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

[Zakhad]

• Repair II and III increase efficiency with suit patch kits. Reduced suit damage from enemies on easy and normal difficulty.
  
• Increased wrench range and strength of melee aim assist. Wrench now always staggers mimics (interrupts attacks). Mimics stand further back to prevent players having to look down too much.

Survival DLC might have to wait a little while they make the game easier for streamers.

How does anyone find this game too hard?

Saw Jim Sterling's review and he complained that it was frustratingly difficult and he couldn't find any ammo, what the fuck is wrong with people, Jesus Christ.

 

[Ash]

In the future devs should lock even moderately challenging game modes behind the Konami code. Back in the day it was used to make games easier. Now it'll be used to make games even slightly challenging, despite challenge being what a game on a basic level is half about at its fucking core.

 

[Cyberarmy]

How does anyone find this game too hard?

Saw Jim Sterling's review and he complained that it was frustratingly difficult and he couldn't find any ammo, what the fuck is wrong with people, Jesus Christ.

New age game reviewers suck at gaming, news at eleven.

 

[Parabalus]

• Repair II and III increase efficiency with suit patch kits. Reduced suit damage from enemies on easy and normal difficulty.
  
• Increased wrench range and strength of melee aim assist. Wrench now always staggers mimics (interrupts attacks). Mimics stand further back to prevent players having to look down too much.

Survival DLC might have to wait a little while they make the game easier for streamers.

How does anyone find this game too hard?

Saw Jim Sterling's review and he complained that it was frustratingly difficult and he couldn't find any ammo, what the fuck is wrong with people, Jesus Christ.

If you don't spend NeuroMods on combat skills and try to bulldoze through, ie. if don't put any points into weapon skills and insist upon killing enemies with guns you will run out of ammo easily.

This premise might seem retarded to you but popamole streamers/reviewers aren't renowned for their brainpower.

 

[toro]

"Mimics stand further back to prevent players having to look down too much."

"Mimics stand further back to prevent players having to look down too much."

"Mimics stand further back to prevent players having to look down too much."

 

[Cyberarmy]

 

[sexbad?]

• Repair II and III increase efficiency with suit patch kits. Reduced suit damage from enemies on easy and normal difficulty.
  
• Increased wrench range and strength of melee aim assist. Wrench now always staggers mimics (interrupts attacks). Mimics stand further back to prevent players having to look down too much.

Survival DLC might have to wait a little while they make the game easier for streamers.

How does anyone find this game too hard?

Saw Jim Sterling's review and he complained that it was frustratingly difficult and he couldn't find any ammo, what the fuck is wrong with people, Jesus Christ.

When I tried this, I played on 3/4 difficulty, I think, and I ran out of ammo fairly quickly. I think hits from mimics halved my health too. The game had problems, but abundance wasn't one of them.

 

[Zakhad]

If you don't spend NeuroMods on combat skills and try to bulldoze through, ie. if don't put any points into weapon skills and insist upon killing enemies with guns you will run out of ammo easily.

This premise might seem retarded to you but popamole streamers/reviewers aren't renowned for their brainpower.

He said he DID spend them on combat skills

And yeah, it does seem utterly idiotic, but I guess that's just what it is.

 

[Zakhad]

When I tried this, I played on 3/4 difficulty, I think, and I ran out of ammo fairly quickly. I think hits from mimics halved my health too. The game had problems, but abundance wasn't one of them.

..crafting? There's stuff to recycle literally everywhere. My second playthrough was on top difficulty, or second top, can't remember, but I ended the game with more ammo than I could hold and 100+ of both mineral/synthetic, despite not really using psychic powers. And I wasn't being that autistic, although I guess I did play it like a 451 game and not a shooter, and used stealth/throwing objects/explosive objects etc. to inflate my damage...

It just seems like someone saying to me, "Baldur's gate 2 was hard because the shops were too expensive to buy good equipment". Seems to deliberately making it harder for oneself/missing the point.

 

[Durandal]

the reason you kicked people into fires and traps in Dark Messiah was because it was easier to kill enemies that way than hacking at them with your sword until they die unless you specced into strength
Arkane must've forgotten that difficulty is what gets people to change their tactics and think outside of the box, compromising difficulty for the sake of player freedom (e.g. allowing the player to mindlessly bulldoze through everything) can't be interpreted as anything but trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator

 

[sexbad?]

When I tried this, I played on 3/4 difficulty, I think, and I ran out of ammo fairly quickly. I think hits from mimics halved my health too. The game had problems, but abundance wasn't one of them.

..crafting? There's stuff to recycle literally everywhere. My second playthrough was on top difficulty, or second top, can't remember, but I ended the game with more ammo than I could hold and 100+ of both mineral/synthetic, despite not really using psychic powers. And I wasn't being that autistic, although I guess I did play it like a 451 game and not a shooter, and used stealth/throwing objects/explosive objects etc. to inflate my damage...

It just seems like someone saying to me, "Baldur's gate 2 was hard because the shops were too expensive to buy good equipment". Seems to deliberately making it harder for oneself/missing the point.

Huh, I guess I missed the crafting. I think I may have only done it once for an objective before refunding. I try to ignore crafting because I fucking hate it.

 

[Zakhad]

Huh, I guess I missed the crafting. I think I may have only done it once for an objective before refunding. I try to ignore crafting because I fucking hate it.

I guess if you hate crafting then this game won't appeal tbh.

But this game came closest, to me, to making crafting fun. Partly cos the recyclers were satisfying to use (watching all the junk and spare weapons turn into little cubes salved some OCD part of my soul), but also cos it wasn't too obnoxious, didn't require a whole bunch of micro-management, and, best of all, you can recycle objects or enemies (or enemy bodies) using grenades. Nuclear canister in the way? Mineral resources. Room full of mimics? Exotic resources. Bunch of chairs etc that might be mimics? bunch of resources.

Was broken as hell tho. If you don't use psychic powers (or even if you do, but rush to activate the psychic water early on), you'll have a mountain of spare psi hypos. And psi hypos recycle for alarming amounts of exotic materials, and you can craft those into neuromods... you see where this is going.

It's weird that effectively they gave xp for killing enemies (the organs recycled into exotic material, then made into neuromods) but don't really spell this out, so some people don't realise that taking the necropsy and recycling perks early are not just more resources but more xp. It suggests it in the description, but could really benefit from someone saying early on "you can craft neuromods". A nightmare basically gives you two neuromods, a telepath or technopath one, and so on. I feel like this was a kind of clever decision that didn't quite work, making the recycler and environment destruction so central. It's totally exploitable once you realise, e.g.

Spoiler

go to fabrication the moment you get the keycard from January, turn off neuromod crafting limit on the computer there, pick up neuromod fab plan, open exotic materials locker, go to fabricator, go up a bunch of levels right away)

...but it potentially makes the game quite difficult if you don't notice this.

Spoiler

SAWYER WOULD NOT APPROVE

 

[Parabalus]

Huh, I guess I missed the crafting. I think I may have only done it once for an objective before refunding. I try to ignore crafting because I fucking hate it.

I guess if you hate crafting then this game won't appeal tbh.

But this game came closest, to me, to making crafting fun. Partly cos the recyclers were satisfying to use (watching all the junk and spare weapons turn into little cubes salved some OCD part of my soul), but also cos it wasn't too obnoxious, didn't require a whole bunch of micro-management, and, best of all, you can recycle objects or enemies (or enemy bodies) using grenades. Nuclear canister in the way? Mineral resources. Room full of mimics? Exotic resources. Bunch of chairs etc that might be mimics? bunch of resources.

Was broken as hell tho. If you don't use psychic powers (or even if you do, but rush to activate the psychic water early on), you'll have a mountain of spare psi hypos. And psi hypos recycle for alarming amounts of exotic materials, and you can craft those into neuromods... you see where this is going.

It's weird that effectively they gave xp for killing enemies (the organs recycled into exotic material, then made into neuromods) but don't really spell this out, so some people don't realise that taking the necropsy and recycling perks early are not just more resources but more xp. It suggests it in the description, but could really benefit from someone saying early on "you can craft neuromods". A nightmare basically gives you two neuromods, a telepath or technopath one, and so on. I feel like this was a kind of clever decision that didn't quite work, making the recycler and environment destruction so central. It's totally exploitable once you realise, e.g.

Spoiler

go to fabrication the moment you get the keycard from January, turn off neuromod crafting limit on the computer there, pick up neuromod fab plan, open exotic materials locker, go to fabricator, go up a bunch of levels right away)

...but it potentially makes the game quite difficult if you don't notice this.

Spoiler

SAWYER WOULD NOT APPROVE

On my playthrough I was actually limited by mineral (grey) materials, took all the 'economy' skills first. The fact that I was effectively shooting neuromods at enemies made for a fun mental image and some added tension.

Crafting is the part they really nailed, it's the most fun I had building and disassembling stuff in quite the while.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I bought with this game just in the last two weeks and it's probably the surprise of the year for me so far.

I expected another dull piece of crap like Bioshock, but I decided to give it a chance because I heard few good comments about it and because it's Arkane.
Turns out it's probably my favorite immersive sim since Looking Glass closed down.

It's not flawless (but neither was System Shock 2) and maybe it could have enjoyed a bit more enemy variety, but it's for the most part mechanically sound, the level design is absolutely stellar and I love beyond rationality the effort the game makes in respecting player agency at any given moment:

- minimal, almost absent use of scripted set pieces.
- Any NPC, even the major ones, can be killed at any given moment and the game takes it into account and reacts accordingly.
- your actions (not just your "big choices") bear consequences.
- your "spec" and the abilities/tools available to you can massively influence the way you approach any situation.

It's a fucking "incline" as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Zakhad]

I love beyond rationality the effort the game makes in respecting player agency at any given moment:

- minimal, almost absent use of scripted set pieces.
- Any NPC, even the major ones, can be killed at any given moment and the game takes it into account and reacts accordingly.
- your actions (not just your "big choices") bear consequences.
- your "spec" and the abilities/tools available to you can massively influence the way you approach any situation.

It's a fucking "incline" as far as I'm concerned.

Agree. Game really surprised me. Which is dumb cos I should be used to Arkane doing good stuff by now, despite ads often making their games look meh, or despite big flaws in some games.

Also re: freedom. You can solve a bunch of stuff really differently, and not just the "kill everyone and be evil" way (you can do that, though), but in different orders and so on. A spoilerific example:

Spoiler

First time through I rushed to air processing to save the crew from Dahl's air supply hack, met Dahl there and incapacitated him, all good. Either I had already taken out his tech control operator or did that after, but either way--Dahl dealt with, air back on, Igwe grabbed him and we extracted his neuromod and so on.

Second time I had the same tasks, clock ticking down, but this time the tech operator was in a different place (I think it's randomised), and I went there first. This resulted in skipping the whole air purifier bit, with Dahl stealing the elevator to go flush Alex out of his saferoom and I had to go deal with that instead, then drag Dahl to the med bay in zero g after knocking him out so Igwe could get an operator to retrieve him while space cthulhu whipped at me from the windows

Oh and they nearly never lock stuff until you've found the note pointing to it (I hate when games do that), so you can retrieve the smuggler's caches, hidden package December points you to, etc. right away if you know they're there.

And you totally don't have to fall for the Cook's bullshit, you can just... shoot him. (Although you benefit slightly from letting him trap you). Nothing I hate more in games than when they force you to fall for obvious tricks.

 

[Junmarko]

The Art of PREY

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Spoiler

And you totally don't have to fall for the Cook's bullshit, you can just... shoot him. (Although you benefit slightly from letting him trap you). Nothing I hate more in games than when they force you to fall for obvious tricks.

Here's a small detail I appreciated a lot replaying that part:

Spoiler

If you let the cook open the refrigerator and only THEN you kill/put him to sleep, you will be able to explore that area without being gassed and trapped.
It makes sense, I suppose, since there would be no one triggering the trap on the outside, but still a neat coherent detail we don't see often in games relying so much on pre-determined scripted scenes.

 

[Ash]

Crafting is the part they really nailed, it's the most fun I had building and disassembling stuff in quite the while.

License limits and a wider selection of stuff to replicate would have made it more enjoyable. As well as the neuromod system not being a bit weak. You should never get half way through a game and have everything of value/that is needed to be an OP god. And AI should scale appropriately.
If all this is not met, then in the second half of the game exploring/scavenging/recycling/replicating becomes pointless and tedious. Which is exactly what happened to many a codexer here.
So I disagree. The concept of Prey's crafting, and the novelty of it, really cool. The execution however falls apart half way through because they made it weaksauce intentionally.

Turns out it's probably my favorite immersive sim since Looking Glass closed down.

Yes. Unless you count New Vegas and Arx Fatalis. It gets a bronze medal.

It's a fucking "incline" as far as I'm concerned.

No. It didn't come close to achieving true greatness. It's just a minor disappointment, as opposed to being a massive one like every other Immersive Sim in the past decade. Still worth a playthrough though.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I find the system more self-balancing that some people give it credit for.

For a start, even some of the earlier complaints in this thread (about being able to produce too much ammo) turned out a bit premature, if not even naive. Especially at higher difficulty settings, as soon as you realize that resources can be used to craft "skill points" (nanomods), you'll be constantly trying to maximize your production of them while also being forced to craft the occasional stock of ammo to not run out of them.

The game also showers you with potential skills to pick, so even a completionist like me trying to get as many points and skills as possible will end getting half of them top. ( I ended my "human only" playthrough with what I think were more of less 75-80% of the Human abilities available... Which is a lot and makes you definitely feel versatile and powerful by the end, but still nowhere near close to "getting simply everything".

Also, one thing I noticed playing the game a second time with a better knowledge of your arsenal is that the versatility of your weapons is also underrated. You may have one or two favorite ones, but experimenting a bit it becomes quite clear that they compensate each other rather well and some are definitely a better option against some enemies. Take the Qbeam (or whatever it's called): I though it was garbage at first when you had the shotgun, but it has very long range and it's probably the best tool to deal with weavers in the distance. Also, alternating different weapons according to your needs had the double benefit to make less likely to run out of ammo with a specific one.

One major flaw I noticed, on the other hand, is that attempting a "No needles"/typhoon only playthrough is an experience bordering masochism because of inventory management.
You'll lack both the improvements to your inventory (which at this point I think should have been "physical upgrades" to your suit outside of the skill tree) AND skills to dismantle items in your inventory. As a result you'll constantly run out of space literally five minutes after visiting a recycle station, and that's if you already renounced to keep some of the weapon types with out (which is bad for variety, given the arsenal is already pretty limited).

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Yes. Unless you count New Vegas and Arx Fatalis. It gets a bronze medal.

Liked Arx Fatalis, but I don't think it was flawless either. I may need to refresh it, but on the spot I'm not sure I could point anything that it did objectively far better than this Prey (except evoking nostalgic feelings, maybe?).

About New Vegas, I realize I should probably keep it to myself because it's going to be an incredibly unpopular opinion around here, but I simply never liked it enough to go past its first 10 hours.
I hate pretty much anything about Bethesda's modern take on the Fallout series. The aesthetic, the mechanics, the UI, the dull gunplay. I realize this one was made by Obsidian so it's common opinion it had far better writing and quest design, but I never got far enough to appreciate them because I find everything else about it extremely off-putting.

I will probably give it another chance someday, but so far it always failed to keep me interested.

No. It didn't come close to achieving true greatness.

I never thought that "incline" should be a label applied only to timeless classics and "true greatness". Just for fucking solid games. Otherwise I wouldn't think fondly of stuff like ToEE or some of the Divinity games.
And yes, I think Prey qualifies, all things considered.

 

[Israfael]

The game also showers you with potential skills to pick, so even a completionist like me trying to get as many points and skills as possible will end getting half of them top

Not really, unless you try to max out everything. I played without using alien powahs so I basically had everything maxed out by the mid-game and I had like 40 or 90 of exotic matter to mass-spam the skillpoint hypos if i wanted (there's also a storeroom with lot of the purple stuff you can raid with some creative use of ingame mechanics). Granted, I had some ammo shortages (don't like to scavenge), but I always had enough mats to get by and pop 20-30 shotgun shells when I got to the next dispenser.

 

[Ash]

I never thought that "incline" should be a label applied only to timeless classics and "true greatness". Just for fucking solid games. Otherwise I wouldn't think fondly of stuff like ToEE or some of the Divinity games.
And yes, I think Prey qualifies, all things considered.

"Incline" is self-explanatory; better than. Going uphill, not downhill. It's meaning is stretched to apply to games that are just as good as/meeting old standards, and PREY is not one such game, you just have low standards. In all fairness it wasn't too far off classic status, but every aspect of design just did not quite hit the mark. Often intentionally regarding gameplay, because the extreme commercialisation of AAA games this past decade.
Secondary use of incline is just plain old better than the garbage age of the late 2000s-early 2010s and taking us out of that major decline, which I suppose was your usage of the term, because then PREY would qualify. But make no mistake, it's not meeting old standards and so is not incline over old classic Immersive Sims like Shock 2, it's decline in that context all things considered.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Well, Exotic matter is the most common element in the game. I had it in maybe three times the amount of anything else, so I'm not sure how much that storeroom could have helped you.
It's the other two, grey and orange (I think mineral and synthetic?) that typically need some management. And they are required as well to craft neuromods (the skillpoints).

Also, I wonder if you realize that you just "contradicted me" with a "not really", by saying exactly the same thing one sentence later: you didn't use any Typhoon upgrade. These alone make roughly half of your total skills.
That's exactly the scenario I described for myself: "only human augmentations, and not even all of them".

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

and PREY is not one such game, you just have low standards.

Oh Jesus Christ. Not this worthless bullshit.
I think we could try to turn it into a very long argument, but I will probably just go with a standard "Fuck off" instead.

 

[Ash]

Have a good day. And try not to enable the decline. PREY is a intentionally neutered game, and it shows. Other areas they tried and simply failed (story). It's better than Bioshock, yes, but it's still minor decline.