![]() ![]() It probably has the best human models of all three games, still not without odd issues from the engine (like a lack of skeletal animations), but there are more diverse body types than the big slabs of meat from the previous peers. It’s nowhere near as dark as that game or Quake 4, but uses similar techniques to create strong, oppressive shadows and grotesque creatures. Prey was made with Id Tech 4, the last of these games in this engine to use Doom 3style lighting and body horror. ![]() If there’s anything to criticize, it’s that Jen, Tommy’s love interest, is ultimately a damsel used for Tommy’s character growth and nothing more, though the game does do one genuinely unexpected thing with her that deserves at least some credit for willingness to go there. Bell sounds like he’s not acting at all and is really experiencing these bizarre events, and it helps the game retain narrative context the more gamey it goes. Bell was the creator and host of a paranormal themed radio show called Coast to Coast AM, a sort of conspiracy pow wow back during the age they were a weird curiosity, and that show lends itself well to the mass alien abduction stuff happening on Earth during the game’s story. Art Bell, of all people, plays the role of exposition giver in this game, just playing himself. There was a lot of effort to make the game feel authentic, like real people were plunked into an absolutely absurd and horrible situation. It even gives Tommy a strong arc as he finds strength in his heritage. Tommy and friends being natives even gives the story a thematic layer to it that it normally wouldn’t have, victims of imperialism and colonization being what takes down the ultimate form of that particular evil. ![]() While John Galt, the voice of Lo Wang, is still here as the grandfather and he is playing a type, he is at least taking the role seriously and was given a good script to work with, never dragging the game down. He even acted as a consultant and his notes were all taken into account in the game, and it really feels like it. Micheal Greyeyes, a native American actor and Tommy’s VA, had nothing but good things to say about 3D Realms writing of the character and appreciated that Tommy wasn’t written in an old archetype. You wouldn’t expect it from the publisher who brought you Shadow Warrior, but Prey is surprisingly good about its representation. So, naturally, Tommy now has to deal with his personal baggage while trying to save the love of his life from the horrors of The Sphere and someone called “The Mother” who is constantly teasing him in his mind. Further complicating the night is Tommy’s grandfather is warning him of “change on the winds,” which turns out to be horrific aliens that run a spaceship, The Sphere, filled with meat constructs that come to Earth every few hundreds of years while passing to collect humans for food, making soldiers, whatever. The complication is that Tommy hates his heritage and living on the reservation and wants to try and get her to move away with him, which she isn’t okay with. The game cast you as Domasi “Tommy” Tawodi, a native Cherokee mechanic and military vet, who’s currently trying to ask another member of the tribe, Jen, out on a date in her bar. It took five years from there to get the game out, and eleven in total from initial development, and amazingly, the final game was not only great but one of the most innovative and clever shooters of its day, but still holds up shockingly well. In 2001, 3D Realms contracted Human Head Studios, a team of former Raven Software developers, to get the game done, making a deal with 2K Games to publish it. They made the mistake of making the focus of a new full 3D engine on these spacial tricks, which proved kind of impossible in the 90s. ![]() First was Tom Hall leaving to form Ion Storm, and the second was they just couldn’t get the tech to work. The idea became a shooter that used portals and made impossible spaces for the player to explore, but the project hit bumps. Back in 1995, the team behind Rise of the Triad (The Developers of Incredible Power, or the D.I.P.S) decided to make their next game, calling it Prey. ![]()
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