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

[RoSoDude]

Airlocks acting as fast travel points between unlocked airlocks while still giving you the option to go out in space Y/N?

Eh, I think I'm opposed. If anything I wish that organic fast travel methods were unlocked over the course of the game, like a tram that goes through the G.U.T.S., or maybe even on the outside of the station, since the elevator only takes you between what, the Lobby, the Arboretum, and... Life Support? The best way to make backtracking enjoyable is to open up shortcuts and alternate paths.

 

[Durandal]

You can use security terminals to add a waypoint marker on your HUD leading to (the corpse of) almost any employee on the station, something that's both convenient and logical within the setting. In the same vein Prey could've taken the STALKER approach of having the player discover the coordinates of a loot cache via e-mail or off a corpse, which is more than sensible when a large part of the world in question (outer space) consists of mostly empty space and is nowhere as dense or content-filled as indoors. The loot can still be found without the coordinates, but it can give you a sense of direction at the very least.

 

[Blaine]

IIIIIIT'S RECYCLIN' TIME!

 

[Cyberarmy]

It's good to know I'm not the only one with hoarding problems in games

 

[Blaine]

Now this is what I call inclined sci-fi art design.

 

[Multidirectional]

IIIIIIT'S RECYCLIN' TIME!

Spoiler

Does it actually give a good amount of materials? I never actually bothered with shit like this. Not doing it on my current second playthrough either, there's more resources than needed for highest difficulty as it is. I save my recycler grenades at the earlier stage of the game mostly to clear up passages for which I lack Leverage skill to unblock and a rare combat use.

 

[Blaine]

Turrets provide the most and they provide synthetics in addition to minerals, but operators yield a lot of minerals. I've only made big piles twice: once to try it out and to punish turrets for being useless, and again there in Hardware Labs because I realized there were a dozen destroyed operators strewn around. I doubt I'll be bothered a third time.

"Need" is a funny thing. I'm sitting on 90+ minerals, 80+ organics, 45+ synthetics, and zilch exotics. I have around 40 medkits and 25 suit repair kits saved up. I fabricate as many neuromods as I can (I never took Necropsy, but have decided to go full human, so I threw 20 psi hypos in the recycler once), and I could fabricate a bunch of upgrade kits if desired to finish off some of the upgrades, but I prefer to have a nice stockpile in case I suddenly need a bunch of ammo or whatever.

Other than neuromods, upgrade kits, and the jetpack, over the course of the entire game I've only fabricated a few boxes of shotgun shells.

 

[Multidirectional]

I went human first time too but I did take two lv1 spells. Mimic for getting through small spaces and Phantom Shift for dealing with Cystoids. Found them annoying otherwise.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Necropsy might be the most useless skill in the game. I didn't take it and still ended the game with around 100 exotic mats sitting in my inventory, and I was in no way hoarding them.

 

[Blaine]

Necropsy might be the most useless skill in the game. I didn't take it and still ended the game with around 100 exotic mats sitting in my inventory, and I was in no way hoarding them.

It might be the most useless, but there are a number of useless skills. Repair III springs to mind. For a ridiculously gigantic investment of neuromods, you gain the ability to fortify turrets (by spending yet more parts) and turn them from utter shit into pretty damned shit. There are also a few places that require Repair III, which is very annoying, because they were added to justify Repair III's existence. On top of that, raising Repair doesn't actually increase the efficiency of suit repair kits the way it claims to do. Leverage III is vastly superior, since it enables you to not only open up a few areas, but also to more easily create impromptu stepped platforms up to high places, to effectively create barricades, and to use heavy objects as fairly potent weapons.

Maxed Combat Focus for example allows me to pop Etheric Phantoms with the upgraded Q-Beam before they can multi-teleport right in front of my face. Now that's what I call useful. Also, Combat Focus trivializes most combat in general. I'm assuming I can probably kill the Nightmare now that I have maxed Combat Focus, Firearms II, and a near-fully upgraded Shotgun.

Turrets should have been very potent (and downright deadly, when fortified) in order to justify the Repair skill. They'd also present more of an obstacle to filthy, disgusting Typhon modders. As it is, I find it's best to use spare parts for unavoidable access interactions, some especially inconvenient electrical junctions, and then recycle the rest for more materials.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

The Nightmare is hilariously easy. Fighting, say, a technopath and weaver at the same time is substantially harder.

 

[Blaine]

The Nightmare is hilariously easy. Fighting, say, a technopath and weaver at the same time is substantially harder.

You mean like the ones in fucking zero G? Yeah I ran away from that, fuck that. I think I have all the tools I'm ever going to get, though, so I'll go try again when I have the Q-Beam fully upgraded.

 

[Blaine]

Speaking of which, I believe I've discovered that station exteriors seen from the interior are in fact completely different areas than the real exterior. I can see a block of synthetic floating by that corpse in Hardware Labs (having previously looted everything else), but when I went back out to find it and re-check the area, the block was nowhere to be seen, even though it was right next to the body and I checked quite thoroughly.

I guess it could just be a glitch. I suppose I should throw the body out into space and see if anything changes inside.

 

[udm]

Speaking of which, I believe I've discovered that station exteriors seen from the interior are in fact completely different areas than the real exterior. I can see a block of synthetic floating by that corpse in Hardware Labs (having previously looted everything else), but when I went back out to find it and re-check the area, the block was nowhere to be seen, even though it was right next to the body and I checked quite thoroughly.

I guess it could just be a glitch. I suppose I should throw the body out into space and see if anything changes inside.

Yep. I know which area you're talking about, and can attest that interior designs are definitely separate maps from the exteriors.

 

[Blaine]

Icewater I imagine it's a performance consideration, and not such a terrible one, all things considered. Collectable items and such seem to be scripted to disappear in the not-exterior when you collect them in the real-exterior.

Anyway, I could play games like System Shock/2, BioShock/2, Alien:Isolation, and Prey all day long if they'd keep on making good ones, even if they're a little too easy these days. There's just something about a remote station in a hostile environment.

 

[Tom Selleck]

You should play Tacoma, then!

 

[Blaine]

You should play Tacoma, then!

I have that on a list of potentially interesting games, but it's purported to be about three hours long and is described as a "narrative adventure." More than a little suspect, in my opinion.

I remember there was some sci-fi adventure game I played in the late 1990s, probably 1996-1998 judging by what I remember of the graphics, might have been screen-by-screen "first person," about exploring a space station or similar facility in which horrible things had occurred... I know there are a few like it, but I can't find it on any list. Pretty sure it had the word "Alien" somewhere in the title, but that might be wrong.

 

[Zakhad]

Turrets provide the most and they provide synthetics in addition to minerals, but operators yield a lot of minerals. I've only made big piles twice: once to try it out and to punish turrets for being useless, and again there in Hardware Labs because I realized there were a dozen destroyed operators strewn around. I doubt I'll be bothered a third time.

"Need" is a funny thing. I'm sitting on 90+ minerals, 80+ organics, 45+ synthetics, and zilch exotics. I have around 40 medkits and 25 suit repair kits saved up. I fabricate as many neuromods as I can (I never took Necropsy, but have decided to go full human, so I threw 20 psi hypos in the recycler once), and I could fabricate a bunch of upgrade kits if desired to finish off some of the upgrades, but I prefer to have a nice stockpile in case I suddenly need a bunch of ammo or whatever.

Other than neuromods, upgrade kits, and the jetpack, over the course of the entire game I've only fabricated a few boxes of shotgun shells.

This is my experience too: a minimum of hoarding/recycling gets you all the resources you'll ever need, except exotic, which gets chewed up for mods. Nothing really needs to crafted otherwise except jetpack, maybe a little ammo. Even upgrade kits are just a luxury: you find enough to upgrade everything without crafting any, by the later game, and the shotgun/q-beam and maybe stun gun are the most important anyway...

 

[RoSoDude]

The lack of a need to actually craft anything for survival was really disappointing to me. Made all of the compulsive trash collection I was doing feel nearly pointless. And you could say "okay, so just don't do it", but I'd rather that the game had given me a compelling reason to engage with this system, because it's cool in concept and when you're first playing you don't necessarily know that the resource economy doesn't matter.

This feels like another thing that they kinda gimped themselves on by not having more impactful difficulty settings. I assume they didn't want to make resource management too stringent for the people playing on Easy, but this means it became an afterthought on Nightmare because there aren't any changes outside of the damage multipliers. All I can think to fix this is more hardcore systems like I've mentioned previously, but I feel Arkane painted themselves into a corner with the combat design. There's not much that could be done without a larger overhaul, I think.

 

[agentorange]

I remember there was some sci-fi adventure game I played in the late 1990s, probably 1996-1998 judging by what I remember of the graphics, might have been screen-by-screen "first person," about exploring a space station or similar facility in which horrible things had occurred... I know there are a few like it, but I can't find it on any list. Pretty sure it had the word "Alien" somewhere in the title, but that might be wrong.

Sounded like something I'd be interested in so I searched for it: is this the game you are talking about? http://www.mobygames.com/game/alien-virus

 

[Blaine]

Sounded like something I'd be interested in so I searched for it: is this the game you are talking about? http://www.mobygames.com/game/alien-virus

Ah! Yeah, that's it. Don't know why I couldn't find it. Maybe because Duck Duck Go isn't as powerful as Google.

The use of some rendered graphics fooled my memory into thinking it was probably released later than it really was. Mind you, I can't attest to the game's actual quality.

 

[Tom Selleck]

(don't play tacoma)

 

[Blaine]

Yeah so the game is utterly trivial now with Combat Focus III, Firearms II, Sneak Attack III, and upgraded weapons. The Nightmare is basically just a free kill for exotic mats, although I should endeavor to use the wrench a bit too and save a few shotgun shells.

It's all a mop-up at this point, folks. Still it's quite enjoyable poking into every nook and cranny, and there are a lot of them.

 

[Ash]

And you could say "okay, so just don't do it", but I'd rather that the game had given me a compelling reason to engage with this system, because it's cool in concept and when you're first playing you don't necessarily know that the resource economy doesn't matter.

Yup. I actually did stop looting, crafting, being observant, being invested and immersed...I stopped actually playing the goddamn game as it should have been in the final quarter and just ran to the objective markers to get it over with, as my enjoyment of the game and immersion in its world had almost entirely gone.

As has been said, just uninstall at derp storage. It's at least worth experiencing up to that point though, but thereafter such a disappointment. Such a product of its time: the modern era of dumbed down decline.

Anyway, I could play games like....BioShock/2...all day long

 

[Blaine]

MUH SYSTEM SHOCK LOYALTY ITS THE BEST THE REST ARE SHIT GIVE ME KOOL KREDITS AND BROFISTS

Bioshock was breddy gud for what it was, although actually I don't think I've played 2.