A cursory glance in the direction of Prey would probably have you, understandably, dismissing the game as just another first-person shooter - after all, it's not like there's a drought of them on PC at the moment. However, five minutes with the game will change all that - when you're walking on ceilings, jumping through portals and leaving your mortal body behind, it becomes clear pretty quickly that developer Human Head is on its way to crafting something very special indeed.
Recently, we were treated to a live demonstration of Prey's single-player game, wherein you don the tasselled boots of Tommy, a Native American mechanic who's turned his back on his Cherokee culture. Life was generally good to Tommy until the day a bunch of oppressive alien hitch-hikers rode into town, sucking our hero and his family into their gigantic orbiting spaceship.
Multiplayer screenshot
After your abrupt removal from the Earth, you're introduced to Prey's Dyson Sphere, which proves to be more of a dynamic, organic entity than your conventional spaceship - a frankly ingenious concept which offers up all manner of possibilities for the development team, in terms of unique gameplay features and puzzles. The talented artists at Human Head have created an amazingly bleak atmosphere inside the ship and the full grim horror of Tommy's predicament unfolds in controllable real-time before your eyes, in a sequence reminiscent of Half-Life 2's Citadel finale.
As Tommy and family are dragged through the guts of the Dyson Sphere towards a very nasty demise, a freak explosion frees Tommy from his confinement and he's forced to watch as the spaceship selects his grandfather for "processing" - a particularly disturbing scripted sequence involving probing tubes, impalement and a giant hammer. It's pretty clear that Human Head is pulling no punches here, the ship literally brimming with unpleasantness like the now infamous scene featuring possessed little girls skewering each other on spikes.
As any FPS veteran knows however, a shooter's only as good as its guns and, thankfully, this is where Prey really excels. The game's weaponry shares the same part-organic features of the Dyson Sphere, leading to an impressively imaginative arsenal for our hero. Amongst the many weird and wonderful creations at hand are acid shotguns, Half-Life-esque creature-grenades and nifty cannons that leach power directly from the ship. Even your basic rifle is a radical departure from the norm - the three spinning barrels demand tactical reloading, and the gun's scope attaches directly to Tommy's retina for ultra accurate sniper shots.
Multiplayer screenshot
Of the myriad interesting gameplay features in Prey, we were particularly taken with Tommy's spiritual abilities. At certain points in the game, you're required to hop into Spirit Mode. Here, Tommy's spirit leaves his body, enabling you to walk freely through force field barriers or sneak around corners and annihilate particularly aggressive enemies with your incredibly powerful bow - all without fear of being harmed. However, with each arrow shot, your spirit energy is drained meaning you've only got a limited amount of ammo at your ethereal fingertips. What's more, back in the land of the living, your body is left defenceless so it pays to use your arrows efficiently.
As good as all that out-of-body business is however, the definitive element of Prey's design is undoubtedly its bizarre flirtations with inverted gravity. Throughout the game, players are presented with gravity switches which literally turn your world upside-down - sending you and anything that isn't firmly bolted down flying in a whole new direction. In addition, Metroid-style walk-rails are scattered about the game, enabling you to run up walls with ease and dance on the ceiling Lionel Ritchie-style.
You want more? Prey's crazy warp portals turn gunfights on their head, even more so than the gravity-flipping walk-rails. At first glance they look like 2D holes ripped in the world, leading to some other far off corner of the Dyson Sphere. The twist is that you can use them to hop between locations, listen to conversations elsewhere while sticking to your own area or fire at enemies on the other side. Prey's portals are incredibly disorientating, but very cool.
Of course, we could probably enthuse for a couple of thousand more words - and there's still the multiplayer component of Prey to get through. Instead, we'll summarise our single-player impressions with some of the coolest things we sampled: a flyable space shuttle section complete with lasers and tractor beam, low-gravity asteroid gunfights, an insanely interactive public toilet (complete with intergalactic condom dispenser), playable arcade machines and a jukebox featuring fully-licensed music. All of which are merely impressive embellishments on an already extremely solid and well-rounded shooter.
After experiencing the visceral punch of Prey's single-player game, we couldn't wait to jump into a multiplayer match and get our hands dirty. We were able to experience the game's extensive multiplayer offerings in several different arenas, each designed to show off the game's unique gameplay traits. The first map we tried out was a haven of gravity-flipping - nauseating to watch but offering up an intensely disorientating style of play.
The initial surprise with Prey multiplayer is its deceptively leisurely pace - compared to the rocket-powered rush of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Secondly, we realised that the tension of a normal deathmatch game was nothing compared to the gravity-flipping madness of Human Head's creation. When the laws of gravity are being broken all around you - and your opponents can literally appear from any direction - Prey can strain even the most hardened of FPS veterans. Our fear was that the gravity-defying nature of Prey's multiplayer maps could have ended up a confusing mess but, thankfully, the game's level designers have used some cleverly-placed environmental cues - such as dripping water - to help you figure out which side of the room you're on without getting lost in the spiralling gravity maze.
Even better, Prey's aforementioned unique weaponry works wonders for differentiating the game from other deathmatchers out there. The acid shotgun proved to be our personal favourite against our fellow human opponents, dispatching enemies with efficiency and style. However, weapons like the leach gun help push Prey's multiplayer even further from the usual deathmatch template. Using it, you can suck power directly from the Dyson Sphere via scattered 'power nodes' of which there are four different kinds, each giving the weapon different traits, such as transforming it into a devastating ice launcher.
From our initial hands-on, it's looking like all the innovative elements of Prey's single-player campaign have been miraculously implemented to create some truly manic multiplayer experiences, with the gravity-defying arenas pushing nerves to the max and the out-of-body Spirit Mode proving extremely effective when used strategically. One match we played ended in a monumental fire fight between five-or-so combatants, each racing for the winning kill. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a cheeky scamp pops round the corner in spirit form, leaving us with no choice but to admit defeat in the face of arrow-shaped death.
Combine Prey's excellent multiplayer features with its impressive looking single-player game and you've got yourself the ingredients for one of the biggest games of the year. What's more, Prey is quickly approaching completion at Human Head studios, with both PC and Xbox 360 versions promised for simultaneous launch. Prepare to have your world turned upside down when the game hits stores later this year.
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