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

[RoSoDude]

you hold to sprint

Cool. To be absolutely clear, you hold to sprint ... not the console "start walking, then tap X to sprint until you stop moving"?

No, you hold a direction and sprint key together to sprint.

 

[ColCol]

Yeah, I didn't like the weapons in Prey (Didn't really try the powers). I could see how the weapons worked for the setting of the game. Yet, game play wise all the weapons were unsatisfying.

 

[RoSoDude]

Zombra I was unfortunately incorrect. There is no option in the PIC mod to make crouch a hold instead of a toggle.

Here are the options, for anyone wondering (Dynamic lets you toggle options on and off).

UI:

Controls:

 

[KevinV12000]

• Combat in this game is far too binary. Encounters would end with me dying or coming out without a scratch (Nightmare difficulty). This meant that I was barely using medkits (save for the occasional "pause and spam health items" degeneracy during fights). The reason casuals were complaining this game was too hard is that the difficulty settings don't really influence how hardcore the game is. Nightmare has you do 0.8x damage, and Easy gives you a 10% boost, with enemy damage to you scaling more heavily with difficulty level. If you use the correct tools for each enemy encounter, Nightmare is barely harder than Easy, since your enemies will be stunlocked and it'll only take 37.5% more damage to kill them. The game is at its hardest if you don't know how to counter each enemy type, and consequently expend a lot of resources to out-damage your foes. Since you die in only a few hits on Nightmare, this means that the player is most encouraged to learn the best tactics on the harder difficulties and will thereby have a greater abundance of resources than people shotgunning and medkit-spamming their way through Easy. Seems a bit backwards.

Beep Bop Boop Boop, I regret to inform you that this unit found the game.....disappointing. End Transmission.

 

[Zakhad]

Am I the only one who mostly enjoyed the story? I liked all the low-key conversations and so on, felt more real to me than something like Bioshock where the messages you happen to stumble on all connect to the main plot points in obvious ways. And most of them weren't just voice recordings like SS2, but where voice messages, which makes more sense than a world where everyone records every thought they have all the damn time.

Maybe I just prefer games that let me choose how to feel rather than ones that push feels at me. I remember hating Dying Light for that reason,and FO4 of course, and this felt like the opposite of that. If I wanted to play a character who gave not a single shit about anyone, the game wouldn't contradict that.

Also I didn't find crew quarters a slog. I liked:

Spoiler

the fake cook and the tasks he gives you which only make sense once you realise he's trying to get you killed, plus the way he leaves traps all over the place if you let him live. And I liked that this was the first area except for one enclosed section in the Arboretum where you meet lots of mind-controlled humans, felt like a different kind of challenge than what had come before.

Agree absolutely that difficulty was weird:

Spoiler

Nightmare was just XP, on nightmare-mode I just summoned it four times in a row to get the exotic materials from its corpse (enough for two neuromods each time), since it goes down like nothing if you have upgraded shotgun/weapon skill/time slow. The telepath/technopath are actually much harder since they fly so shotgun less useful, but upgraded Q-beam still destroys them pretty quickly.

But that's where I disagree on chipsets:

Spoiler

the immunity chipsets can totally change gameplay: immunity to psychoshock makes telepaths trivial, and immunity to EMP does the same to technopaths. Immunity to recycler charges (I think that was only in the pre-purchase pack?) is both convenient and fun since it lets you set a trap and then sit in the middle of it.

And last, I REALLY don't get what everyone says about running out of synthetic materials? Last time through on nightmare I got to the end game with 200 mineral, 100 or so synthetic, zero exotic. I guess the only thing I needed to craft with synthetic, other than neuromods, was shotgun ammo? There's fuckloads of everything else. Plus I always recycle turrets and there are loads of disabled one around, and I recycle all the extra weapons and all the extra spare parts you get just from exploring and killing operators... Am I just being more aspergic than anyone else when it comes to min-maxing my scavenging?

 

[udm]

I ran dry on synthetic materials midway through (Arboretum), but swam in it again several hours later. And this is with me crafting a lot of nonsense for shits and giggles.

Looking back, I think the biggest issue with Prey's pacing is that it has too much pointless backtracking that doesn't offer anything of value. In Shock 2, you backtracked a lot too, but the backtracking paths were not too long, and the process would often open multiple new, smaller areas. Not to say Prey doesn't have these, but it also has more uselessly padded paths. You really feel like you've seen everything after backtracking for the 2nd time.

 

[Hines]

Someone suggested I listen to a games podcast hosted by developers who worked on both Dishonored and Prey, programmer Jeff Lake and lead systems designer Seth Shain, and I'm glad I gave it a shot because the discussion's pretty decent.

Something disappointing though is that both have recently left the studio. Seth, in particular, was the number three guy behind Raphael Colantonio and Ricardo Bare, so to see him jumping ship to Bungie of all places isn't exactly encouraging, considering the games he loves to make and play.

In the latest episode, he reveals his displeasure with the Twitch-centric marketing direction Bethesda pursued for Prey, and discuss the factors contributing to single player games struggling in the current landscape.

http://devstalkgames.com/episode-6-the-death-of-the-single-player-game-market

 

[Morgoth]

Was reading some time ago that Arkane Austin's next project will be an online game?

Lord there's just no love for good meaty AAA single-player left anymore in this gay industry.

 

[Latelistener]

The end is near. Soon, everything will turn into PUBG.

 

[ciox]

Was reading some time ago that Arkane Austin's next project will be an online game?

Lord there's just no love for good meaty AAA single-player left anymore in this gay industry.

 

[ciox]

Soon....

 

[Morgoth]

The end is near. Soon, everything will turn into PUBG.

A Battle-Royal style game made by Arkane could actually turn into incline.

 

[Daedalos]

are there any good mods for this?

starting a first game soon

 

[Ivan]

I will second this. I know that the Immersion Mod is firs playthrough friendly. Not so sure about the ones that restore injuries.

 

[RoSoDude]

are there any good mods for this?

starting a first game soon

Unfortunately, the gameplay mods are unrefined and unreliable for a first-time playthrough. I discovered this myself when I tried to use the Prey Survival Mod for my first run. The further disappointment is that these mods have already stopped development due to low interest.

The Prey Interface Customizer allows for some HUD and keybinding customization, though, and is recommended for any playthrough.

 

[Latelistener]

 

[Cromwell]

So guys without reading the thread here and just seeing a bit about the game would it be worth 15 euros? They have a sale in the psn store where I could get the console version plus a second game from the sale for 30 euro together. Since it would be on the ps4 I couldnt play any mods for it but going by the last posts nobody is interested in them anyways?

 

[Darth Roxor]

yeah, for 15 euros it's deffo worth it

 

[toro]

So guys without reading the thread here and just seeing a bit about the game would it be worth 15 euros? They have a sale in the psn store where I could get the console version plus a second game from the sale for 30 euro together. Since it would be on the ps4 I couldnt play any mods for it but going by the last posts nobody is interested in them anyways?

Prey is worth 15 Euros. Buy it and play it. I don't know about the mods.

 

[DeepOcean]

So guys without reading the thread here and just seeing a bit about the game would it be worth 15 euros? They have a sale in the psn store where I could get the console version plus a second game from the sale for 30 euro together. Since it would be on the ps4 I couldnt play any mods for it but going by the last posts nobody is interested in them anyways?

It is worthy it at this money just keep your expectations in check, this game is as similar to System Shock 2 as Dishonored is similar to Thief, it is an AAA watered down experience and very short too.

 

[ciox]

Mods that are out there are nice but kind of limited as development abruptly stopped on them, the main guy working on them also deleted the prey mods subforum on the farcrymods website where he was posting, so maybe it was a c&d thing related to upcoming DLC that may be coming in the far future.

The mods are good at making abilities cost more neuromods, adding traumas back in and making combat a little tougher/HP-bloatier, but there's no big features or new weapons or level edits or stuff like that.

 

[fantadomat]

Yeah the game is good even if it becomes a little bit boring once you become the annihilator. Go for a no spells game.

 

[Jasede]

I didn't regret paying full price for it so go for it.
But universally everyone I asked, myself included, felt the game turned to trash the last 25% in or so. Maybe 33%. It's doubly painful because it starts out so well; almost feels like the successor to Shock 2 we been waiting for, boring enemies aside.

 

[Cromwell]

Just found out our local library also has it which technically makes the game free for me so thats that and I bought Dragons Dogma instead since my woman also wants that. Will Play it from the library then.

 

[Ash]

Better than Bioshock at least/good for what it is. It's worth 15 Euros.