What did you guys think of Prey?

I was quite intrigued by Prey -- the portals, the spirit walking, the incredibly long and arduous development history -- and I finally played it last week.

My verdict: it was weak and disappointing. Yet I've seen some very strong reviews and talked with a number of people who seem to love this game. Am I missing something here?

It's a good game, but I found myself struggling to play it to completion. It just reminded me of DOOM3 too much, and the combat just felt like it was on repeat most of the time. But as a game it would have been good for new comers to the gaming scene.

Fair enough, Judocricket. I guess I had built the game up more and when it came time to play, I found it to be tedious. After a while, the puzzles and strategies involving the portals and spirit walking began to annoy me. So did the weapons -- I didn't care for them much.

Visually, I think the game is outstanding -- the plane crash set was amazing, as were the sections with the moon-like spheres. But while there were times that the game was great to look at, I didn't actually enjoy playing it. I got tired of running over the same turf again and again, and I didn't feel like the vision of the Sphere was very original (hello, Quake), so the whole thing began to wear on me.

As for the story I thought it was a basic "point A to point B" with bad dialogue (I'm of the opinion that it's usually best to take the Gordon Freeman route), though I did like the unexpected little twist that came late in the game. Freaky stuff.

some nice effects and the smoothness of the engine when flipping upside down was nice.

other than that i found it quite boring and uninteresting.

Prey is a very simple game to review.

It's a very average but well produced game. I.E. high quality mediocrity (if that makes sense to you - think Halo 2 or Quake IV or something like that if you need an example for comparison)

On the other hand, it also has one of the most insanely awesome gimmicks of all time. The only downside is that it under used this in the singleplayer anyway. Then the multiplayer, which actually DID successfully throw it all together, was unfortunately more of a gimmick in & of itself. Just a somewhat empty & antiquated form of deathmatch, unlike something along the lines of Half-Life 2 multiplayer, which truly revived an older formula.

Personally I very much enjoyed the DEMO of Prey. I didn't care to play too much more beyond that. I'll wait for Portal while I play Narbacular Drop in the mean time. I've already got games for the gravity changes.