Cynical Gamer Reviews Prey

To be consistant with my review process I thought it would be worthwhile reviewing Prey as a Prayer (I understand that Prey is the target of a predator, but the English language being the way it is Prey and Pray sound very much the same). I think more than any other game released this year Prey needs some form of divine intervention from the great game creator in the sky in order to give it any long term success.

To the great game creator in the sky,

Please let Prey have a quick death, as I don't believe it is worthwhile dragging out the long, protracted boredom which the game has inflicted on me onto other gamers. I hope that 3DRealms learns from their mistakes (and they seem to make so many) and that you can forgive them for these inadequacies and show them some form of direction which will take them back to the days when Duke Nukem was a good (not great) game as they seem to have lost their way.

I would hope that people don't take the stereotypes of native Americans to heart and understand that 3DRealms were not culturally insensitive but just plain stupid in their interpretation of the plight of American Indians. Their use of the spirit realm was unguided and superfluous to the innocuous and boring nature of the puzzles in the game. It is used as a novelty and does not do anything to advance the story or create a better understanding of Indian mythology. I believe it is better if you guide them by their mistakes and make them learn so that they do not make the same mistakes again.

In the future I hope that you can better guide 3DRealms to understand the genre of the shooter. There should be shooting in a shooter and not so much walking. The object of a shooter is to shoot stuff and it just seems that combat in Prey is few and far between. And what is a game (especially a shooter) where you cannot die? For isn't death the reason why we want to live? If you cannot die then what is life but a meaningless romp? I would hope that you can show 3DRealms from the error of their ways so that they can better develop games in the future.

The graphics in Prey are excellent, but how could they possibly fluff the Doom 3 engine. The only problem is that this game seems to be no different graphically from Doom 3 or Quake 4. It makes the player feel as they are going over the same turf again and again. At least the source engine has been utilized to create different environments. Areas that at least feel different from the last. Half Life 2, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic feel like three fully developed and different games using the same engine. Whereas the Doom 3 engine feels like regurgitated games coming from the same place with little differentiating features which would identify them as individual works.

I would hope that if 3DRealms were going to take another ten or so years to develop a game that you could show them the error of their ways. If any game was to take this long to create then I would expect it to be revolutionary and not just another churned out piece of software from a machine.

More than anything else I hope that we can forgive 3DRealms because it appears that they know not what they do. We cannot begrudge the stupid people as they know no better, but we must be wary of the smart people who make no real effort.

I hope that you find a good final resting place for Prey as it will not be reinstalled on my PC.

Cynical Gamer Score:
Prey as a shooter trying to break the mold but not succeeding: 100
As a Game which will receive immortality in the gaming after life: 5
Worthy of the Doom 3 Engine: 0
Total Score: 35/100