The announcement of Prey 2 spurred me on to beat the original, an intriguing sci-fi shooter with portals before Portal made portals cool. You play as Tommy, a Native-American who gets sucked up in a giant spaceship called the Sphere. The entire adventure revolves around his quest to save his girlfriend while navigating the Sphere's treacherous interior, filled with portals and gravity-defying catwalks. In the process, Tommy unlocks his heritage and gains access to his spirit form, which is necessary to solve basic navigation puzzles.
The game looks great with a dark, twisted, and fleshy interior. The lighting is moody and the monster design nightmarish. Unfortunately, the game ascribes to the template of corridor shooter, where the best tactic is classical strafe and fire. Enemy AI and level design aren't sophisticated enough to support the flanking style of gameplay Halo is known for. It boils down to point and shoot.
On the bright side, the game's armory is unique enough to make the task of shooting aliens fun. Pistols with secondary sniper function, bug bombs, and leech blasters are just some of the fantastic alien weaponry you'll get to wield.
The real star of Prey is the level design. The use of portals, perspective shifts, and reverse gravity makes the game unpredictable. Combined with the spirit form gameplay, simply walking through the ship is like solving one giant puzzle.
Prey's journey is fairly lengthy, easily running over ten hours, but the narrative is gripping enough to urge you on when times are tough. The game is a throwback to classic fps with a modern twist; a true bridge between old and new school.
