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Prey (2006)

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#31

What would you say were the best FPS's of the eras of HL2 and Doom 2016 then? Because they definitely were for me. I haven't been interested in an FPS game in ages before Doom 2016 came out.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

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#32

View PostGrand Admiral Thrawn, on 06 January 2018 - 10:11 PM, said:

Well that's entirely your opinion, I don't agree at all with HL2 nor Doom 2016 being the best FPS games of their time.

I don't think my opinion is extreme at all honestly. ;) I get that people have very different tastes when it comes to FPS but I think that if someone is really into the genre it's easy to appreciate the different iterations of it. Sure, there will be people who will keep on saying stuff like "HL is bad because it's linear, Wolf 3D's and Doom's mazes are where you can find a real FPS" but that's missing the point because Half-Life always wanted to be linear and there the level design is masterful exactly because of how varied that linearity is. Apples and oranges.

When I think of the bests of the genre I think about titles that innovated, brought new things with them while at the same time provided a top notch gameplay experience. Stuff like:

- Wolfenstein 3D came up with the FPS formula (I know, I know, there will be a comment that says "well, actually even before Wolf 3D"... no one cares, Wolf 3D was the first game that gave you a machinegun in first person and told you to shoot people).
- Doom expanded on Wolf 3D, surpassing it in a number of ways and came up with the golden standard of FPS game design.
- Duke 3D went away from id's abstract level design and instead came up with more realistic environments.
- Quake popularized online arena FPS and it was the 3Dest of all FPS. :D
- Half-Life introduced storytelling to FPS, made Duke 3D's realistic level design more focused, linear and even more believable, expanded on the environmental puzzle aspect etc.
- Halo made FPS truly work on consoles by drastically changing the genre's mechanics, popularized FPS for a much larger audience than ever before etc., etc.

So you know, to me the best of the best are truly milestone games that pushed the genre forward. In that sense Half-Life 2 is of course part of that list since it made physics a central part of the gameplay, something that was never seen before + it really nailed the kind of more scripted, story-driven, linear gameplay to the point where HL1 seems only an experiment in hindsight. Sure, there were great games between HL2 and Doom 2016 but most of those only aped Halo and HL2 and not always in a direction that could be considered moving forward (CoD series, I'm looking at you). There were also hybrid games like Bioshock or Deus Ex Human Revolution: some of those were amazing but I wouldn't call them FPS because they have elements that come from other places and use those mostly unchanged (mainly RPGs).

Singling out Doom 2016 as part of the best of the best may seem weird because the popular opinion of that game is basically that it's an old school FPS... it's not. B) Doom 2016 is the first FPS ever that came from the realization that what old can become new again: id innovated by proving that the old FPS design is not outdated and a new game can use those design philosphies as a foundation to create something new. Sure, there were precursors to that like Serious Sam 3, Shadow Warrior 2013 and Wolf TNO but all of those games took old design elements, never changed them and only mixed them with stuff from modern FPS games. Doom 4 goes deeper than that: it changes everything and translates that to a modern FPS in order to solve the problems of modern FPS. CoD regenerates your health in cover because going back for medkits is boring? Nice idea but taking cover is even more boring so Doom gives you health for every kill to keep you moving forward + you still have the option to find medkits because that's actually interesting. HL2 and CoD has these nice scripted events for storytelling but those become boring? Doom replaces that with visual storytelling and a very minimalistic story that doesn't stop the gameplay but it still gives you the eye candy fluff scripted events provide through the glory kills. And I could go on and on about how Doom takes old design elements, compares them to modern stuff and changes them based on what came out at the end of that comparison.

The stuff Doom 2016 does is nuanced innovation but it is still very much innovation and the game uses a whole system of that, creating something unique that is not old school but NEW after the dark ages of Halo and HL2 clones that were all inferior to the source material. To me that's what a "10 out of 10" game is and while the game's importance may not seem that huge these days I think that as time goes by it will be clearer and clearer what a fantastic achievement it is for the genre.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 07 January 2018 - 01:53 AM

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#33

View PostGrand Admiral Thrawn, on 06 January 2018 - 10:11 PM, said:

What? Prey 2 was being worked on and they didn't need to hijack it at all, they clearly just used a name people were familiar with so they could make their completely unrelated game get some notice.

I strongly disagree with that. Who remembers Prey 2006? A few diehard 3DR and FPS fans, that's all, it's not an IP you can sell a game with. I think the reasons for using Prey as a title were mostly legal and to a lesser extent creative ones. Bethesda had an IP they did not want to lose so they used it and Arkane liked the title, that's all. It's corporate bs alright but it's just what the practice is, nothing along the lines of "evil Bethesda wants to ruin Human Head's Prey 2 so among lots of evil laughter they decided to hijack the IP". HH worked on Prey 2, them, Bethesda or both fucked up so it was cancelled, Bethesda had to do something with the IP, end of story.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 07 January 2018 - 02:07 AM

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User is offline   Mr. Tibbs 

#34

The reason Prey 2 was cancelled was that Human Head had to stop development to protect their company from a hostile buyout. Despite owning id Tech, Bethesda didn't have the rights to Human Head's engine enhancements, so even though they handed over the project to Obsidian briefly, they didn't have the full source code, so it ended there. Rest assured, the team experienced a serious human cost when the game was cancelled. The developers remain extremely passionate about the project to this day.

Bethesda calling Arkane's Shock reboot Prey did the game no favors, and certainly was a factor in it bombing. Then again, the negative reception to the demo, a buggy launch, mixed reviews, and poor marketing all contributed to the game failing to secure an audience. Bethesda's marketing team bet big on the Twitch-crowd and got snake-eyes!



Regarding hardly anyone remembering Human Head's Prey, it sold better than Arkane's reimagining despite shipping on fewer platforms, so who's to say, but I guess now that only one's available for purchase digitally, and that Prey 2017 received a permanent price drop less than a month after launch, it probably will in the long-run. One things for sure, the world will never see a "Prey 2" in any form.
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#35

View PostMr. Tibbs, on 07 January 2018 - 03:07 AM, said:

One things for sure, the world will never see a "Prey 2" in any form.


This is so sad... and in the meanwhile, COD games keep coming out...
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#36

View PostMr. Tibbs, on 07 January 2018 - 03:07 AM, said:

The reason Prey 2 was cancelled was that Human Head had to stop development to protect their company from a hostile buyout.

Yeah, that's what I read too back in the day, it seems like a very unfortunate turn of events. The thing is that these publishing deals suck if you're an independent company working for a publisher, you hear these fucked up stories all the time. What I was angry about was when Obsidian did not get their bonus because New Vegas's Metacritic score was one point lower than what Bethesda wanted in the contract. You get screwed these days if you want to stay independent but still be part of the whole publisher-based ecosystem.

On the other hand I have to say HH made a bad decision: it's pretty evident that Bethesda is good at managing their own studios and the quality titles basically all of those teams put out don't exactly suggest a bad working environment. Guess HH just wanted to do their own thing while Bethesda expected they'd play ball.

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Bethesda calling Arkane's Shock reboot Prey did the game no favors, and certainly was a factor in it bombing. Then again, the negative reception to the demo, a buggy launch, mixed reviews, and poor marketing all contributed to the game failing to secure an audience. Bethesda's marketing team bet big on the Twitch-crowd and got snake-eyes!

I dunno, I think the marketing was not stellar but it wasn't that bad either, to me it seems like the game just got released at a bad time. Deux Ex MD got released the year before, it failed to live up to expectations and Arkane managed to make a nice mess with Dishonored 2 too and while those games are not that similar to Prey they pretty much fall into the same category (the whole "Spector-Ion Storm-Looking Glass type of thing". Anyway I think that for what it is (a super niche game) it did well enough though that won't be enough for a sequel.

Edit: And yeah, the Prey IP sure as shit didn't help, people just got confused by it.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 07 January 2018 - 03:53 AM

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User is offline   Mr. Tibbs 

#37

View PostZaxx, on 07 January 2018 - 03:50 AM, said:

On the other hand I have to say HH made a bad decision: it's pretty evident that Bethesda is good at managing their own studios and the quality titles basically all of those teams put out don't exactly suggest a bad working environment. Guess HH just wanted to do their own thing while Bethesda expected they'd play ball.

The owners were at Raven in 1997 when Activision bought the studio and witnessed first-hand the company culture change. I doubt they would want to permanently tie themselves to Zenimax, a company that thought nothing of bankrupting their studio, and leaving their staff without pay over the 2011 holidays.

The Prey 2017 team experienced serious crunch, top-heavy management, and an elitist culture. When it bombed, a number of team members left, including gameplay programmers, level designers, the lead system designer, a writer, and the project director and studio founder, among others. If you look on the team's jobs page, they have 18 vacancies, including many senior positions, suggesting quite a staff turnover for a studio of 70 people. They're now hiring for online game specialists and network engineers, suggesting the studio's next game will be online-focused.

That said, checking SteamDB, there's still a chance the survival features for Prey Arkane promoted and then cut before launch because the were too hardcore, might be added to the game as DLC in 2018.

This post has been edited by Mr. Tibbs: 07 January 2018 - 04:33 AM

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#38

View PostMr. Tibbs, on 07 January 2018 - 04:15 AM, said:

The owners were at Raven in 1997 when Activision bought the studio and witnessed first-hand the company culture change. I doubt they would want to permanently tie themselves to Zenimax, a company that thought nothing of bankrupting their studio, and leaving their staff without pay over the 2011 holidays.

Who do you mean by when you say "their staff"? HH? They are an independent company, paying their staff is HH's responsibility. Bankrupting their studio? That's a stretch. Sure, Bethesda acted like asshole companies act but when I see stories like this there is a recurring theme: idiots. For example supposedly when Bethesda extended Prey 2's development time after E3 2011 from 6 months to 1 year they did not modify the contract to reflect that change... and then HH just expected Bethesda to keep their word. Were there no lawyers working there? And Bethesda did not want to "bankrupt" the studio, they just wanted HH to be desperate in order to buy them easily afterwards. That's quite standard speculatory behavior, kind of a standard in the industry and while Zenimax is sure as shit not the white knight in shining armor in this story even HH admits that the offer they got was really good, they just did not want to go along with it. If you want to know how publishers prey on independent developers and how they really chase them into bankruptcy look up Ubisoft or EA. :D

As for Raven and Activision: Activision is famous for devouring companies just like EA is, Bethesda is a safe and private island compared to those guys. ;) Man, it's sad to think about that Raven is doing the slave work on Call of Duty's multiplayer now.

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The Prey 2017 team experienced serious crunch, top-heavy management, and an elitist culture.

I don't see any mention of the Prey 2017 team there, just a glassdoor review (one bad out of 4). Also: it's not talking about Bethesda / Zenimax but about the internal leadership of Arkane.

Edit: I'm not saying that Bethesda were the good guys in this situation, I just find it weird when people want to paint a bad picture of a company that does the exact same things as other companies do (and in the case of Bethesda as far as we know they do those things a lot less than others B)). It's called capitalism.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 07 January 2018 - 04:55 AM

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User is offline   Mr. Tibbs 

#39

My last word on this, because this is the Prey 2006 thread, not the Prey 2 or Prey 2017 thread.

View PostZaxx, on 07 January 2018 - 04:48 AM, said:

Who do you mean by when you say "their staff"? HH? They are an independent company, paying their staff is HH's responsibility.

And where did Human Head get their money from? In the case of Prey 2, Bethesda, and when Zenimax wanted to buy the studio and started to turn down milestone payments, HH paid staff out of their own pocket for months, but do you continue paying when you're running low on cash and there's no guarantee of the situation improving? One company has a war chest of cash; the other, not so much.

View PostZaxx, on 07 January 2018 - 04:48 AM, said:

Bankrupting their studio? That's a stretch. Sure, Bethesda acted like asshole companies act but when I see stories like this there is a recurring theme: idiots. For example supposedly when Bethesda extended Prey 2's development time after E3 2011 from 6 months to 1 year they did not modify the contract to reflect that change... and then HH just expected Bethesda to keep their word. Were there no lawyers working there? And Bethesda did not want to "bankrupt" the studio, they just wanted HH to be desperate in order to buy them easily afterwards. That's quite standard speculatory behavior, kind of a standard in the industry and while Zenimax is sure as shit not the white knight in shining armor in this story even HH admits that the offer they got was really good, they just did not want to go along with it. If you want to know how publishers prey on independent developers and how they really chase them into bankruptcy look up Ubisoft or EA. :D


Um, no they don't. "Sweet price" is for Zenimax, not for the founders: i.e. cheap, like their purchase of Arkane. Regarding the contract, yeah, it was certainly a tough situation to work under, not sure what the scope should be. After E3 when Zenimax tried to buy them, and that's when Bethesda started turning down payments (while Zenimax conveniently offered the studio bridge loans). All the talk of additional development time disappeared, so Human Head worked extreme hours to meet the original milestones/contract and deliver an alpha by November 2011.

You're right, however, that this is a tactic that publishers frequently employed in the past (less so now, because there aren't many AAA independent studios).

View PostZaxx, on 07 January 2018 - 04:48 AM, said:

I don't see any mention of the Prey 2017 team there, just a glassdoor review (one bad out of 4). Also: it's not talking about Bethesda / Zenimax but about the internal leadership of Arkane.


It's a review from the Austin studio, which worked on Prey, and the two of the positive ones that appeared afterwards offered no detail, so I'm less inclined to put any stock in them. Even if you put aside the numerous staff quitting because, outside of console first-party exclusives, the future of singleplayer games is in jeopardy, it's very obvious that the studio has radically changed under Bethesda: it went from a single project studio, to a two project studio.

View PostZaxx, on 07 January 2018 - 04:48 AM, said:

Edit: I'm not saying that Bethesda were the good guys in this situation, I just find it weird when people want to paint a bad picture of a company that does the exact same things as other companies do (and in the case of Bethesda as far as we know they do those things a lot less than others ;)). It's called capitalism

Nope. Bethesda went out their way to sabotage a future Rune sequel contract with 2K in early 2012. After Bethesda stopped negotiating with Human Head, the studio tried to move on and pitch Rune 2 to publishers. It was then, after months of silence, Bethesda started issuing statements talking about the quality of the game. This public dispute caused Take Two to get cold feet. It took years for the studio to recover.
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#40

View PostMr. Tibbs, on 07 January 2018 - 11:43 AM, said:

Nope. Bethesda went out their way to sabotage a future Rune sequel contract with 2K in early 2012. After Bethesda stopped negotiating with Human Head, the studio tried to move on and pitch Rune 2 to publishers. It was then, after months of silence, Bethesda started issuing statements talking about the quality of the game. This public dispute caused Take Two to get cold feet. It took years for the studio to recover.

If you want to make a point then why do you keep undermining it with speculation like this? I don't really care but Human Head has already worked with 2K on Bioshock Infinite... and then they get cold feet because Bethesda says some shit?

How about this instead?

- After the flop that was RAGE Bethesda did not trust another sandbox FPS using outdated tech (highly modified id Tech 4 = the goddamn Doom 3 engine in 2012) so they changed their plans after RAGE's October failure and decided against giving Prey 2 6 months of extra dev time.
- Nobody cares about the Rune IP these days.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 07 January 2018 - 03:08 PM

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User is offline   Mr. Tibbs 

#41

View PostZaxx, on 07 January 2018 - 03:07 PM, said:

If you want to make a point then why do you keep undermining it with speculation like this? I don't really care but Human Head has already worked with 2K on Bioshock Infinite... and then they get cold feet because Bethesda says some shit?

How about this instead?

- After the flop that was RAGE Bethesda did not trust another sandbox FPS using outdated tech (highly modified id Tech 4 = the goddamn Doom 3 engine in 2012) so they changed their plans after RAGE's October failure and decided against giving Prey 2 6 months of extra dev time.
- Nobody cares about the Rune IP these days.

They also worked with 2K on 2006 Prey, The Bureau, and other projects (their former studio head, Tim Gerritsen, was the studio director at Irrational for Infinite). I'm just sharing what many developers who worked on the 2012 Rune 2 pitch, that are no longer with the studio, have told me. I'm sure that Bethesda's string of 2011 flops, including Hunted and Brink (both Human Head and Arkane worked on this when Bethesda had a falling out with Splash Damage), played a role in them not pursuing the game unless they could own and control the studio. Then again, as this year has shown us, the success of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, means Bethesda can afford to take serious risks even when they don't pay off financially.
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#42

View PostMr. Tibbs, on 07 January 2018 - 03:19 PM, said:

I'm just sharing what many developers who worked on the 2012 Rune 2 pitch, that are no longer with the studio, have told me.

At least that's a good source then though I think that developers can only really speculate on what happens "up there".

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I'm sure that Bethesda's string of 2011 flops, including Hunted and Brink (both Human Head and Arkane worked on this when Bethesda had a falling out with Splash Damage), played a role in them not pursuing the game unless they could own and control the studio.

Yes, that's what I think too though I speculate that it was kind of a "both parties fucked up" situation. I mean look at this, really look at this:

Feels super scripted, the gunplay is stiff and very cover based, basically the only things that are nice about it are the smooth Mirror's Edge-like movement and the Blade Runner-like setting. I also get the RAGE vibes though that may be just me. The point is: would you send this game up against Deus Ex HR? How about Bioshock Infinite? I certainly wouldn't, this looks like something that could have worked in 2009.

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Then again, as this year has shown us, the success of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, means Bethesda can afford to take serious risks even when they don't pay off financially.

That is true but if you look at Bethesda circa 2011-2012 apart from their success with Fallout 3, NV and Skyrim things don't look that good: RAGE was a flop, Brink was a flop, Hunted was a flop, Doom 4 is not looking nice at all, Wolfenstein TNO only exists on paper, Dishonored is still a few months away. That's nothing at all but 3 flops and on top of that Doom 4's development needed a reboot so my guess is that Prey 2 simply wasn't good enough so they pulled the plug when it was obvious they won't buy Human Head.
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User is offline   Mr. Tibbs 

#43

View PostZaxx, on 08 January 2018 - 02:16 AM, said:

I mean look at this, really look at this:
Feels super scripted, the gunplay is stiff and very cover based... The point is: would you send this game up against Deus Ex HR? How about Bioshock Infinite? I certainly wouldn't, this looks like something that could have worked in 2009.


Absolutely (also, lol if you don't think Deus Ex: HR and Infinite featured stiff, cover based combat)! When it was first unveiled, the general consensus was that it looked great, with many assuming based on the first screenshots that it was running on id tech 5. It had many advanced tech features running on the console (360 builds are the only one's we ever saw), including SSR, Objekt motion blur, virtual texturing, super high res HDR lightmaps (64k x 64k), PBR before it was popular, deferred shading, SSR in 2ms on 360 & PS3, Auto focus DOF, approx area lights, precomputed soft shadows (UE4 stationary lights). It had a great response in 2011, which is why many people were upset when it was put on hold and subsequently cancelled. RPS's reaction, for example:

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I’m honestly really surprised by this. After Dishonored this seemed like Bethesda’s most promising title, as evidenced by our interview from late last year. It’s hard to tell what’s happening behind the NDA’d doors of a developer, of course, but this will be a terrible thing if it turns out to be true.


The mission, like all public demos, is obviously is super scripted, but it's worth remembering that it was a vertical slice created in April 2011 for Bethesda's Utah event. The team dramatically improved it after then. The combat appeared fast and fluid, encouraging players to use parkour even during gunfights, while the missions seemed to offer some amount of choice, with options to kill, capture or threaten bounty targets where appropriate. This looked to be a very different kind of game from other shooters on the market.

It's sad that both times round, the more interesting Prey project never saw the light of day. That said, despite some rough edges, I really enjoy Prey (2006). That game has heart and soul. I'll always appreciate it for introducing portals to shooters, and for trying new things like wall walking, fun gravity puzzles, and an non-traditional protagonist. The moment when Tommy's throws up when switching gravity, or swears the first time he sees a massive alien, are rare times I've warmed to a shooter lead character in the 21st century.

For those that might have missed it, Gamesradar released an awesome feature on the history of the Prey series back in May that's well worth a read:

http://www.gamesrada...he-prey-series/
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#44

View PostMr. Tibbs, on 08 January 2018 - 03:05 AM, said:

lol if you don't think Deus Ex: HR and Infinite featured stiff, cover based combat)!

What? Deus Ex HR gets a pass because it's an RPG, not a first person shooter, what I meant by that comparison is the complexity of the game world which is full of choices in dialog and in gameplay, so a lot more than "yes or no". Also there the sticky cover system was important because that's how you do stealth and if you're playing the game on give me Deus Ex difficulty (which you should) then you really want to go with a stealthy approach.

As for Bioshock Infinite I really don't know what you're talking about: sure, you can play that game as a cover shooter but it's not a cover shooter. If you go around hugging cover all the time you're going to have a bad time on higher difficulties (and really for Infinite 1999 mode is the way to go, if you go lower the game's economic side becomes a joke), you're encouraged to jump around using the rails to get a tactical advantage and you really have to use good gear builds and vigor combinations to not get pinned down. Using cover at the right time is important of course but really combat there feels like it's derived from an arena shooter more than anything else.

Then you look at Prey 2 and you see an FPS with a sticky cover system... no thanks.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 08 January 2018 - 03:41 AM

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User is offline   Poorchop 

#45

Wow I hadn't seen any Prey 2 demos before but that looked absolutely amazing. I don't know why everyone has beef with cover but everything about those mechanics looked good to me, especially being able to engage while hanging off of a ledge. That setting was mind blowing too. I haven't really seen any modern games that has those Blade Runner vibes and looks kind of busy but still manages to work. The way that the player was able to shoot while sliding was neat. I also liked how after securing the bounty and walking for a bit, a battle spontaneously broke out.

It clearly doesn't have any relation to Prey 2006, at least in that footage, but that looked damn amazing. If they worked Tommy in as the protagonist, it really would've been something else. 2 minutes of that and I was already way more impressed than pretty much any other title that I've seen for years.
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User is offline   Mr. Tibbs 

#46

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." :dukecigar:

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This post has been edited by Mr. Tibbs: 10 January 2018 - 10:21 PM

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User is offline   Poorchop 

#47

This just looks incredible. That screenshot alone is amazing. The demo video above was on the 360 as well. I don't remember any game from that generation looking that good on a console. The blue-green hue, the neon lights, the wet concrete, it really does look very much like an homage to Blade Runner but it's so amazingly executed. The footage at 20 seconds in the third twitter link is especially good.

I didn't know much about Prey 2 when I started this thread but now I'm amazed. Can't for the life of me understand why this was canceled. I wonder if the gravity and perspective mechanics would've made it into this game but everything that I've seen so far looks excellent. It would've been cool to see Tommy's development from the first game. Starts out ashamed of what he sees in the mirror and then becomes the ultimate badass bounty hunter.

This post has been edited by Poorchop: 10 January 2018 - 11:35 PM

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User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

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#48

Tommy was in the game, but he wasn't the main character/bounty hunter.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

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#49

View PostPoorchop, on 10 January 2018 - 10:04 PM, said:

Wow I hadn't seen any Prey 2 demos before but that looked absolutely amazing. I don't know why everyone has beef with cover but everything about those mechanics looked good to me, especially being able to engage while hanging off of a ledge. That setting was mind blowing too. I haven't really seen any modern games that has those Blade Runner vibes and looks kind of busy but still manages to work. The way that the player was able to shoot while sliding was neat. I also liked how after securing the bounty and walking for a bit, a battle spontaneously broke out.

Must have not player many newer FPS then. You want the slidy shooty-shooty (and so much more)? Play Bulletstorm or the new Wolfenstein games. Want Blade Runner vibes with a world where stuff can happen spontaneously? Play Deus Ex Human Revolution (as a shooter it's not super good but there's MD for that). Anyway the "shoot from ledges" mechanic is interesting but the way it's shown in the demo it looks like something that was lifted from Uncharted. It's part of the cover system, that's all.

Also I don't get this:

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It clearly doesn't have any relation to Prey 2006, at least in that footage, but that looked damn amazing. If they worked Tommy in as the protagonist, it really would've been something else. 2 minutes of that and I was already way more impressed than pretty much any other title that I've seen for years.

So it has nothing to do with Prey 2006 but if Tommy were the protagonist you'd be on board? :dukecigar: I don't know, I can't really imagine that character as a bounty hunter, I think the method Human Head chose (Tommy's in the game as a side character but he's not the protagonist) is better.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 11 January 2018 - 08:27 AM

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#50

View PostZaxx, on 11 January 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

So it has nothing to do with Prey 2006 but if Tommy were the protagonist you'd be on board? :dukecigar: I don't know, I can't really imagine that character as a bounty hunter, I think the method Human Head chose (Tommy's in the game as a side character but he's not the protagonist) is better.

It has nothing to do with Prey 2006 because Tommy was not the main character. Still, it would've been very easy to make him the bounty hunter (and I suspect this was Human Head's original plan), instead of a nobody who was shoehorned in because some asshole at Bethesda believed a Native American protagonist was "uncool".

This post has been edited by Altered Reality: 11 January 2018 - 03:44 PM

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#51

View PostAltered Reality, on 11 January 2018 - 03:42 PM, said:

It has nothing to do with Prey 2006 because Tommy was not the main character. Still, it would've been very easy to make him the bounty hunter (and I suspect this was Human Head's original plan), instead of a nobody who was shoehorned in because some asshole at Bethesda believed a Native American protagonist was "uncool".

I'll be honest, I don't like Tommy that much. Him being a Native American is a really cool idea, building game mechanics around that idea is even cooler and having the story lightly touch on the cultural state of Native Americans is the king of cool... but Tommy's a whiner and he's whining too much.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 11 January 2018 - 04:01 PM

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#52

I didn't mind the whining, but there's one thing about him that irritated me. It's how he still called "bullshit" and "superstition" whatever his grandfather told him, WHILE in the Land of the Ancients and AFTER he had spirit-walked for the first time. It was like reality did not matter to him, only his own erroneous beliefs.
I also think it would've been fun to see his grandfather chew him out on this: "My god, are you really that stupid? I took you into another dimension less than a second before you smashed to the ground! You just went for a walk with your soul and left your physical body ten feet behind! And you still call all of this... superstition? What's wrong with your brain?"
Having said that, Prey 2 could have been the occasion to see him smart up and redeem himself.

This post has been edited by Altered Reality: 11 January 2018 - 04:37 PM

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User is offline   Poorchop 

#53

View PostZaxx, on 11 January 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

Must have not player many newer FPS then. You want the slidy shooty-shooty (and so much more)? Play Bulletstorm or the new Wolfenstein games. Want Blade Runner vibes with a world where stuff can happen spontaneously? Play Deus Ex Human Revolution (as a shooter it's not super good but there's MD for that). Anyway the "shoot from ledges" mechanic is interesting but the way it's shown in the demo it looks like something that was lifted from Uncharted. It's part of the cover system, that's all.


I've played Wolfenstein New Order and Deux Ex Human Revolution. I loved them both. Prey 2 still looked like it was bringing something new to the table. The sliding mechanic looked better in the demo video. I hardly ever used it during Wolfenstein since it was more of a cover shooter, at least during my first play through. Prey 2 looked like it was going to take all the elements that made Human Revolution great and combine them with solid combat mechanics and a beautiful setting. For a demo that old running on a 360, it truly looks amazing.

I would've been on board with Prey 2 whether or not they made Tommy the protagonist. It just looked like a solid game. I'm also with Altered Reality on this. Tommy was poorly written in the first game. I can agree that he was whiny and singularly focused in a manner that was pretty unrealistic. He watched his grandfather die and was then reunited with him in the spirit realm where he gained additional powers, including virtual immortality. In spite of this, he kept refusing his grandfather's help until it was too late. He didn't have to remain poorly written however. He could've grown into a complete badass by the second game. He was sent back to Earth because it wasn't his time yet. Maybe his duty was to become a bounty hunter, or maybe that was yet another stepping stone along his path.

Considering how much more mature the game play looks in the demo, I don't have any doubts that the writing would have been better too. His situation is inherently interesting. It's not like I'm into Native American mythology. I just thought that the first game stood out because of the contrast between a Native American trying to escape life on the reservation and aliens abducting a bunch of people. It's an odd premise that hasn't been explored before. If they worked a little more mythology into the second game and made Tommy the man that he wished he was at the beginning of the first game, it would've been really good. Should the writing have fallen flat again, that amazing game play and those brilliant Blade Runner visuals would've carried it regardless.
1

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#54

View PostPoorchop, on 11 January 2018 - 06:41 PM, said:

I hardly ever used it during Wolfenstein since it was more of a cover shooter, at least during my first play through.

Let's clear this up a bit: Wolf TNO is not a cover shooter, no matter how you're playing it. Just because sometimes you have to take cover in a game does not make it a cover shooter. A cover shooter is a game where taking cover is a cornerstone to the gameplay: for example in Gears of War taking cover is the only way to progress because otherwise you can't avoid gunfire and cover is the only mechanic that heals you. This is not the case in Wolfenstein, you can play that game as a twitch-based run and gun shooter even on uber difficulty (you just have to aim well and mow shit down fast because Blazko's TTK is low as fuck) but just like in Wolf 3D or Doom, sometimes you have to take cover, sometimes you can't progress without stacking up first etc.

As for the crouch sliding: yeah, it's not that big part of the game but I don't really see how that would have been different in Prey 2. In my opinion Bulletstorm is the king of the slide: that game is a cover shooter so sliding helps a lot in reaching cover quickly BUT it's also a run and gun game and by sliding into enemies you pop them up in the air, you get a slow mo effect and you can headshot them while they are flying (and you're sliding). :dukecigar: Now, that's awesome, that's a bullet slide. :)

Honestly when it comes to the video I don't think you're being that realistic. Sure, the graphics look nice but that's basically first person Assassin's Creed mixed with Gears of War and as we all know no matter how many cool things you can do in AC at the end it's always boring. Gears of War? Another borefest so I don't see how their combination would have been anything better gameplay wise.

Edit: Overall what I think holds back the demo is that it's a short romp through the city which was supposedly a hub world so you actually don't see much from the level design. Back in the day when id Software was showing RAGE around I did not feel the stuff that took place in the city, this was the demo when I said "okay, this will be a good game":

And remember, this was running at 60 fps on consoles, when I saw this on my friend's PS3 I could not believe what I'm seeing. Those character animations still kick ass.

The other thing that keeps my excitement level low is that well, it's an E3 demo so we don't know how it represents the final product. With that said Bethesda always shows their games how they are (hell, the final version of Doom 2016 looked a ton better than how it looked back at E3 2015) so my guess is that those graphics were real.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 12 January 2018 - 05:19 AM

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User is offline   Poorchop 

#55

I started playing again on Cherokee difficulty and I'm kind of curious about a few things.

  • Spoiler
  • Spoiler
  • Spoiler
I'm having more fun playing through again but I'm even more annoyed now that I'm noticing all of the nuances that I had missed the first time. Tommy's writing is just terrible - he is transported to the Land of the Ancients and he is witnessing all of this incredible magic, yet the only thing that he can think to say is that he doesn't believe in this "Cherokee bullshit" and demands that his grandfather send him back.


Also as per the discussion of whether or not the Land of the Ancients is the afterlife - I noticed that the grandfather tells Tommy that it's time to let go of the mortal world and become part of the sacred fire when he falls off the bridge. This seems to support my original idea that this area really does represent the afterlife in spite of the fact that
Spoiler
It's still a little ambiguous because of this. Now that I've seen the developers talk about the game thanks to the videos that Altered Reality posted, it's clear that the developers really did put a lot of thought into this game but I feel like some aspects remained oversights because conflicting information is presented in the game.

Posted Image

As an aside, if anyone is interested in testing out multiplayer with me, let me know. Probably won't be fun unless a bunch of people join but it would still be cool to check out for the sake of experiencing all that the game has to offer.

This post has been edited by Poorchop: 20 January 2018 - 11:52 AM

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#56

Is it really necessary to use spoiler tags for a 12-year-old game that cannot even be bought anymore because Steam "ran out of keys" for it in 2009 and Bethesda is trying to suppress its memories?

Anyway, to answer your questions:

1) A Watsonian answer is that all beings that reside in the Sphere have bionic modifications, which means the Sphere doesn't limit itself to consume any being it abducts, but it experiments on some of them and turns them into part of its ecosystem. Instead, a Doylist answer is that at least part of it is what remains of Paul Schuytema's idea, where the Sphere (which looked more like a ring in that version) was host to three different species, who lived in different parts of the structure: humanoids, saurians and insectoids. That, and the three-part motif that is seen in certain textures, is all that remains of that idea.

2) Because Caucasians are inferior to Native Americans? :dukecigar:

3) I didn't interpret her behavior as confusion, but as fascination, because Tommy reminds her of herself.
0

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#57

It's been quite awhile since I dusted off the soap box and wrote a long winded series of prose, or just plain ol' diatribes in these parts. Lot's of shit has happened. Between the Mass Destruction/Bombshell shit of years ago, to the more recent stuff with the Duke Nukem Movie, the lawsuit/counter-suit, on and on. Lot's of things over the last four years have basically completely disillusioned me from things I used to love. Colored the image, soured the taste. However, that will probably never stop me from my over-long posts spewing sentimentality for some of these games.

My earliest memories of Prey are from just before the demo had come out. I honestly hadn't really heard of, or followed, the development of Prey before that. However, that thread on 3D Realms, the thread about the Prey demo? Damn, that got me excited. I remember playing the demo and just loving it.
http://forums.3dreal...?t=18454&page=2

The Prey demo was actually a pretty good chunk of the game, and let you taste a little of everything it had to offer mechanically. The presentation is pretty flawless, honestly. The music, the voice acting, the overall design and artistry. It, much like Quake 4, did a great job of utilizing the Doom 3 technology to paint some very pretty pictures. One of my favorite touches is the recurring cameo of Art Bell, with Scott and George also making auditory appearances. It's so classy the way it's seamlessly integrated into the world. It really brings it to life.

There is one thing about Prey that makes me incredibly sad, and I don't know how many people will agree with me about it, but I honestly thought about this for awhile and it's absolutely true for me; It has the 3D Realms magic. Not only that, but it is the last game to have that magic.

There were no games after Prey that were no newly Produced, Published, or Developed games by 3D Realms after Prey. Duke 3D on XBLA does not count.

There were just certain touches, certain aspects of the design, the way things were presented, that even though it was developed by Human Head, you could feel the influence of old school 3D Realms at hand. I'd love to peer through a crack in the universe and see into another, and see the version of 3D Realms that was able to hold on, and overcome the weight of Duke Nukem Forever. A universe where we got to see Earth No More, Prey 2, and all the rest of the projects that just never were.

The original Prey was a great game, and no matter how good or bad you think the 2017 version is, it's a shame that the title was hijacked and essentially overwritten.




#Prey4Tommy
4

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#58

The gameplay footage of Prey 2 looked so awesome that I don't think I can ever give Prey 2017 a chance. It just looks like another Shock game, with a ridiculous premise. And I refuse to give money to these people.
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User is offline   ---- 

#59

View Postthricecursed, on 07 November 2018 - 03:30 AM, said:

The gameplay footage of Prey 2 looked so awesome that I don't think I can ever give Prey 2017 a chance. It just looks like another Shock game, with a ridiculous premise. And I refuse to give money to these people.


I tried it and it (Prey 2017) looks and plays absolutely terrible, IMHO. And the effect of the mimics is nothing more than swapping two meshes. Yay.

I only played the first hour, though. But when I read that even the devs admitted that gameplay towards the end was bad I stopped.
1

User is offline   HulkNukem 

#60

Prey '17 is criminally underrated

And so is/was Prey 2006
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