Prey: Huge Hands-On & Hi-Res Media

Kikizo goes hands-on with Human Head's evolutionary FPS, Prey. Here's our massive hands-on report, plus gorgeous new hi-res gameplay videos and screens.

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You hear Jen scream as she appears on a nearby cable, then she disappears again, cueing you to mourn gramps later and make chase to save your damsel in distress.

As time was short for the demo, we were skipped to a later level, which showcased some of the unique features of Prey's world, including weapons and with reference to grampa's words of wisdom; Tommy's newfound abilities...

Tommy's Tools

When Tommy kills a creature, a ball of white light appears which you can pick up. This is spirit energy. This energy is used to power Tommy's 'spirit' ability, which allows him to take spirit form and go through laser forcefields and other such surfaces. You are also invisible to all enemies bar spirit enemies, meaning stealth kills are very possible, provided they don't find your human body. Spirit energy also depletes with time, so you need to use it mindfully.

In spirit mode, you also have 'spirit arrows' at your disposal, and 'spirit vision', which allows you to see and use paths and routes otherwise unavailable in human form.

We saw this mode at its most useful when Tommy hid behind a wall and used the spirit mode to enter through a laser field. Spirit Tommy took out a bunch of aliens unawares and then hit a switch to turn off the laser field so human Tommy could progress. Also, throughout this mode, the music gained a layer of tribal instruments; a subtle but indicative touch of how much thought Human Head has put into this title

As part of his heritage, Tommy also receives a spirit raven. This animal distracts enemies, translates alien texts on the ship and acts as a backup hint system by flying near things you should check out. It can't attack enemies or be killed, so it's a fair trade off.

We then got to check out the weapons, all of which feature in the multiplayer mode (again, more on that later). They include (and are not limited to...):

• Wrench - you start with this. It's a basic Melee weapon
• Rifle - it has a standard auto-fire mode and a sniping mode. This feels like the assault rifle in Halo 2, but lighter
• Crawler Grenade - one of the ship's resident insects can be picked up and stored for use as a weapon. When you throw the Crawler, it lands and crawls forward, before exploding in a shower of acid blood. Who knows what the evolutionary purpose for this creature's behaviour is, but it plays well, so we'll forget we ever took that train of thought. In secondary mode, you pull of one of its legs and turn it into a sticky bomb / proximity mine, attaching it to any surface, to detonate whenever someone comes close to it.
• Leech Gun - this gun is powered by energy from the ship, mainly accessible through lit sockets dotted around the place. Its primary fire is a pulse rifle, while secondary fire sucks in what I would assume is energy either from the ship or natural elements. We saw this weapon used as an ice blaster later on in the game, so I'm assuming that this gun can be used to suck in elemental properties, such as fire and ice, then spit them out as weapons. Very cool if such is the case.
• Crawler Launcher - think grenade launcher, but with spiders with acid for blood; that's the primary fire. Secondary fire puts up a forceshield you can pass through, but you nor your enemy can shoot through.
• Acid Shotgun - a shotgun that spits acid. Alternate fire produces a bouncy shell that explodes like Unreal 2003's Flak Cannon, but with one powerful shell, rather than several.

Tommy can also climb into a number of vehicles, one of which is the Shuttle Exo-Skeleton. While in this suit, Tommy can use a tractor beam to move objects or creatures of many varied weights (think gravity gun times ten), shoot a fast and powerful dual rifle and fly high and (mostly) out of harms way.

Harm's Way

And here's where things in Prey get really interesting. Harm can come from enemies that appear from portals, walk on walls, engage you in zero gravity areas or simply wait for you in the spirit realm. The adaptive AI also remembers 'collectively' and so any repeat procedures or tactics you use will eventually be exploited. There is literally nowhere to hide.

Thankfully, you have some control over these elements, including wall and floor mounted gravity switches that flip the room's gravity (items, weapons and non-rooted objects included) on the axis where the switch you hit is rooted. So if you hit a switch on a wall to the right of you, that wall then becomes the floor and that's where you and all the room's non-bolted-down debris ends up.

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