I have the original retail boxed copy from way back when and I've attempted replaying it. Each time, I have not got far in the original campaign - not even out of the academy - before quitting and not returning. This time I got as far as the first few quests, but good grief is it clunky and just as clunky back in the olden times. I enjoy Dragon Age far more than Mass Effect (and both more than the cult favourite Jade Empire) but this is for hardcore RPG fans that may want to use the toolkit. If you lean more into action, a streamlined but still for the PC interface, and perhaps want to have more than just 1 AI follower at a time? Look elsewhere. But if this is on sale when you read this, a few quid isn't going to hurt.
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.
