#0004 - Prey - 2006 - Multiplatform - 3D Realms - First Person Shooter

It seems as if video game history rewards the cautious as often as the bold. Half-Life 2, for instance, suffered from delays but eventually released to worlwide acclaim. But for every Half-Life 2 there is a Prey - a game that became victim of its own bloated development cycle and missed its moment to shine. 3D Realms began work on the game back in 1995, and it finally saw release over a decade later in 2006 after being restarted from scratch several times on different engines. Obviously, tech changes a lot in a ten year span.

There was, however, a sweet spot in 1998 when Prey was nearly complete and looking fantastic by the standards of the time.It should have hit the presses right then - Prey would have made a huge splash with its destructable geometry, portal technologies, and impressive detail textures. Regrettably, instead of going gold it was delayed again and was forced back to the drawing board to take advantage of next-gen tech. When gamers finally got their hands on Prey in 2006, the destructable environments were gone - and had been done in Red Faction already, anyway - and the texturing was nothing special in comparison to contemporaries Quake 4, Half-Life 2, and Far Cry.

As it is, you can pick up the 360 version for $4.99 at any Gamestop. The multiplayer networks are dead, and the game is never mentioned, even in a negative. It has been, a mere four years after the long-awaited release, completely forgotten. It doesn't seem right to say that a game can become less 'good' over time - after all, it's either good or it isn't, right? Well, you've got me. To be honest, the actual gameplay mechanics and theme are nothing to be excited about. One has to wonder if it really needed to take eleven years to come up with a theme so unremarkable. So you can't really blame anyone except for 3D Realms for the way Prey has rotted in bargain bins.

But damn, if Prey had only beaten the new wave of FPS games to the punch back in '98, we'd probably be remembering it as a milestone in technical achievement. Watching the old E3 interviews you really get a feeling for how amazing the portals and environments were for the day - back when a Voodoo 2 was considered a solid graphics card. The programmers and design staff were clearly talented to come up with implementations for this stuff before Portal and Red Faction, and it's just sad that their achievements were delayed from the public eye so long that they became old hat.

To elaborate on the gameplay, Prey is pretty generic. After the awesome opening sequence which sees alien suck up a gas station, you're armed with a crowbar...uh, lead pipe...and eventually an assault rifle, heavier assault rife, and directed energy weapon. The guy you play as, Tommy, comments on the proceedings occasionally, and in the first few stages you gain access to a 'spirit walk' mode where you can fire a 'spirit bow' and pass through energy fields while your physical body remains transfixed.

For the people who brought us Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, this is pretty dull. Where are the zany, badass weapons? The hilariously crude quotes? Gone - sacrificed to the modern wave of realism and drama that has become necessary in first person shooters. Prey would have done well to stick to the formula that made 3D Realms' 1990s offerings so well-loved. At any rate, what's left is a game that's almost identical to Quake 4 in theme and visual presentation, with some mind-bending gravity tricks as the only really defining difference.

Somewhere out there is an executive or design lead who's kicking himself for not getting Prey out sooner. I feel for him.