, puzzle solving, traversal, and much more, and is the sort of thing that just wouldn't be possible back in the day, not with all the utility it has in this game at least. Aside from that, combat feels clunky, something the immersive sim as a whole is no stranger to. The story should also be given special mention, not just for the diverse cast of characters and their arcs, but also for its themes. Where most games use science fiction as an aesthetic to paint on their guns, Prey actually engages with speculative concepts on a deeper level. I won't give anything away, but don't just sleepwalk through the world and dialogue. Overall, a fantastic experience with few flaws and incredible story. Also very queer for this genre, if you're looking for something along those lines.

One of my favorite games. played it on the XBOX ONE a year after release after i found a copy for cheap one day. fell in love with it and eventually bought it on STEAM when i got my first gaming PC. later found out it was on GOG and had to buy it again. it works great on my older Windows 7 Gaming PC i built for fun. its got a GTX 960, i7-3770 and 16gb RAM. works even better on my current gaming PC. i9-9900k, RTX 2080 Super, 32gb RAM. great game that runs on most systems with Windows 7 and above. just download the offline backup installer on your modern PC, coppy the install files to a USB drive and install it onto your Windows 7 PC.

Deep. Atmospheric. Clever. A true victory of game design and execution.

I honestly struggle to come up with the right words for how much this game means to me. I believe it is nothing less than the apex of what Immersive Sims can be. Something that grips you utterly and drags you into its world by force. The fact it did not do so well when it comes to sales and the fact that it is less known than dishonored is a disgrace, as, while all these games are great, I believe this is the crown jewel of the bunch. Mind, you, this is coming from someone who loves the Dishonored series to death, so I think it says a lot. Gameplay wise, the game offers several avenues of approach for each task, with a full playthrough changing drastically with different playstyles. In this regard, I also highly recomed mooncrash, as the DLC forces you to interact with the gameès systems in ways you probably hadnèt before. Once you finish it, you will gain a brand new apreciation for how many different approaches are coded into the main game, as one can use stealth, guns, grenades and other of the usual routes or one can rely on mind-control, mobility and mimicking smaller objects to bypass a lot of hurdles. Overall, play it. I promise it will change the way you look at games.