Arkane PREY - Arkane's immersive coffee cup transformation sim - now with Mooncrash roguelike mode DLC

[Bad Sector]

For other reasons too, but mostly because I value diegetic design very highly, one of the reasons I respect Dead Space.

"Diegetic" design is usually a gimmick - even in Dead Space the whole thing breaks down if you think a bit about it: even if the excuse that the bar is in your back for others to see would be accepted, it still doesn't explain how the suit can know that, e.g. you have a broken bone and associates some sort of percentage to your overall health. It kinda assumes that the world itself is running with game logic already (kinda how some manga or light novels have stories in fantasy settings where people have levels, XP, unlockable skills, etc) as opposed to being an abstraction for things that are impractical to explain and simulate in detail (and don't get me wrong, such a world can be interesting to have a story in but Dead Space and other games that use these "diegetic" elements the writing and design is not going for anything like that).

There are very few working examples of "diegetic" UI done right and they all work when they both make sense and aren't trying to replace something that tries to bridge the gap between the game's supposed world and the reality of interfacing with that world though the limited approximation that is a 2D monitor with some input device (ie. anything sort of a "full dive" virtual reality system). One such case is how you interact with objects in Frictional Games' games with your mouse which adds a bit of feeling like you're actually interacting with them but without taking anything away in the process - and the games still have abstractions for stuff that would be too cumbersome or impossible to do (e.g. you have an inventory screen instead of... i don't know, looking down your pants and using the mouse to fiddle with your pockets or whatever to avoid showing a GUI).

but they do serve to give the protagonist some agency and personality. The Avatar in Ultima Underworld, the Chosen One in Fallout 2, I think they're memorable characters because of what they can say to all the different people around their worlds

IMO this really depends on if the PC is supposed to be an existing character on their own you are guiding (like, e.g. Shepard on Mass Effect or Geralt in Witcher) or a character you have created (e.g. the main character in Morrowind or New Vegas). If the former then having precanned dialog choices in a way that gives off some sort of "character" makes more sense, but for the latter i personally prefer either not having dialogs at all (like System Shock and Prey do) and instead only rely on my actions to specify my character *or* having a more abstracted conversation system like the keyword-based conversations in earlier Ultima games or Morrowind.

Of course it is a preference but personally i often find my idea of my character clashing with what the available options are in conversation dialog choices (and sometimes how these choices are interpreted by the developers, when they do not map 1:1 to what the character would say). So since we can't have natural conversations with NPCs (and the associated body language, when that would make sense), i'd opt for the abstracted approach that works best with what our interfaces and computers can actually express and work with that wouldn't clash with my understanding of the character (after all for a computer if you select some precanned dialog choice or some keyword is exactly the same thing).

Amusingly, one of the worst examples of Half-Life copycat decline, Doom 3, also badly ripped off System Shock's storytelling - retarded audio logs everywhere that can't be rewound or paused

Most of the audio dialogs in Doom 3 is for optional fluff and the real meat is in the emails stored in PDAs - there is way more text-based content in Doom 3 than there is dialogs and all important codes are in emails. You can play the entirety of the game without needing to listen to a single audio log. In the original game (ie. not BFG) you can also skip all cutscenes if you want without losing anything (BFG makes cutscenes unskippable for some reason though the RBDoom3-BFG source port adds back the ability to skip them). I have finished the game several times while listening to podcasts and aside from a few storage lockers that had their codes in audio logs, i never had any issue skipping any cutscenes or not listening to any audiolog.

(also as a sidenote, since you brought Doom 3 up, Doom 3 also has a good example of a "diegetic" element done right: all in-world UI screens are interacted directly just by pointing the camera at the UI elements without needing to enter some special UI mode or anything since you are already using a pointing device to move the camera around and it is done very smoothly and naturally without taking anything away from the rest of the game - it doesn't work as well with a controller though - in BFG - but even with a controller it is good enough to not feel as if a dedicated UI mode would be needed)

 

[LarryTyphoid]

There are very few working examples of "diegetic" UI done right and they all work when they both make sense and aren't trying to replace something that tries to bridge the gap between the game's supposed world and the reality of interfacing with that world though the limited approximation that is a 2D monitor with some input device

Looking Glass did do diegetic UI very well in Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri. It's basically SS1's UI but you're in a mech, so the limited field of view makes a bit more sense, though SS1's fullscreen UI also works very well.

 

[Bad Sector]

Eh, SS1's UI is diegetic only in the most cheating hand wavy explanation, in that all you see is the UI of the hardware in your scull and you move the cursor around with your brain, kinda like the pull down menus that Cain had in Robocop 2 :-P

 

[MuscleSpark]

snip

I can agree with NPCs giving the player some agency and personality. But I do think it's a trade-off, and in the context of an immersive sim not one I personally would be willing to make. That said, Prey probably handles it as well as it could imho; NPCs will talk at you and ask you things but not require any player input to respond other than doing or not doing the task itself. Having text trees where you ask questions about what they think of the current situation and about their backstory and they answer you like you're some kind of newspaper interviewer just feels a little grating.

I can be immersed in games with abstract UIs too, and in fact I've been trained to do so over the past 25 or so years I've been playing video games (it helps if the game is good and/or interesting), but that doesn't mean games can't do better. If Thief had no health shields and the light gem was an actual in-game gem attached to your wrist you'd have to look down at, wouldn't that be good? That's what Gloomwood is doing, and while paradoxically it ended up taking me out of the experience at first due to the realization that the UI is diegetic and I'm playing a video game, in the long term it was beneficial.

As for Half-Life, maybe I'm being too harsh on it, but I honestly do think a lot of what you attribute to storytelling is just thanks to the design of the game being incredibly linear. You might not directly be told what to do, but if you're presented with a door leading to a corridor leading to another door and so forth and there's no other way to progress, you're going to be walking that path. I will say that I prefer Half-Life's storytelling to Half-Life 2's though, as I don't like having information dumped at me (which is why I like old school dungeon crawlers), and I feel that Prey handles it pretty well because what the characters tell you serves to flesh out their personality (which is very important for the plot's main conceit) while giving you a straightforward goal and isn't overlong, irrelevant exposition.

snip

Yeah, health is an abstraction in the first place. It doesn't differentiate between a broken arm or a broken leg and is just a measure of "average damage person can take before dying". You can do away with precise health values/bars ala Resident Evil (which does technically have numbers, but hidden from the player) and combine it with Prey's trauma system and that'd be relatively abstract and realistic. Although probably quite frustrating for players too.

Inventory screens can be done with a container of some sort (like the suitcase in Gloomwood). I liked the way the Ultima games did it. Backpacks were actual bags that you could freely move stuff around in and would cover up your screen/vision when you opened them, it was a good abstraction. ZombiU did a neat thing where your character would crouch and look down at their backpack while the secondary WiiU screen turned into an inventory screen and then you would have to look down and interact with it, but that's a very specific example. Prey I didn't like because it moved it to a clearly separate menu and paused the game logic, where it could easily have kept the game going ala Dark Souls and interacted via the Transtar device, the thing serving as the menu-opening animation in the first place.

Also, generally speaking, sci-fi games have a big advantage when it comes to making diegetic UIs in that technology can be advanced enough where information is shown in a HUD via the character's helmet or implants or whatnot. In a fantasy game you could do it with a magic spell that tells you your life force or something, but good luck explaining why it'd constantly be up in your line of sight draining your mana. Alternatively, you could do a life gem akin to Thief's light gem. In an otherwise realistic first-person game? You'll have to rely on a Fitbit unless you want red screen tinting and blood jam.
But yeah, this kind of stuff might become more important as VR and virtual worlds take off (or whatever is after that, holograms, full dive?), until then there's still the separation between player and computer screen.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

If Thief had no health shields and the light gem was an actual in-game gem attached to your wrist you'd have to look down at, wouldn't that be good?

Personally, I'd disagree with this decision. The light gem is already sort of a gamey workaround for the level of lighting not always being correspondent with what you actually see - from what I remember, the shadow-based stealth system was cobbled together with duck-tape, so the gem was necessary. In universe, Garrett shouldn't need a stupid gizmo to know how hidden he is, he should know by instinct, and the gem is a way for the player to be on the same page. The idea of a "light gem bracelet" for Garrett is just another example of what I was talking about - removing all "gamey" elements (like dialogue trees or, in this case, UI elements) for the sake of immersion is a mistake if the changes make the protagonist appear less competent in-universe.

 

[MuscleSpark]

If Thief had no health shields and the light gem was an actual in-game gem attached to your wrist you'd have to look down at, wouldn't that be good?

Personally, I'd disagree with this decision. The light gem is already sort of a gamey workaround for the level of lighting not always being correspondent with what you actually see - from what I remember, the shadow-based stealth system was cobbled together with duck-tape, so the gem was necessary. In universe, Garrett shouldn't need a stupid gizmo to know how hidden he is, he should know by instinct, and the gem is a way for the player to be on the same page. The idea of a "light gem bracelet" for Garrett is just another example of what I was talking about - removing all "gamey" elements (like dialogue trees or, in this case, UI elements) for the sake of immersion is a mistake if the changes make the protagonist appear less competent in-universe.

I'd argue even a master thief like Garrett can't be 100% certain of how hidden he is in every single scenario and that a light gem would be a useful tool for a thief regardless; a thief who uses every tool and advantage at his disposal is a lot more competent than one who doesn't, in my opinion. Not that it matters how competent or incompetent Garrett is because it all comes down to the player controlling him and how skilled they are at the video game.

 

[Bad Sector]

Inventory screens can be done with a container of some sort (like the suitcase in Gloomwood). I liked the way the Ultima games did it. Backpacks were actual bags that you could freely move stuff around in and would cover up your screen/vision when you opened them, it was a good abstraction. ZombiU did a neat thing where your character would crouch and look down at their backpack while the secondary WiiU screen turned into an inventory screen and then you would have to look down and interact with it, but that's a very specific example. Prey I didn't like because it moved it to a clearly separate menu and paused the game logic, where it could easily have kept the game going ala Dark Souls and interacted via the Transtar device, the thing serving as the menu-opening animation in the first place.

TBH i found the Ultima thing gimmicky - it was neat at first but it quickly devolved into a mess for no reason at all. IMO if you are going to make an abstraction then make an abstraction that has good and practical UX which is convenient to use, not a gimmicky one. Prey could have used the Transtar device like a tablet (in landscape orientation, don't waste screen space for both the model and the conflicting aspect ratios of the in-game monitor and real monitor the player uses, otherwise it would artificially restrict the UI) though personally i prefer the separate screen and the only alternative i'd be fine with would be a toggleable UI mode like in System Shock 2 or Deus Ex.

 

[Spukrian]

In the beginning of Prey, the female scientist pulls out a screen from her transcribe, making it wider, would've been cooler if Morgan's transcribe had worked the same.

 

[Roguey]

I've finally played and completed this. Pretty swell, though it didn't grab me like System Shock did. The enemies never felt enjoyable to fight, though I believe this was the intent. Didn't care for most of the NPCs and their insipid lives. Wasn't surprised to see that Avellone wrote the most memorable characters/side quests; I imagine the cook was his response to Cook Cook. I knew right away that was one of his because of how over-the-top he was, though the others are a bit less obvious. I am surprised to see that Avellone didn't consider this a role playing game since it has both character building and a non-trivial amount of narrative reactivity which is enough to qualify as far as I'm concerned.

I was all set to sacrifice myself in the ending, especially after hearing that one incriminating recording, but then they had to go and give me an easy way out and have January itself encourage me to leave since I never installed any alien powers. Didn't like the sequel-bait post-credits stinger, though I knew something like that was coming because I already got the non-standard game over from taking that escape pod early just to see what would happen. Since this game underperformed and there will likely never be a sequel, I will prefer to interpret that as a weird dream.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

The only thing I like about the ending is that it’s a pretty clever way of

Spoiler

explaining why Morgan and Alex appear to be almost forty years apart in age. Otherwise it’s pretty hamfistedly sequel bait.

 

[Wunderbar]

Spoiler

why Morgan and Alex appear to be almost forty years apart in age

being fat ages you.

They may be 35 and 40 yrs old, it's just Morgan is fit and healthy, while Alex is fat. There was an email that says something about him dodging exercising, and his treadmill looks like it wasn't used for a while.

Spoiler

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Being fat doesn’t age your voice that much. Unless Alex was a vocalist for Led Zeppelin for 15 years there’s no way his voice belongs to someone who is less than 55.

 

[Wunderbar]

<3sRichardSimmons he was voiced by Benedict Wong, who was 46 when the game was released.

 

[thesoup]

Now it's time to beat the mind game.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

<3sRichardSimmons he was voiced by Benedict Wong, who was 46 when the game was released.

Hmm I knew it was Wong, but I thought he was about twenty years older than he is. I stand corrected.

 

[Ismaul]

<3sRichardSimmons he was voiced by Benedict Wong, who was 46 when the game was released.

Hmm I knew it was Wong, but I thought he was about twenty years older than he is. I stand corrected.

You were Wong. It was you all along.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Best part of Prey was hearing this guy who's like 100 years old now.

 

[MajorMace]

The enemies never felt enjoyable to fight, though I believe this was the intent

This would have never been a point that's brought up in reviews if they didn't somehow market this as a Prey reboot.
Also I believe you're right.

 

[anvi]

I loved Prey but only really because of what it represented, and because it felt like a love letter to System Shock. I had a lot fun with it too. But I wouldn't want to play it again.

 

[Roguey]

This would have never been a point that's brought up in reviews if they didn't somehow market this as a Prey reboot.
Also I believe you're right.

Yeah, superfast enemies plus chaotic special effects plus stress-inducing combat stinger/music = "we don't ever want you to feel comfortable engaging with these things even when you're effortlessly stomping them." It's like the opposite of nuDoom (which Mick Gray also did the music for) where everything's built up to make you tense in a good way.

 

[Silverfish]

being fat ages you.

They may be 35 and 40 yrs old, it's just Morgan is fit and healthy, while Alex is fat. There was an email that says something about him dodging exercising, and his treadmill looks like it wasn't used for a while.

Spoiler

Those are hurdles. A regular treadmill just isn't enough for Alex.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

They should call it Prey 2: that's the number of interesting enemies we have in our horror game, which is two more than the previous part.

And then the cgi teaser should show that these enemies are as boring, not scary and meh as all the previous ones.

Probably more likely to happen than that "leak".

 

[KateMicucci]

Same sex relationships are a part of life for many and have their place...

Yeah, Hell.

 

[Silentstorm]

Prey 2...isn't Earth at the end so fucked up that they want the player character to be a diplomat and convince the typhons that humans have feelings, thank you very much, and that they don't like being eaten, killed and controlled?

I guess the Typhons finally get to wherever the last human survivors are and thus you help them...or wait until the very last second to betray and kill all humans, still, saying it's smaller and shorter is actually a plus, i did genuinely think the game dragged a bit too much, and travelling in Zero Gravity got particularly annoying.