Prey - scifi/horror game by Arkane

spronk

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Digital Foundry analysis of Prey on PC and consoles


tl;dr: console versions SUCK, pc version is great. No PS4 Pro version, its the exact same as PS4. Input lag and controller drift issues still exist on PS4 version. Why Bethesda/Arkane thought it would be ok to make shitty console ports is baffling.

I guess at least now we have our one case of "PC version of AAA game far superior to console" to start the year.
 
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Vaclav

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And now on the internet I see people comparing Prey to Bioshock, system shock, etc. No. Not even fucking close. The level of world building in those games made them what they are. The world building in Prey is garbage compared to seeing something like this in Bioshock Infinite.

You've not seen far enough in to judge that - there's some pretty amazing moments in Prey that I'd put nearly on par minus the pop culture influence. (which was cool as shit in the Bioshocks)

And I personally disagree with the comparison to Bioshocks myself - it compares closer to System Shock - which was the daddy of both games, but in completely different directions - Prey follows "daddy" much closer. But they both share a root influence, but that's where it ends - Bioshock took the formula and ran with with more theme and "shootery" elements - Prey stuck closer to the original formula of exploration and WTF is around the next corner + relative nonlinearity.

(I still would rate all the Bioshocks higher - but Prey is a solid game - I think the people implying it should be up for GotY online are out of their minds considering what a good year it's been)
 
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Regime

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You're a fucking idiot. Dishonored 1 and 2 aren't great games by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you liked the story line (Which I didn't) or the setting (Which I didn't) it still suffered from poor control and UI/Combat in my opinion. And yeah, after playing games that had effort placed into them to the point we saw epic design, fluid game play, fantastic stories, great combat, and fantastic world building and atmosphere, color yourself shocked seeing more mediocre shit releasing a month or two after it will get the snub because I saw, once again, what game design/publishing can do when they actually work their asses off and know what they are doing.

But hey, your next copy paste Assassin's Creed is around the corner in Egypt. Where people talk about not wanting to wait to explore Egypt, when you aren't exploring jack shit that is noteworthy when compared to real exploration like where Egypt belongs (A game like Tomb Raider).

And now on the internet I see people comparing Prey to Bioshock, system shock, etc. No. Not even fucking close. The level of world building in those games made them what they are. The world building in Prey is garbage compared to seeing something like this in Bioshock Infinite.


Or This...


In fact, those two segments have more effort put into them than Arkane has thrown together in 6 weeks of meetings about what to cut and why due them thinking a player won't care about it. Bullshit. Players see it. And it's this type of awesome that makes games stand apart. It's why this game and the games such as Dishonored and Dishonored 2 could have been about a thousand times better than what they were.

The only idiots living in opposite world are one's that would play Horizon, Zelda BOTW, Nier, and then go back to this mediocre hap hazard effort they call a game.

Jeramiah Fink ripping off songs from multiverse is A++++ writing.

Only game I care to play so far this year really is Horizon.
 
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Vaclav

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Jeramiah Fink ripping off songs from multiverse is A++++ writing.

Only game I care to play so far this year really is Horizon.

I did love the Fink story. (Wasn't it Albert Fink though? Jeremiah was the Finkton one, Albert was the composer)
 

Regime

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I did love the Fink story. (Wasn't it Albert Fink though? Jeremiah was the Finkton one, Albert was the composer)


corrected

Jeremiah technology built from the twins discoveries allowed both brothers to go into other demensions. While Jeremiah was stealing Big Daddy's plans, his brother was stealing beautiful music LOL!

I wish I could do that.
 
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Utnayan

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You've not seen far enough in to judge that - there's some pretty amazing moments in Prey that I'd put nearly on par minus the pop culture influence. (which was cool as shit in the Bioshocks)

And I personally disagree with the comparison to Bioshocks myself - it compares closer to System Shock - which was the daddy of both games, but in completely different directions - Prey follows "daddy" much closer. But they both share a root influence, but that's where it ends - Bioshock took the formula and ran with with more theme and "shootery" elements - Prey stuck closer to the original formula of exploration and WTF is around the next corner + relative nonlinearity.

(I still would rate all the Bioshocks higher - but Prey is a solid game - I think the people implying it should be up for GotY online are out of their minds considering what a good year it's been)

And admittedly, I have only played the PS4 Demo and the controls are horrid.
 

Skanda

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I wouldn't call this Game of the Year quality but I wouldn't call it a bad game (On the PC, lol consoles). I'd probably give it a 7-8/10. One thing I think they missed out on is a multiplayer mode styled after Gary's Mod Prop hunt. All the mechanics are already there. It could have added to the game.
 

Regime

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And admittedly, I have only played the PS4 Demo and the controls are horrid.


Been watching several streams and it seems ok. I'm with you on dishonored just not a big fan. I think I will pick this up on sale later in the year. The writing is worth it for me anyways. I catching up on backlog and still have horizons so this game won't get played until probably late summer or fall.
 
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Vaclav

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Been watching several streams and it seems ok. I'm with you on dishonored just not a big fan. I think I will pick this up on sale later in the year. The writing is worth it for me anyways. I catching up on backlog and still have horizons so this game won't get played until probably late summer or fall.

The hugest flaw I see for most people is the pacing is so random - frenetic one second, 15 min of nothing poking around peacefully. It's why I keep going back to System Shock comparisons, because it had those OH SHIT moments followed by long stretches of "nothing" from a thrill element.

It's truly a type of game that isn't done much anymore. I see it being something that most people will hold polarized opinions of - really up some folks alleys (although somewhat flawed IMO even then) and for others it just won't land at all.
 

Rafterman

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As someone who also doesn't get Dishonored, and owns but had yet to try Dishonored 2, I wouldn't write off Prey, especially not based on the PS4 beta. It's, on PC at least, pretty damn good and definitely feels like System Shock. With all the excellent games released this year there is no way in hell it's my goty, but it would easily be one of my favorites in any normal year and it's at least an 8 in my book thus far.

I grabbed a PC key for $35 after I found up there isn't any PS4 Pro support and don't regret it at all.
 
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Vaclav

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The game seems to be selling pretty poorly, so if you're on the fence you can probably wait a bit and get it at a cheap price soon enough.

Based on what? Mario Kart is killing it, but #2 spot versus the second game with any excitement on a brand new system isn't really indicative of anything. Top slot on Steam after all.
 

Attog

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I bought a key from cdkeys.com for $36 and been loving this shit on PC. Best game I have played in ages, but I'm taking forever and looking for every little item hidden everywhere.
 
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Rafterman

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Based on what? Mario Kart is killing it, but #2 spot versus the second game with any excitement on a brand new system isn't really indicative of anything. Top slot on Steam after all.

Based on the only physical sales numbers available, which are UK sales. It's sold almost 60% less than Dishonored 2 did at release, which sold 38% less than Dishonored.

Prey: is Bethesda's review policy really to blame?

The top Steam slot means nothing, especially when nothing else of note was released in the same window. Steamspy has it at ~150k sales. That's not exactly burning up the charts and considering how poorly Dishonored 2 sold after the first week, I'd expect similar poor results for Prey.
 
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Vaclav

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Based on the only physical sales numbers available, which are UK sales. It's sold almost 60% less than Dishonored 2 did at release, which sold 38% less than Dishonored.

Prey: is Bethesda's review policy really to blame?

The top Steam slot means nothing, especially when nothing else of note was released in the same window. Steamspy has it at ~150k sales. That's not exactly burning up the charts and considering how poorly Dishonored 2 sold after the first week, I'd expect similar poor results for Prey.

Did you just speedread and not read their elaboration? I'd read that article a day or so ago when it popped up in my Android recommendations - and they quote "After all, we don't yet know what Prey's official digital sales are like, and if it's anything close to SteamSpy's reported ownership figure of 150,000 worldwide, then there's clearly a much healthier appetite for it outside of the boxed retail space." re: the Steamspy numbers, which I don't have much familiarity with, but I took that to be that they were impressed by that quoted number.

[And poking around Steamspy - games with "blockbuster sales figures" like Mass Effect 2 did show only a little over a million copies sold on Steamspy with over 6 years to accrue those numbers (as well as copious sales opportunities/etc) - hitting 12% or so of ME2's numbers in a 5 days worth of sales doesn't scream "shitty sales" to me....]

Frankly, I've known it was niche from day one - I can't foresee a niche game doing any better than it appears to be doing, personally.
 

Rafterman

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I read their elaboration, which doesn't change the fact that it's trending lower than the last game from the same developer and publisher. A game, btw, which was readily available for $19.99 a month after release from multiple retail stores.

And Mass Effect 2 sold the vast majority of it's copies on Origin, it's Steam sales pale in comparison to it's actual sales so that's not really a useful comparison. I also think it's a niche game, but that doesn't mean the developer does, and trending lower than Dishonored 2, which was a flop, isn't a good look.

Look, admitting that it's not exactly burning up the charts isn't saying anything about it's quality. Even System Shock sold like shit and it's one of the best games ever made. Maybe word of mouth will give this game better legs than I expect, but the safe bet is that it's sales trickle in from here on out and price cuts become a regular thing.
 
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Vaclav

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Shrug, not every game is expected to burn up the charts. I'm optimistic that it'll demonstrate the value of a nearly dead niche to reinvigorate it.

I'm partial to Arkane since Thief and System Shocks were among my classic faves (add Bards Tale and you've got the entire list of nearlt abandoned games I miss covered) - so I choose to not be bleak about it.

Bethsoft is historically pretty forgiving to their studios after all. (I can't even recall one studio canning yet under them)

I really feel like they like to play a long game when they see potential.
 

Drajakur

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The game has a pretty cool initial hook and I like it so far. In some sense it is a bit silly wandering around a space station stabbing briefcases and traschcans before they morph into mimics, but if you can suspend your disbelief over that there are enough RPG trappings and open options to make the game pretty interesting. Combat is a bit harder than it should be owing to the Dishonered-style melee without the benefit (so far?) of combos. I think if you play it like a straight-up shooter you might not like it; but if you try and solve the environments and monsters in an interesting way (go go Goo gun) then it is pretty entertaining. I've heard the thing is a mess on PC but on console I've been fine so far. I'd give it probably a 7 or 8 out of 10 but I do love Arkane so I'm probably a bit generous here.

PS. Oh, and I have an innate love of SystemShock. So anyting that even remotely reminds me of playing that game, holed up in my dorm, on a shitty Toshiba laptop, is good with me.
 
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Attog

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I was playing last night and came back to an area that I hadn't been to in a while. I had previously cleared this place out so I wasn't really on point. I walk out of the elevator and there right in the middle of the floor was a trash bin. I walk up to it like a moron thinking "weird this thing is just sitting out in the middle of the floor!" and BAM it morphed into an alien and jumped my face and I about shit myself.