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

[kites]

you're playing with my heart, anon. but current arkane, especially w/o colantonio, makes it hard to care even if far-fetched and true..

 

[MajorMace]

Studio's a husk. No more Dark Messiah, DIshonored or Prey from now on. Scuffed games like DeathLoop are to be expected.

 

[ADL]

Free for the next 22 hours including Mooncrash. Might be DRM-free too.
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/prey

 

[forumvisitor#451]

Free for the next 22 hours including Mooncrash. Might be DRM-free too.
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/prey

¨

no, I'd rather pay for it on real platform

 

[Sunsetspawn]

I've recently been replaying Bioshock and now want to reassess. Prey is not a successor to System Shock; it is VERY clearly Bioshock 4: Lighthouse, Art Deco, Sea Slugs, Camera (research), Biological (not cybernetic) Modification. It's also better than the Bioshocks by far, and I still consider the Bioshocks worth playing, to greater or lesser degrees.

 

[gurugeorge]

I've recently been replaying Bioshock and now want to reassess. Prey is not a successor to System Shock; it is VERY clearly Bioshock 4: Lighthouse, Art Deco, Sea Slugs, Camera (research), Biological (not cybernetic) Modification. It's also better than the Bioshocks by far, and I still consider the Bioshocks worth playing, to greater or lesser degrees.

I'd agree with that, except it clearly is in part a homage to the first System Shock. It feels more like the first System Shock in terms of ambience than either SSII or any of the subsequent Shocks.

 

[ciox]

It's an homage to both series.

Neuromods.

Cyber OS Upgrades

 

[Roguey]

I've recently been replaying Bioshock and now want to reassess. Prey is not a successor to System Shock; it is VERY clearly Bioshock 4: Lighthouse, Art Deco, Sea Slugs, Camera (research), Biological (not cybernetic) Modification. It's also better than the Bioshocks by far, and I still consider the Bioshocks worth playing, to greater or lesser degrees.

There's some influence (of course) but I don't see it. Bioshock is trying to be a shooter, Prey isn't (though it is a game with shooting), different design focuses.

 

[Bad Sector]

Bioshock is trying to be a shooter, Prey isn't (though it is a game with shooting), different design focuses.

Bioshock wasn't trying to be a shooter, at least based on what Ken Levine said in those minivideos that were part of the Director's Cut. Its issues seem to come from that they were PC developers trying to come up with a scheme for their System Shock 2 spiritual successor (he's mentioning that many times during the interview) to work with controllers but as they didn't really had any real experience with that they made a system that manages to be both simplistic and convoluted at the same time.

Arkane both did it right and improved on the games they were inspired from.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I always considered the Bioshocks as linear corridor shooters.

 

[Roguey]

Bioshock wasn't trying to be a shooter, at least based on what Ken Levine said in those minivideos that were part of the Director's Cut.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/bioshock/cover-art/gameCoverId,100874/

"the genetically enhanced shooter" "Bioshock is a shooter unlike any you've ever played"

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-2k-boston-2k-australia-s-bioshock

The product focus changed from RPG hybrid to shooter.

It's easy to talk about the processes we used to develop the game, but it's harder to describe the creative spark that somehow managed to turn the most unlikely of premises (a failed underwater art deco utopia set in the 1960s) into a marketable shooter.

This was because we hadn't been thinking as much about making a shooter as we should have, and many of our key interactions (weapons tuning, plasmids, length of AI engagement) were designed and tuned for a slower and more cerebral experience. To put it another way, nerdy RPG-like stat changes just didn't seem meaningful in the vibrant and dangerous world of Rapture.

Once we recalibrated the game to be more like a shooter, we simplified many of the deeper systems tremendously so that the user would be able to understand them.

Part of the reason for the late course change came from not having our internal product message clear from the beginning. BioShock had initially been positioned as a hybrid RPG FPS. The decision to reposition the game as a focused FPS came later, after our initial production phase in summer of 2006. Had we been working with an FPS mentality earlier, we could have made better use of our time.

 

[Bad Sector]

Interesting, i didn't remember this (...and i do have a physical copy Bioshock... shows how much attention i pay to the words at the back :-P). They do seem to lean more towards the slower/RPG-ish side on the more recent interview though, I do wonder if this is how they always saw it (i mean, if nothing else, the game is certainly far from fast paced and you do spend a lot of time exploring the maps for stuff) and they used "shooter" for marketing reasons. I can see people who think that they have to remove stat selection screens because of consoles to also think that consolebros will be more likely to be attracted by something called a "shooter" than a "FPS/RPG hybrid". Their generic Bioshock Infinite cover did show they seem to care about that stuff.

 

[Jacob]

I've recently been replaying Bioshock and now want to reassess. Prey is not a successor to System Shock; it is VERY clearly Bioshock 4: Lighthouse, Art Deco, Sea Slugs, Camera (research), Biological (not cybernetic) Modification. It's also better than the Bioshocks by far, and I still consider the Bioshocks worth playing, to greater or lesser degrees.

There's some influence (of course) but I don't see it. Bioshock is trying to be a shooter, Prey isn't (though it is a game with shooting), different design focuses.

I think we need to first define what a shooter is.

 

[Curratum]

I've recently been replaying Bioshock and now want to reassess. Prey is not a successor to System Shock; it is VERY clearly Bioshock 4: Lighthouse, Art Deco, Sea Slugs, Camera (research), Biological (not cybernetic) Modification. It's also better than the Bioshocks by far, and I still consider the Bioshocks worth playing, to greater or lesser degrees.

There's some influence (of course) but I don't see it. Bioshock is trying to be a shooter, Prey isn't (though it is a game with shooting), different design focuses.

I think we need to first define what a shooter is.

FIY, in my library, the Thief games are in the "FPS" collection.

 

[Tyranicon]

I've recently been replaying Bioshock and now want to reassess. Prey is not a successor to System Shock; it is VERY clearly Bioshock 4: Lighthouse, Art Deco, Sea Slugs, Camera (research), Biological (not cybernetic) Modification. It's also better than the Bioshocks by far, and I still consider the Bioshocks worth playing, to greater or lesser degrees.

There's some influence (of course) but I don't see it. Bioshock is trying to be a shooter, Prey isn't (though it is a game with shooting), different design focuses.

I think we need to first define what a shooter is.

FIY, in my library, the Thief games are in the "FPS" collection.

First person sneakers.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

In my library Thief is in the Thief section.

 

[Curratum]

 

[kangaxx]

I always considered the Bioshocks as linear corridor shooters.

That's exactly what they are.

 

[Tom Selleck]

FPS Shooters

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Bioshock is trying to be a shooter, Prey isn't (though it is a game with shooting), different design focuses.

Bioshock wasn't trying to be a shooter, at least based on what Ken Levine said in those minivideos that were part of the Director's Cut. Its issues seem to come from that they were PC developers trying to come up with a scheme for their System Shock 2 spiritual successor (he's mentioning that many times during the interview) to work with controllers but as they didn't really had any real experience with that they made a system that manages to be both simplistic and convoluted at the same time.

Arkane both did it right and improved on the games they were inspired from.

Prey is fucking satin and silk with a controller.

I always considered the Bioshocks as linear corridor shooters.

With telekinesis, enrage, big daddy charm, invisibility (this one's a hoot), melee buffs, sneak melee buffs, turret, bot, and camera hacking, etc. the only shooting you'd have to do is when you're dealing with big daddies, and even then you can take out Rosies like a Jedi if you're obstinate. If that alone makes it a shooter then Human Revolution is also a shooter.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

The fact that Bioshock has shit balance and shit shooting mechanics does not, in fact, make it not a shooter. It is a (bad) shooter, although Infinite is far, far worse.

 

[Wunderbar]

I thought Infinite was a bit better as a shooter, but way worse at everything else.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

wait what
How is bioshock like system shock at all?

 

[Bad Sector]

Prey is fucking satin and silk with a controller.

I guess that is a positive, meaning "smooth as fuck" :-P ? I haven't heard that phrase before.

With telekinesis, enrage, big daddy charm, invisibility (this one's a hoot), melee buffs, sneak melee buffs, turret, bot, and camera hacking, etc. the only shooting you'd have to do is when you're dealing with big daddies, and even then you can take out Rosies like a Jedi if you're obstinate.

You can do all that stuff indeed but TBH there is so much ammo in the game that it feels "wasteful" to not use the immediate approach with the abundant resources. The gameplay incentives are all over the place IMO.

It does start to make sense though if you think of it as the developers being unable to play their own game with a controller :-P.

 

[thesoup]

wait what
How is bioshock like system shock at all?

In a lot of ways. Just worse in every way.