Prey

This is System Shock 3. Something I had no hopes to see, but here it is! It's perfect. I just wish I found it earlier.

I get the main appeal of this game is the supposed liberty of action, the different ways to tackle problems, and the free exploration of the space station. Also having a story that revolves around mystery and quite some jumpscares. But for me, I find more engaging stories, liberty and tools in other games, like Deus Ex Human Revolution, that are far better than this game The story is more or less clear in your mind when you have played 25% of the whole game, with a couple of plot twists that you aren't expecting. But they either don't change much, or they change it for worse. This is one of the few games that I decided I was not going to bother finishing. So I uninstalled it and watched the endings on Youtube. And it was more satisfying than playing through a lot of areas that are mostly there to make the game longer than it needs to be. In fact, I'd say that exploration is excessive, and not rewarding enough (because I felt forced to play it by the need to finish what I started, rather than enjoying discovery) So yeah: - Too long for what it is worth - A story that fails to engage the player to make him go through all those areas - Not so much liberty in my opinon. Deus Ex games are far better at that - That much freedom and options in the story are rather pointless. Do not ask for spoilers. - Retrofuturism is not my thing (personal opinion) - You can figure the main plot for the most part, except a few plot twists that ruin the freedom you have.

gem gem

Prey 2017 isn't so much a love letter to System Shock 2 as it is a warmed up rehashing. Others who are absolutely enamoured with SS2 won't see a problem with that. I should point out that I played SS2 back in 1999 and whilst I was impressed by it, it also was a terrifying experience that Prey 2017 doesn't deliver. I also played the original Prey (or the *real* Prey) back in 2006 and there is a commonality between the two on that point of not delivering: Prey 2017 isn't SS2 horror and terror but a grim tension that is never truly broken (I ended up mentally treating it as Duke Nukem (not a coincidence for me) when I got the golden gun as part of a minor side quest). The Real Prey didn't deliver because it couldn't make up its mind as to whether it was an action first person shooter with some puzzles or itself delving into horror, because attempting to do both in that game didn't work (the player being too powerful to be scared). Prey 2017 offers NPCs that are alive and help, but these are sparsely dropped in and are not the best made models (the faces of female NPCs looking extremely lumpen) and given the list of credits/blames the character artwork should not have been that poor of an effort. Given that your character is a mute in NPC interactions - which is a huge giveaway in of itself that I picked up on early - doesn't help with the "play your own way" style and leads to the awkward Half-Life style of writing. At least having an internal monologue would have been something, but alas not even that. Some will be impressed by how the levels look, but to me they just look poor. The foliage in the Arboretum looked no better here (in a 2017 game!) than in 2009's Arkham Asylum, which also done the Metroidvania style world far better. In short, I uninstalled the game after completion (almost the best ending, one human killed early on). If I want SS2, I'll play SS2 and if I want a better take on "play your own way"? Even the original Deus Ex wins on that front.

Very solid game. You are enabled to play the way you want and progress through the game in many ways that would have you laugh or scratch your head. Graphics are good for what it is. Sounddesign is really impressive. Story is solid. Plot twists are strong. Multiple Endings. ----- One star deduction for wokeness: - main character was "race swapped" from what seemed to be Caucasian to Asian. (Which was a forecast on what is to come from Arkane in the future in terms of wokeness.) Unfortunately there are also girl bosses aka "strong whamen" and gay stuff in audio logs which feels like I am being fed an ideology. Why does scifi always end up like this? Anyway. Would be great to see a mod some day that removes all the gay stuff and girl bosses. Also it would be great if the main character/characters were raceswappped back to original (seen in trailer).