I bought this game for XBox 360 for 10 Euro or so, and I was expecting a nice shooter without too much story and a lot of graphical violence. And well, frankly even with that expectation it disappointed me.
First of all I want to say that I like the original idea of wallwalking, etc. It cóuld have been very innovative if it wasn't for the developer turning this game into a semi-puzzel/platform game every once in a while. I said this a lot of times and I'm gonna say it again; platformgames and shooters dón't mix, period. I like a challenge, but for example I was trapped in one (big) level for a entire week before I found out that to progress in the game, I had to shoot a small electro-tube somewhere on the wall... What kind of game-logic is that?! So if you want to complete this game and you find yourself stuck, the best thing to do is thus basically shoot at everything and hope it triggers a door or anything... It is NOT the way I want to play a game! The most 'innovative' part of this game are the portals, and even though Valve's Portal-mod does a far much better job at this today then Prey, it is a cool effect (at least for sight). Is it necessary? No. Is it confusing? Very much. Most of the time when you enter a portal, you will flip upside-down , or sideways in a way that it will leave you desorientated for a brief few seconds and thus very vulnerable to enemy attacks even with the most 'elite' shooterskills.
The weapons are also not very great. Every gun looks like a cliché alien-gun, complete with bright lights and shiny texture. You have a sort of plasma-gun, a gun that you can load up with elemental stuff like fire, electricity, cold. You also get a gun that fires what could be described as a load of snot... Well, do I need to say more? Its as if the developers of this game weren't even trying. Oh, and you also get to play with the lamest, and I mean the LAMEST main-character in a shooting-game EVER. At the start of the game, the Indian-guy doesn't bother you much, but further in the game his whining about his girlfriend and his childish and furthermore simply dull one-liners ("Damn, its dark in here!" - as if I didn't notice that myself Sherlock!) will probably tick you off and will leave you with no feeling for the main-character at all.
And some more bugs: some 'puzzles' (read: annoying counterparts) require a lot of 'spiritpower' to turn on switches and so, but if this runs out, you will have no other choise then to kill yourself in order to get more 'spiritpower' (and no, there are no spirit power-ups in the levels apart from a few). And if you don't have any bug-grenades (how original...) or alien-rockets (sigh) you will just have to reload a old game and try again. Also, what is it with the graphics? I mean, the game on XBox 360 already looks like it could have run fine on the first XBox (and I'm not kidding there), but some images are just too dark. And I don't mean just dark, but pitch black... Even a shitty lighter that your character can activate can't change much about that.
So this pretty much sums up what it is; A failed experiment, hyped with the now very popular Doom 3-engine. If you want a innovative and exciting shooter, go play Half-Life 2 (again), or the new Portal-mod I mentioned earlier. Do yourself as a shooterfan a favor, ignore the hype and just leave this game for what it is.
First of all I want to say that I like the original idea of wallwalking, etc. It cóuld have been very innovative if it wasn't for the developer turning this game into a semi-puzzel/platform game every once in a while. I said this a lot of times and I'm gonna say it again; platformgames and shooters dón't mix, period. I like a challenge, but for example I was trapped in one (big) level for a entire week before I found out that to progress in the game, I had to shoot a small electro-tube somewhere on the wall... What kind of game-logic is that?! So if you want to complete this game and you find yourself stuck, the best thing to do is thus basically shoot at everything and hope it triggers a door or anything... It is NOT the way I want to play a game! The most 'innovative' part of this game are the portals, and even though Valve's Portal-mod does a far much better job at this today then Prey, it is a cool effect (at least for sight). Is it necessary? No. Is it confusing? Very much. Most of the time when you enter a portal, you will flip upside-down , or sideways in a way that it will leave you desorientated for a brief few seconds and thus very vulnerable to enemy attacks even with the most 'elite' shooterskills.
The weapons are also not very great. Every gun looks like a cliché alien-gun, complete with bright lights and shiny texture. You have a sort of plasma-gun, a gun that you can load up with elemental stuff like fire, electricity, cold. You also get a gun that fires what could be described as a load of snot... Well, do I need to say more? Its as if the developers of this game weren't even trying. Oh, and you also get to play with the lamest, and I mean the LAMEST main-character in a shooting-game EVER. At the start of the game, the Indian-guy doesn't bother you much, but further in the game his whining about his girlfriend and his childish and furthermore simply dull one-liners ("Damn, its dark in here!" - as if I didn't notice that myself Sherlock!) will probably tick you off and will leave you with no feeling for the main-character at all.
And some more bugs: some 'puzzles' (read: annoying counterparts) require a lot of 'spiritpower' to turn on switches and so, but if this runs out, you will have no other choise then to kill yourself in order to get more 'spiritpower' (and no, there are no spirit power-ups in the levels apart from a few). And if you don't have any bug-grenades (how original...) or alien-rockets (sigh) you will just have to reload a old game and try again. Also, what is it with the graphics? I mean, the game on XBox 360 already looks like it could have run fine on the first XBox (and I'm not kidding there), but some images are just too dark. And I don't mean just dark, but pitch black... Even a shitty lighter that your character can activate can't change much about that.
So this pretty much sums up what it is; A failed experiment, hyped with the now very popular Doom 3-engine. If you want a innovative and exciting shooter, go play Half-Life 2 (again), or the new Portal-mod I mentioned earlier. Do yourself as a shooterfan a favor, ignore the hype and just leave this game for what it is.