A few weeks or days ago, I wrote about how I'm skeptical about the game's release, since the new Prey is a reimagining of the original. Not too long after that, the demo was release as the first hour of the game was revealed to us. I got it and was surprised to what I saw, but still stand by my previous statement. Hello and welcome to this Abstract Review.
The game starts like how the game's reveal was, you wake up on March 15th of 2032, considering that the year is not too long from now. You wake up to this great apartment and are going to your first day of work. You get to so these "Tests" and somehow they all are strange. You expect something to happen while your doing these "Tests." I mean, the test where you are to hide in the room with only a chair to accompany you. Like, I said before, this makes you expect that something will happen to you like how GLaDOS would do her tests. I actually liked it, it had the right feeling to it: Unsettling. Not disturbing, that's something completely different. This moment made you be more aware of your surroundings as they made it as a boring old tutorial. Is that bad? No, that was a good formula to make a boring tutorial into something unsettling and anxiety inducing.
After that, you are to answer typical questions, the train one. You know, the one where you have to choose who to save, a single person or a group of people from a train. It was typical, but it was still unsettling, especially the person testing you asking what happened to the "Real" tests. I wonder what he had in mind. As you're answering these questions, on the counter where the scientists are observing you, something takes the form of a Coffee cup. One of them pick it up and discovers his cup was empty. Before you know it, the coffee cup sucks the life out of his face. That's what happens when you drink coffee, kids!
Once that happens, you are gassed and wake in the same room in your apartment, with the automated voice saying the same date, March 15th of 2032. I actually would say this was a great little scene. Something psychological where you have this Groundhog moment where you wake up in the same day every morning, although, (I believe) it's actually January. After that whole 45 minute ordeal, you finally get to the gameplay.
Although, you are limited to the game's ability (Since this is a Demo), but the game feels great. I don't like how the sensitivity is at 20, though. That's some slow camera movement my friend. "StarterPack, the camera is better on PC." I bet it is, but my PC is now trash after my cousin fixed it. Every time I try to play something new, the game's floor doesn't load. Need a new graphics card. Anyways, I like the start of it, the game has a Half-Life feel to it, where you are armed by a familiar weapon. It's not a Crowbar, it's not a Wrench-no wait, it's a wrench. It took the Bioshock root to the first weapon of the game, you find a Wrench. Although, this might be a weapon that would hardly be used, but it does the job on those mimics. Speaking of which, I love the idea of mimics, it's such an ingenious enemy for a horror game.
Basically, the mimics do as they should, take the place of any inanimate object just so they can catch the player off guard. Despite their size, they are pretty hard. I don't know on any other difficulty, but on Hard, they pack quite a punch. They can sometimes land two hits and take you down by half health. I really like that, despite their punch. Really makes you be more aware of your surroundings. When you get things like the Gloo Cannon or the Shotgun, I wouldn't suggest taking the time to aim it at them since they are pretty fast and hard to hit. Just stick to the Wrench since they are easily staggered, but don't charge at too many of them with just that Wrench, sometimes it's fine to just let them hide.
Another thing I enjoy about these mimics is how they show so much about them in the demo. I know this is suppose to show things about the game, but most demos these days don't show that much about their game. Instead of saying or speculating that they just took over and ask why they had so much of them, they show you that they are easily multiplied. Once they consume a victim, they split into 6 more of themselves, making the infestation look more reasonable. There is more enemies in the game, but they only reveal a larger one called the Phantom. Although, large, they are sort of easy to put down. If your not surrounded, you can just Gloo them down and pump a shell on them. They can escape you don't have a good eye on them, but they are easy to spot since they leave a trail to where they go. I would have liked to see more about the enemies, but I guess that's the point of the demo, just to get the game.
The only thing I dislike about the game's enemies is their announcement music. It's cool when you first listen to it, but when you killed everything in sight, you have to prepare for a full 15 minute, heart pumping music to play and annoy you. I mean, we get it game, there was a mimic, you can stop now... You're not stopping...
Besides that, there is one weapon I don't understand. The grenade you find in the game seems to be a flash bang, but I see some damage down to the mimics, but nothing else. Just seems it disperses the enemies to make the walkway safer to cross. And the Huntress Crossbow, thought that was a Joke, but then I saw the game's weapon trailer, it's a full fledge crossbow that seems to a large amount of damage. The one you get in the Demo is a Nerf Gun that shoots foam darts. I bet in the full game, you make it into a full on Crossbow, but for now, I feel teased about it.
And then, the game has something called Crafting! Wow, a survival game with crafting? That's new! Anyways, the game has a strange system for you to craft with, although limited, but the game gives you four different components: Organic, Synthetic, Exotic and Mineral. They appear as blocks, but when you look at the Organic one, it looks soft and it's skin colored sometimes! That is just disturbing. Anyways, you can get these materials by getting unwanted material and placing them into the "Fabricator." Although simple to reduce them to four different materials, but I'm glad they didn't make a complicated crafting system where you have to look for a bolt to upgrade something, but I like this simple system. It's less of a stress to find something extremely specific.
The one thing I dislikes about this demo is that they didn't show off the powers. "But StarterPack, they are trying to get you to buy the game!" I know, but I want to see how they work! I want to see what they can do and be more excited to get the game when they restrict me from the other abilities as well as how to upgrade them. Speaking of which, the few Neromods you get are fun. Although, they are limited to you, still fun. A little tip for the players out there, safe the mods for when you need. I used them all on Engineering and found out hacking is need to play further in the demo.
Another thing I want to talk about is how the one thing they stuck to was the mouses on screens. "But that's just a regular computer, StarterPack!" I know, but when you view a device, the cursor is replaced by a mouse cursor. It makes me nostalgic about the previous game and Doom. Great games.
Well, that's my Abstract Review. I hope you enjoyed the piece and I am temped to get the game. So far, I am happy with what I am given, although limited, but I am almost excited to get this game. Again I hope you enjoyed this and 'til next time...
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I came all the way here just to kill you!