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Doom3 Half-Life2 PREY is the best shooter I've played in the past couple years.
Holy GOD. Picture FPS graphics that equal (or very very nearly so) what is found in Oblivion. Only adding HDR would make it 100% comparable. As far as FPS games go, Prey simply rocks. Moreso than F.E.A.R.... very much more.
You play the role of a young Cherokee man (resentfully) living on a reservation. The dialog at the beginning of the game is what really hooked me in initially (besides the graphics, which I'll get to in a bit): I've never totally felt like I was playing a part in a TV show or a movie before (as far as actually being there in the scene), but the dislodge is so well-written at the beginning of the Prey demo that I actually found myself suspending my disbelief- and I didn't think it was even possible for a game to do that to me, avid gamer that I am. Game dialog usually sucks, but Prey does it well from what I've seen thus far.
Yes, I'm jaded- I expect as close to perfection in a video game as possible, and from what I've seen so far in the demo, Prey comes awfully close to FPS perfection. I played the demo solid for close to an hour, and I wasn't dawdling. I'm still not done with the demo, and that in itself is a major gift.
Now let me describe what I see on screen; being a 450MB download, I doubt lots and lots of DUers will check it out without a recommendation. So here goes:
If you have the chops to play Doom3 and HL2 and Oblivion with all the video effects turned up to a reasonably playable and viewable level, Prey should give you no problems and a good bit of eye candy. I haven't turned the settings down yet- the demo detected I could handle the max by default, and set it there- but I get a very consistent, smooth framerate throughout. I have yet to see Prey frequently skip, stutter, or hang, as my machine does in the aforementioned three titles.
The graphics are more than what one might expect from a FPS. Yes, I include D3 and HL2 in that statement (but not Oblivion; sadly, Prey doesn't support HDRI). I'm particularly impressed with two specific things: the directional lighting (especially those lights in motion somehow) and the normal mapping of the objects. In both cases, the artists and coders have done an exquisite job. I gushed about Oblivion as the best graphics in an RPG; assume the same treatment for Prey. 'Nuff said.
On top of it all, this is the prerelease demo. My confidence in 3D Realms as a developer has risen dramatically as a result of this. Never mind the amount of time spent on the game (five years, just like Half-Life2); it shows. Again, using the three 'benchmark' titles I quoted above, take the Doom3 engine, stuff in the HL2 graphics and exterior lighting quality, and add in the interactivity of the Oblivion environment, then throw it all onto a cybernetic spaceship where gravity can bend around a wall and a ceiling at a moment's notice and a dimensional portal might be on the bottom of a box, and you have something like Prey. But to complete it, you'll also have to add in the fantastic normal mapping done on the biosurfaces (and really, everywhere else), truly wonderful interior lighting effects (in my opinion, a great deal better than anything I've seen yet in that sphere), and a most disturbing setting: now you have Prey.
I will be buying this game, based on my as-yet incomplete play of the demo. I have to be close to the end; I'm on the fourth map.
Yeah, (probably) more than four maps included with the demo, all part of the opening story. I bet the actual game differs, and the maps are very different from the demo (though I wouldn't at all mind playing through the opening again), but I have to say I've never played a demo that runs this long. So I have to ask an open question: how long is this game?
3D Realms has completely shocked me, and I don't just mean from a technical standpoint (although from that perspective, Prey is impressive as hell). The action in the game is sometimes rather... disturbing. I'll white this part out:
There was a scene near where I ended up stopping (out of sheer awe, I might add) that was more than gruesome; it was honestly over the top in a completely unexpected way. If you're bothered by seeing kids harming other kids, I urge you to just stop reading right now.
Here's what the scene was: There were two kids stuck behind a pane of glass in a room adjacent to the one my character was in. One of them started pounding on the glass. Something fell into the room and exploded- I don't know what came out when it did that- and then one kid attacked the other, ending by impaling him on a bar. The the attacking kid went *POOF*.
It was disturbing as hell. I hope they explain it; the only good news is, by that point, so many other very very fucked up things have happened on this alien ship (which, by the way, is kidnapping the humans and experimenting on them, this whited-out section being part of that) that about the strangest thing you can think is, "I can't believe they finally went there..."
:wow:
I think I'll own the full version sometime this week. Perfection = map editor. Replay value. LOTS more for my money.
Even if not, it still looks like a great game, one I'd cheerfully accept as a gift or very willingly purchase myself. If you like shooters, Prey is absolutely worth a look.
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