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

[Modron]

Bought this game but guess I will have to pirate it to actually play the game.

 

[Morgoth]

Big data is the new Focus group testing, boyz.

It's nothing to worry about, just capitalism doing it's work.

 

[ciox]

Didn't Valve do this with HL2+Steam and everyone loved it?

 

[ciox]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2007/11/half-life-2-game-statistics-live/

 

[Nano]

Turns out the patch added some spyware.

Sneaky. The community manager edited in the telemetry detail to his post a day later, after the thread got buried.

 

[DeepOcean]

The premise of the commentary is that players tend to lack empathy for fictional entities in games just like the Typhon lack mirror neurons, and so the purpose of the Talos 1 simulation is to engineer situations that prompt and test the player's empathy for doomed characters who may even deserve their condemned fate. This video makes the argument better than I can:

The problem of the game is that a joke needs first a preparation part that culminates into a punch line, the same as a joke, the ending of Prey is the punch line where there never was a preparation phase in the first place so it feels random and makes no sense. If the game was a simulation intended to provoke emphaty, it failed hard at provoking anything then the game judge the results of the simulation as if the player failed the emphaty test when it was the game that failed the emphaty test, not the player. Emphaty isn't an automatic thing among humans even on real life and not only on a virtual context about virtual entities, we first need to recognize the humanity on the other person first before we can feel emphaty about that person. (there are many ways we can fail to recognize the humanity on the other person that allow us to do terrible things). I don't think the game designers understand how emphaty works.

The game characters are very removed from the player, distance, especially removing physical presence is a sure way to guarantee lack of emphaty, just look to the Milgram study, you can hide an unknown person behind a wall and have someone in authority telling to this person to apply lethal shocks to the other person and 65% of people would do it. So, when I didn't help doctor Igwe, I didn't care because: "Who is this guy anyway?" then the game judges me and said I failed an emphaty test and humanity is doomed, the Thypoon will ever learn emphaty. You know, I was furious at the end and was thinking "Dude, how about you actually test me first before claiming I failed a test you didn't bother to make?

If they wanted the end to work, they should have redesigned the whole game. The end isn't fitting the game they made.

I can agree that it can feel a bit deflating for a game focused on immersing the player in a fictional environment to call attention to the fact that you're just engaging with simulacrum, but I think Prey deserves some credit for what it tries to make of the idea. I'd much sooner criticize the the dull audio logs and lackluster story beats prior to the ending, because I struggled to engage with Prey's fiction over any of my three playthroughs, while games like Deus Ex still capture my attention with details that I overlooked even after I've thoroughly dissected that game.

Deflating is an understatement, they said all you did was a simulacrum AND you are no different than one of those mimics that was just fooled into thinking was human, pretty much burning to the ground all relevancy of the plot, they not only did a 360º turn and return the story to square 1 but they actually gone negative when they claimed you didn't even exist and were a random Typhon experiment subject without even a name. The protagonist of the story didn't even exist. All that, for their meta commentary about emphaty that couldn't work anyway because the storytelling of the rest of the game failed hard into supporting that.

If you failed the emphaty test ( that they failed to apply in the first place), the plot is even more irrelevant.

Prey keeps track of nearly every relevant permutation of interactions with NPCs in the story. If you pre-emptively kill January, December will be your guide through the game instead (though not as fully implemented as I'd have liked). You can fail to rescue Mikhaila and/or Igwe and dialogue will change. Go to the Cargo Bay early through the G.U.T.S. and Elazar will contact you to say the area is on lockdown. Most of it builds up to the presence or absence of some dialogue or event (e.g. you have to have rescue Igwe and incapacitate Dahl in order to escape on the shuttle, rescued characters will be on the shuttle, etc.), but the game still manages to make every accessible NPC mortal without breaking the story. Admittedly, they cheat by locking Alex in a panic room, but it's a nice effort towards handing the player the reigns.

I agree that for the standards of a AAA game, this sounds great but I already seen this kind of dialog reactivity since Deus Ex so I'm not exactly in shock about how they implemented reactivity on this game.

 

[AW8]

After Prey, I played through both Dishonored games and "lifeless, zombie-like characters" seems to be an Arkane pillar. It's not really that they're written badly, but more that they're used in a weird way.

Their games tend to throw in new characters without build-up as the story progresses, and then quickly throw them out again. And the characters are usually creepy, immobile and emotionless. Seeing a citizen on a bridge in Half-Life 2 who throws me down supplies before running from scanners makes me connect more than with the guys rigidly guarding the cargo bay room in Prey. Even though the latter should be much more emotional since we're basically the last survivors of a horror movie.

It's nice that you can kill any one of the Prey NPC's if you'd like, but since they're all so inoffensive there's no real reason to do so.

 

[Nano]

It's not really that they're written badly, but more that they're used in a weird way.

Nah. I agree with the rest of your post, but they're also written badly. Arkane's writers are incompetents that can't write anything that isn't bland.

 

[Morgoth]

I actually found Harvey Smith's writing in both Dishonored games quite compelling. Perhaps not deeply interesting, but compelling enough to pull me into the game world.

 

[Maggot]

After Prey, I played through both Dishonored games and "lifeless, zombie-like characters" seems to be an Arkane pillar. It's not really that they're written badly, but more that they're used in a weird way.

Their games tend to throw in new characters without build-up as the story progresses, and then quickly throw them out again. And the characters are usually creepy, immobile and emotionless. Seeing a citizen on a bridge in Half-Life 2 who throws me down supplies before running from scanners makes me connect more than with the guys rigidly guarding the cargo bay room in Prey. Even though the latter should be much more emotional since we're basically the last survivors of a horror movie.

It's nice that you can kill any one of the Prey NPC's if you'd like, but since they're all so inoffensive there's no real reason to do so.

Half-Life 2's NPCs that constantly fellate you are awful.

 

[AW8]

Half-Life 2's NPCs that constantly fellate you are awful.

I'm not saying they're perfect, and I dislike the unskippable cutscenes (that's why I chose a non-cutscene example that the player can simply drive past if they like) but they're very human. With the exception of Alex (Morgan's brother, not Gordon's girlfriend), I probably cared more for that random citizen you help fight manhacks in the sewers than any NPC in Prey or the Dishonored games.

 

[Modron]

Didn't Valve do this with HL2+Steam and everyone loved it?

There is a difference between gathering basic telemetry like completion rates on HL2 and this addition to Civilization 6's EULA:

The information we collect may include personal information such as your first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, photo, mailing address, geolocation, or payment information. In addition, we may collect your age, gender, date of birth, zip code, hardware configuration, console ID, software products played, survey data, purchases, IP address and the systems you have played on. We may combine the information with your personal information and across other computers or devices that you may use. You also agree that all this information about you can be sent to countries with "lower standards of privacy protection.

 

[agentorange]

Didn't Valve do this with HL2+Steam and everyone loved it?

There is a difference between gathering basic telemetry like completion rates on HL2 and this addition to Civilization 6's EULA:

The information we collect may include personal information such as your first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, photo, mailing address, geolocation, or payment information. In addition, we may collect your age, gender, date of birth, zip code, hardware configuration, console ID, software products played, survey data, purchases, IP address and the systems you have played on. We may combine the information with your personal information and across other computers or devices that you may use. You also agree that all this information about you can be sent to countries with "lower standards of privacy protection.

Bewildering to look at the steam forums and see most people defending the implementation of spyware like that.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/220200/discussions/0/1696045708642569834/

`Also why would you be worried over this game being spyware (It's most likely not lul) if you don't have anything to hide?`

 

[RNGsus]

`Also why would you be worried over this game being spyware (It's most likely not lul) if you don't have anything to hide?`

The wrong people are in prison.

 

[Falksi]

Cannot get into this at all. The combat mechanics are just too shit. Thought the story started good, but as a game to play it's a fucking bind.

 

[Falksi]

Ragged in with that fucker. Jesus Christ what a decline since SS2. Right bag of wank.

Between the shit gameplay & amount of story told through e-mails, you had seriously may as well read a book. It's arse over tit, and the equivalent of reading a book which tries to engage it's readers by concentrating on how you physically turn the pages ahead of the story.

 

[agentorange]

Ragged in with that fucker. Jesus Christ what a decline since SS2. Right bag of wank.

Between the shit gameplay & amount of story told through e-mails, you had seriously may as well read a book. It's arse over tit, and the equivalent of reading a book which tries to engage it's readers by concentrating on how you physically turn the pages ahead of the story.

fuck off retard

 

[Daedalos]

Ragged in with that fucker. Jesus Christ what a decline since SS2. Right bag of wank.

Between the shit gameplay & amount of story told through e-mails, you had seriously may as well read a book. It's arse over tit, and the equivalent of reading a book which tries to engage it's readers by concentrating on how you physically turn the pages ahead of the story.

Falksi, I dunno.. I tried, I mean I really tried to like you.

You are just a moron, however.

 

[Falksi]

Ragged in with that fucker. Jesus Christ what a decline since SS2. Right bag of wank.

Between the shit gameplay & amount of story told through e-mails, you had seriously may as well read a book. It's arse over tit, and the equivalent of reading a book which tries to engage it's readers by concentrating on how you physically turn the pages ahead of the story.

Falksi, I dunno.. I tried, I mean I really tried to like you.

You are just a moron, however.

You like The Force Awakens mate. Stick to that.

 

[Nano]

Ignore the fanboys Falksi. You're right, this game doesn't even begin to come close to SS2.

 

[ciox]

I have a lot of respect for them since they absolutely did try, in a time where no else was trying, but that is fading away now that they've resolved to explicitly not add anything to the base game as post-launch support strategy, and even after 3 years the base game is exactly the same given the lack of support or mod tools.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I thought it was ok, but the ending was kind of dumb and obvious sequel bait.

 

[Morgoth]

This was found in Doom Eternal:

“2 Prey or Not 2 Prey”

Get on with it you cunts.

 

[fantadomat]

This was found in Doom Eternal:

“2 Prey or Not 2 Prey”

Get on with it you cunts.

I don't need no book to tell me how to take care of my staches!

 

[toro]

“2 Prey or Not 2 Prey”

Get on with it you cunts.

I'm not sure Prey 2 will be good without Colantonio but who knows.