Game Review – Prey for PC

Prey

Reviewed by Julie Gray
Review originally published July 26, 2006

Prey is finally here. Wow. Let’s just take a moment out before we begin to think about the concept of a game that took almost 15 years to make it to release. If you are unfamiliar with the history of Prey, you need not worry too much about the details. But it’s important to note that Prey came pretty close to being a game that would never get developed. Prey was a long time coming and that alone must be a daunting enough thought for the developers and crew over at Human Head. Now that Prey has finally arrived, was it worth the wait? That’s the million dollar question.

The main character in Prey is Tommy, a Native American. Not Korean, nor Japanese, not Iraqi nor British but Native American. Mix in some Native American mythology and a couple of wandering spirits, a few Aliens invading earth, and you’ve got the recipe for either one heck of a game, or a complete and utter disaster. From the depictions at E3 last year, Prey was going to revolutionise the way we play FPS games. That’s a lot for any game to live up to. And let’s face it; we’ve heard it all before. So, let’s stop feeding the hype engine and do what needs to be done. Let’s rip apart this beast and go for the jugular. We came prepared; we have handy towels.

Single player Prey certainly starts out well. The story begins with Tommy in a bar where his girlfriend is working. Tommy has his heart set on leaving the dead-end reservation to make a life elsewhere. The only problem is he can’t persuade his girlfriend to leave with him. On top of that, Tommy’s grandfather believes in spirits and wants Tommy to start believing in them to. Kind of whacky, but we like it so far. As you move around the bar, you can easily interact with all sorts of things from the music box to the arcade games. Prey is highly interactive right from the beginning. A few minutes pass and the two gang members at the bar start to get a little edgy. They’re drunk and looking for a fight. Tommy reaches for the wrench and before you know it, these guys are taking swings at you. This is your first taste of combat in the game, and it seems to go okay, but with a wrench of all things? After beating the two guys to a bloody pulp, the room begins to shake. You soon realise it’s not an earthquake.

Suddenly, your grandfather and your girlfriend are being sucked upwards towards the sky by some sort of strange traction beam. You don’t know what it is, but you know you need to help them. Before you can move, you’re being sucked up right along with them! For an opening sequence, it’s quite intense. From that point on, the game pretty much takes on the form of something almost familiar but not quite. A little Doom-like perhaps in appearance, the game environments are dark and gloomy as you find yourself transported into an alien ship. What develops is the true nature of Prey; kill or be killed, hunt the target and eliminate it. You’re on a mission to save your girlfriend and you have no idea where she is. You’re stuck on an alien spacecraft running blind.

The first thing Tommy needs to do is find a weapon. At the beginning, weapons are very limited. Not only are they limited but they’re alien to you. And we could probably dedicate an entire page to the weapons alone. The weaponry is easy to use and work exactly the same way as most weapons do in an FPS. Point and shoot seems to work but the weapons also have a secondary attack capability. Have fun finding out what they are. 

Some weapons have a zoom option as well. You’ll get to use weapons that do all sorts of nifty things like shoot out some form of acid at your opponent and fire acid bombs. Some weapons can be upgraded as well; you’ll need to discover how to do that. Remember to use your environment; there will be obstacles that you will face to progress through certain areas of the map that require some thinking. Nothing too difficult, anyone should be able to pull it off, regardless of your experience. Remember, you always have your trusty wrench on hand. Toggling through weapons is easy as well. You can set up your keys at any time by pressing the ESC key to get to the game options.

Navigation in the game is also pretty basic and should be easy for most FPS gamers used to the W, A, S, D keys for movement. Again, you can set these keys under options if you’re not comfortable with the default settings. There are also two different game modes to choose from in Prey; Normal or Cherokee mode.

The graphics, environments and textures used in Prey are simply, out of this world and you will get every opportunity to crank that hardware up to the highest settings if you so desire. Prey is one game that certainly deserves to be played on the best hardware you can afford. The one thing that keeps your eyes plastered to the screen during Prey is how smooth it handles and how great it looks. If you don’t have the hardware to play this game, don’t even bother. Prey is best experienced on gaming hardware that won’t jerk or make game-play tedious, especially on the multiplayer side of things, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

When you think of a great game, many things spring to mind. You might have enjoyed the combat sequences or weapons. You might really enjoy the story line or the dialogue. Or you might be a visual person that really buys games for the way they look and feel when you play them. With Prey, there are two things that will reign above everything else; gravity and portals. Our first experience with this aspect of game-play in Prey was more than just stomach churning. It was literally an experience we would never forget. As you venture further into the game, Tommy discover’s portals.

Imagine the complexity of realising your map could suddenly lead directly into another one without loading. And it’s not just the portals that have your head and stomach reeling. Gravity plays an important part in the game-play as well. In Prey, you can easily find yourself walking and shooting at targets – upside down. If you’re the type of person that suffers from any form of motion sickness, believe me, Prey is not the game for you. One moment you will be walking along the straight and narrow, the next, you could be flipped upside down and your entire sense of direction will go haywire. It’s an unusual feeling, one that will have gamers on the edge of their seat or reaching for a bucket. Either way, you won’t forget it in a hurry.

And if you thought we were finished with the highlights of this game, think again. Dying in Prey is also, an experience like no other. Prey is a game about shooting and killing aliens, this is so. But it’s more than that. In essence, Prey is the story of a Native American who is coming to grips with the knowledge that his kooky grandfather might just be onto something. All that crazy talk of spirits and the after life just might have relevancy to the here and now. Tommy eventually progresses through to the spirit world after hearing his grandfather’s voice guiding him towards the spiritual path. It sounds a little odd but it makes for a great story. Not only is Tommy challenged by the physical world and an alien environment, but he is also facing challenges in the spiritual world as well. Tommy is eventually introduced to the ability of ‘Spirit Walking’. This is the ability to leave your body for a certain period of time to go ‘beyond’ physically challenging obstacles. That’s about the only clue we’re willing to give you. You’ll need to work out the rest for yourself. Suffice to say that ‘Spirit Walking’ and how it ties in with the rest of the story is more than unique and gives the story behind the game a level of depth we haven’t seen in an FPS in a long time.

The AI in Prey is possibly the singular let down in the game. Predictable and not really posing too much of a challenge, we found the physical challenges more interesting than the alien beasties. Walking upside down proved to be interesting with aliens sniping at you but that’s why the portals are such a strategically important part of the game. You can get in when you need to but you can also get out too. And we promised that we would talk about the multiplayer game. For a game like Prey, multiplayer capability is extremely important. And Prey shines in every area. We reiterate the fact that Prey needs good hardware to perform the way it was developed to perform. If you’re playing this game over a LAN you will be astounded by how much fun it is. Chasing your opponent around upside down and suddenly jumping through a portal just before they splat you is essentially what makes this FPS unparalleled. But really, the only way to experience what this game is all about is simply, to play it. If there is only one game FPS you hope to purchase this year, make it Prey. If you’re any kind of FPS fan, you won’t want to miss out on this.

It would be simple enough for us to summarise Prey by saying that whatever your likes or dislikes in an FPS, Prey has something good for everyone. Prey has indeed lived up to the hype that started nigh on a year ago and although it took an awful long time to get to us, it was more than worth the wait. And the best way to silence doubtful critics and gamers alike is all in the end product. We wouldn’t be doing the game justice just by saying it was worth waiting for. The only way to do this game justice is to buy it and play it and remember it as being an experience you’d be willing to share with others. That’s the power behind a game like Prey.

You can view the original published article here.

Game Review – Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams for PS2

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Reviewed by Julie Gray
Review originally published April 27, 2006

16th Century Japan must have been a very interesting time to be alive. Hideyoshi Toyotomi certainly must have thought so. With the clans at each other’s throats for so long, bloodshed and the art of killing must have been two things that went hand in hand. Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams captures the violence and history of this time in a game that would probably make Hideyoshi proud.

The game begins in Sakai, Kyoto. Two mysterious characters dressed in Samurai armour wielding swords are duelling. A harsh exchange of words and swords clashing between two men would not have been an uncommon occurrence in feudal Japan. The backdrop is dark and foreboding. The once beautiful and bustling city of Kyoto lies in ruin and it seems the battle between good and evil has found its way to Kyoto’s streets.

The cut-scenes in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams are astounding. Graphically, the backgrounds, lighting and animation are extremely well done and do more than just sell the story. It makes you want to be part of it – what every game should aim to achieve. The facial expressions are crisp, detailed and expressive. Hair that looks so real, you almost think it is. The calibre of the animation really is quite amazing, almost reminiscent of the same type of animation used in Final Fantasy – Advent Children.

Onimusha roughly translated means warrior demon. Enter Soki – the main character in the story (Soki means “Oni of the Ash”). So, putting bits of the story together, we come to understand that Soki is a Samurai and one of the Onimusha (referred to throughout the game as the Blue Demon, just to confuse you even more). Further on, Soki gets to upgrade his armour (funnily enough, it’s blue and really quite cool-looking), but we’ll get to that later.

One of the better parts of Dawn of Dreams is the use of historical references -locations, people and pictures as cut scenes. The impressive depth of these aspects is like there is a ‘real’ story to be told behind the game and it’s not just another walk-through of pretty animations and backgrounds with a bit of fighting tossed in.

The story slowly unfolds and more is revealled as you progress but for now, you just wanna kill. Well, there are plenty of mean-looking skeletal henchmen (Genma) to run through right from the get-go. That’s bound to put a smile on any Samurai’s face. It does, however, become pretty clear after the first two stages that there is more to Soki than a cool-looking sword and nice armour. Sooner than expected, you (Soki) find yourself on a rooftop with an even more ferocious demon the size of Godzilla trying to turn you into sushi. That’s when things get interesting and it’s only stage two…

The combat sequences in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams are easily played out. The great thing about the combat is that it’s so easy to do. The buttons are pretty simplistic – attack and block are standard.
But there’s this little matter of collecting souls that we need to explain. The gameplay is structured well for beginners with handy tips appearing onscreen. During combat, you’re bound to see the option to ‘Collect Souls’ pop up on screen. Whenever Soki kills something (undead at least), he releases the souls of his victims. He can then harvest the souls to use later on as special magic called ‘Oni Magic’. This is represented by the blue bar just under Soki’s health bar in the top left hand corner of the screen.

Oni magic is pretty difficult to obtain so you don’t want to go wasting it. But when you use it, it’s like a power up that gives Soki a special attack using lightning. This type of attack also gives Soki an opportunity to score combination attack points. Points are important but not crucial. You can also collect gold pieces when you kill mobs which you should try and do as often as you can. That way, you will have more money to spend when you upgrade.

Like most games that give your character the ability to power up and upgrade weapons and skills, Onimusha’s system for upgrading is based on levelling-up. To do this it means you must eventually fight with opponents that also gain in skill, ability and difficulty level. There are some combat sequences that easily last longer than half an hour, especially with some of the tougher boss mobs. Upgrading suddenly becomes a crucial part of the game if you intend on progressing. When you upgrade, you can enhance weapons or skills which will cost money to do (hence the tip about collecting gold).

The dialogue used in the game between your character and others can sometimes come off as a little cheesy. That is really the only word to accurately describe it. This is also emphasised during encounters with other characters that join Soki on his mission. Soki gets to share his adventure and peril with some rather interesting characters. We won’t give away too much more, but the game can definitely become a lot more exciting with more than two characters kicking Genma butt. Each character also has its own unique set of skills, abilities and weapons.

With eye-opening cut scenes and animation, appealing backdrops, sound and storyline, there isn’t much we can find at fault in Dawn of Dreams. This Onimusha definitely takes the series of games to the next level in both content and playability with an enormous amount of gameplay time to be had. Now, that’s a recipe for success any way you look at it. Two thumbs up for Capcom.

You can view the original published article here.

Game Review – Half Life 2: Episode One for PC

Half Life 2: Episode One

Reviewed by Jeremy Porter
Edited by Julie Gray
Review originally published August 10, 2006

Half Life is one game title that doesn’t require much of an introduction. It would be difficult to have any sort of first person shooter game discussion without mentioning Half Life or Half Life 2. Half Life 2 has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide according to the official website. This year, we get access to the next instalment of the game via the Valve and Steam networks; officially titled Half Life 2: Episode One.

Valve and Steam have been busy. With the recent release of SiN: Episode One and now, Half Life 2: Episode One, we can safely assume that downloading or buying the expansions in episodic bursts will keep the punters happy. We know that there’s more goodness coming. Marketing each episode as ‘stand alone’ products would probably help too, although you really wouldn’t want to miss playing either of the previous Half Life games before attempting to play episode one. That would be like eating dessert before the main course. The official website looks nifty too and right now, we really want the loading bar to hurry up and finish already!

Being of the first person shooter variety, Half Life 2: Episode One is fast moving. Picking up where Half Life 2 left off, familiar characters Gordon and Alyx return in Episode One. With an explosion of monumental proportions, you and Alyx (you get to play Gordon) running out of an exploding reactor. First mission: get out of the citadel before the self destruct sequence timer runs out.

Next on the agenda; find some weapons. Gordon gets lucky in episode one (and we don’t mean with Alyx). He gets to use a very nice piece of weaponry; the Gravity Gun. This can be a very powerful weapon with the ability to push and pull people around. But don’t start drooling just yet, this ability is only temporary. The special power wears off eventually and the Gravity Gun returns to its normal state where you can use it to pick up objects. There are also many other types of weapons to pick up during the game but the Gravity Gun seems to be the pièce de résistance in the game. It also comes with an auxiliary flashlight for those dark places you’re bound to adventure through.

Throughout the game you will encounter all manner of beasties like Head Crabs, Zombies and Ant Lions which should all be familiar from the previous games. Alyx manages to play an important part as your backup during rather difficult fire fights and also as your guide, hinting at ways to get around obstacles. Just as well, one of us is thinking!

The puzzles in the game are all quite easily completed. It’s safe to say that you would be completely lost without the use of the Gravity Gun. Plugging up holes to stop the Ant Lions from attacking you en masse is one example. There are other puzzles that you must complete to be able to continue but none of the puzzles are really that challenging.

The Source graphics engine has really given this game an edge in the graphics department. Smooth interfacing and seamless texturing between environments gives this game a very polished look. It looked amazing running on a 6600 GT Nvidia graphics card which isn’t really high end. With the use of better and more powerful graphics engines, games like Half Life 2 Episode One can be viewed in all its graphical glory. That deserves two thumbs up.

The level detail is superb and you will spend most of the game in and out of the Citadel or around City 17. The A.I seemed familiar but at times, the AI seemed a little smarter than we remembered. There were no surprises on the beastie side of things either. The voice acting in the game is great.

The only aspect of this game we didn’t like: the length. It seems whilst the episodes give gamers the option of playing the expansions as stand alone products, it also appears that the length of game-play time was reduced considerably to compensate. Either way, we wanted more and what we received was a whole lot less than expected.

As far as expansions (that aren’t really expansions) go, Half Life 2: Episode One is one thrilling ride and a great step forward for an awesome series of games.  We’re keenly awaiting the next instalment with our Gravity Gun firmly in place.

You can view the original published article here.