Prey (computer game, 2006)
| Prey | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio |
 Human Head Studios (PC) 3D Realms Venom Games (X360) Aspyr Media (Mac OS) 
|
||
| Publisher |
2K Games (2006-2009)
|
||
| Senior Developer | Chris Rhinehart (Director) Ted Halsted (Lead Designer) Scott Miller (Producer) George Broussard (Producer) |
||
| composer | Jeremy Soule | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
Windows, Xbox 360: July 11, 2006 July 14, 2006 Steam: November 30, 2006 Mac OS X: January 15, 2007  |
||
| platform | Windows , Xbox 360 , Linux , macOS | ||
| Game engine | id Tech 4 | ||
| genre | Ego shooter | ||
| Subject | Science fiction | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard & mouse , gamepad | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
|
||
| medium | DVD-ROM , download | ||
| language | English (with German subtitles) | ||
| Current version | 1.4 | ||
| Age rating |
|
||
| information | Official sales discontinued. | ||
Prey is a computer game from 2006 that was developed by the US development studio Human Head Studios on behalf of 3D Realms . The first person shooter is about a young Cherokee named Tommy who has to avert an alien threat by remembering his Indian roots.
Plot and course of the game
The plot is an alien spaceship (which is modeled on a Dyson sphere ) in the orbit of the earth, into which the player in the role of the young Indian Tommy is kidnapped. In addition to him, many other people are victims of alien abduction , including his grandfather Enisi and his girlfriend Jen. Tommy, who during his life on the reservation has increasingly lost the connection to the customs of his ancestors and his supernatural facilities, now has to relearn them in order to free Jen and the other kidnapped people.
Like the spaceship itself, all of the weapons Tommy finds on his way through the spaceship have a strange semi-organic design. The special features of the extraterrestrial technology of the spaceship include gravity manipulators, which enable the player as well as the opponents, for example, to walk along the paths on the walls and ceiling of the rooms, which challenges the player's sense of spatial orientation. These gravitational fields are also used for smaller puzzle tasks, among other things. Another special feature are artificial portals that suddenly open up in the room and can take the player from there seamlessly to another location.
Thanks to his Native American heritage, Tommy also has some spiritual abilities at his disposal that he develops in the course of the game, such as the ability of spirit travel , which allows him to leave his body and explore the environment in an immaterial state. This feature is also used to make death less frustrating for the player: After death, Tommy's soul finds itself in the afterlife, and a short time later it can find its way back to the real world.
In the course of the plot, the player learns that mankind was "planted" by aliens many years ago. Humanity cultivated in this way is now at the peak of its development and is therefore “ripe” to be “harvested”. As a result, humans are suddenly no longer at the top of the food chain and their sole purpose is to be available in large quantities as food for another species. But Tommy manages to get to the core of the spaceship during his adventure and from there to compete against an entity called Sphere , which represents a kind of collective consciousness of the alien ship. After defeating it, Tommy takes the place of Sphere and steers the alien spaceship directly into the sun and can thus avert the threat from the spaceship. After this is accomplished, Tommy wakes up again in the bar where the adventure began. An Indian stands in front of him and asks him to step through a portal with her, as his services are needed on another planet, from which he is also supposed to avert great disaster. Tommy follows the request and steps through the shimmering blue portal with the strange woman.
development
First project
The game was first announced in 1995, but after several years development was paused in 1999. Technical problems were given as the cause. The main programmer William Scarboro later commented that the planned "portal technology" was probably too ambitious a project at the time.
Prey was presented in a private demonstration in 1997 and 1998 at E3 , where the new “portal technology” in particular aroused interest. As a fantastic element, the portals should enable seamless switching between different room levels in real time.
Little was known about the story, except that there should be four alien species (three of these should be called the "Trocara", the fourth "Keeper") and an Indian hero of the game, who should be called "Talon Brave".
The German group KMFDM was commissioned to compose the soundtrack for the game.
New development 2006
The development of the computer game was resumed by 3D Realms in 2001. As a new technical basis which was Doom 3 - Engine (id Tech 4) of id Software licensed and commissioned as a development team Human Head Studios. On April 26, 2005, Prey was officially announced by 2K Games with a press release : “ New York, NY - April 26, 2005 - 2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), and 3D Realms today announced Prey, a revolutionary first person shooter for PC and a next-generation console system in development at Human Head Studios, under the direct supervision of 3D Realms. "
The game was officially released in Germany on July 14, 2006 as a DVD-ROM version and for the Xbox 360 .
In addition to traditional data carrier sales, Prey should also be made available for direct download via Triton. However, Triton was discontinued and the game was alternatively sold on Steam until it was taken off the market there in late 2009. Since Bethesda Softworks took over the rights, Prey was out of print and was no longer offered for sale by the manufacturer. Prey is currently available through the publisher Aspyr in the Mac Appstore.
reception
| ||||||||||||||
Prey received mostly very positive reviews from the trade press. The Gamestar awarded a score of 87% and judged "technically impressive puzzle shooter" . The PC Games also rewarded the game with 87%. The website 4Players rated the title with 88%. The Computer Bild Spiele awarded the final grade Good . The trade magazines particularly praised the unusual setting, the mystical background story, the opulent music and the advanced graphics of the engine id Tech 4. The simple puzzles, the short game time, the mediocre AI and the poor multiplayer mode were criticized.
successor
Prey 2
Bethesda Softworks has held the rights to the Prey brand since 2009 . Human Head Studios developed the successor Prey 2 , which was first presented at E3 2011 . The first person shooter with an open world should not continue the story of the Cherokee Tommy, but rather be about a bounty hunter in a space city. However, Tommy should appear as a supporting character. After a dispute between the developer studio and Bethesda Softworks, the project fell silent. In October 2014, Bethesda announced that development of Prey 2 had officially been discontinued.
Prey
A successor or reboot with the same name Prey was announced on June 12, 2016 at the E3 press conference by Bethesda Softworks for 2017 through a live action trailer. Prey was developed by the Arkane Studios in Austin and was released on May 5, 2017 for Xbox One , PlayStation 4 and Windows . The first-person shooter with role-playing elements has no content-related references to the original or the discontinued second part, but rather, according to the developers, is a realignment of the brand.
Web links
- Official website for the game
- Prey at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.netzwelt.de/news/74426-test-prey.html
- ↑ www.shacknews.com ( Memento from July 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://www.cynamite.de/pc/news/more/prey_bei_steam_ausverkauf/83529/prey_bei_steam_ausverkauf.html
- ^ Prey meta evaluation (Windows). In: Metacritic . CBS Corporation , accessed April 27, 2015 .
- ^ Prey meta ranking (Xbox 360). In: Metacritic . CBS Corporation , accessed April 27, 2015 .
- ^ GameRankings Prey (Windows). In: GameRankings . Retrieved October 4, 2015 .
- ↑ GameRankings Prey (Xbox 360). In: GameRankings . Retrieved October 4, 2015 .
- ^ Prey (PC). In: GameStar . Retrieved July 6, 2012 .
- ^ Prey (PC). In: PC Games . Retrieved July 6, 2012 .
- ^ Prey. In: 4Players . Retrieved July 6, 2012 .
- ^ Prey (PC). Retrieved July 6, 2012 .
- ↑ vg247.com : News from April 19, 2012 (English, accessed on May 7, 2012)
- ↑ Prey 2 - Work on the shooter officially discontinued on GameStar , accessed on October 31, 2014
- ↑ Prey - Officially announced including impressive trailer news on PlayNation.de. In: www.playnation.de. Retrieved June 13, 2016 .
- ↑ Marcel Kleffmann: Prey: No sequel, no remake and no connection to the original on 4players.de (accessed on April 18, 2017)