ANALYSIS: Prey - The Illusion of Choice
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2017
- An in-depth critique of Prey for PS4 with full spoilers. The video includes a review of the entire story, together with an analysis of Prey's heavily promoted "Play Your Way" gameplay mechanics and the choices you'll make in the game.
Story: Part 1 - 4:23
Neuromods - 15:04
Combat - 22:33
Side Quests - 30:04
Story: Part 2 - 34:24
Story: Wrap Up - 46:45
Immersion - 51:33
Illusion of Choice - 1:01:15
Conclusion - 1:13:45
A spoiler-free review is available on my website at cdavisgames.com/2017/06/14/pr....
Follow me on Twitter at / cdavis_games
I highly recommend this video by Noah Caldwell-Gervais comparing the 2006 and 2017 versions of Prey - • Prey vs. Prey [Total S...
Gamespot has a series of videos on Arkane Studios. This video is the most relevant to Prey - • Failure to Fame: How A... . - Ігри
on your whole illusion of choice segment:
for one the stairway you see is at the literal beginning of the game. like 3 rooms in out of the prologue segment you see the gloo gun and the staircase. thats not so much the game telling you how to do something as it is letting you know that you can use the gloo gun this way. its the first time you see that. it makes sense. otherwise people may not connect the dots. also the game doesnt care how you get to the second floor in neuromods. you could:
A) use the gloo gun to make a stairway
b)repair the lift
c)hack into the security console in the booth and unlock the testing room and get up through the stairwell
d)go back to the sim lab and get up through a hatch
how is this an illusion of choice? as well neuromods is completely 100 percent optional. you can leave neuromods and never come back again if you want.
this is an example of the game heavily rewarding you for exploration as you get fabrication plans for neuromods, some recycler charges and tons of other stuff that your going to need to face off against the tougher typhon your going to run into fairly quickly
your second example where you criticize the gloo gun is in the exact same area. thats just one of 3 ways to get into fabrication.
you can
A)use the maintenance tunnels as you did(by the way you can climb on the ledge behind you then with only a single gloo shot easily get up. you don't need to make a bunch of gloo platforms like that)
b) if you have leverage 3 you can force open the unpowered door to fabrication
c) you can restore the power in the volunteer quarters instead of just going through the maitenence tunnels. then you can hack into the door to fabrication.
back to back you show only ONE way of getting in then say thats how you were supposed to get in because thats how you did it. its like you did absolutely no investigation. didn't read emails and find alternate routes into places or even look around to see what you could find out. just did it one way. and thats perfectly fine. thats how you played the game. but thats not all there is to get into locations and find stuff. you dont need to just use the gloo gun and thats it. i used the gloo gun to make a staircase in like 2 instances. otherwise there was always other ways of getting to areas. you cant play it your way then critizice the game because you didnt try to find alternate ways to get around.
once again you did the EXACT SAME THING. you decided hey i gotta get these turrets. then you got them. then critized the game. saying this is the only way. no. no. you can:
A) make turrets
b)salvage turrets
c)hack into the door and let the typhon kill everybody and escape
d)hack into the door and kill the typhon with your powerful psy abilities(most of the typhon in that room will die to kinetic blast and psyonic shock easy.
e)kill the officer and get the keycard to the door off to the side of the cargo bay
its like you are missing the point. you DONT HAVE to help anybody. you can do things however you want. it doesnt matter the way you do it. there are more ways then just get turrets.
and saying oh but everybody else will play it this way too isnt a valid arguement. nobody is obligated to play it in this exact way and the game doesnt expect you to. it doesnt advertise it like hey get turrets "psst hey player. you know you could just UNLOCK THE DOOR WITH HACKING"
because they dont hold your hand and tell you all the different ways you can do stuff. and i would be insulted if they did. it would make me feel like i was a baby to them.
and your critique of different playstyles makes me think you really didnt actually play through the game but rushed it.
you need absolutely zero alien powers and you have no obligation to use them to be effective in combat.
for one the gloo and wrench style works just fine. get stamina then fully upgrade the wrench skill. you use less stamina do significantly more damage and can easily kill phantoms by knocking them back with power attacks. and you dont need alien powers to do big damage. nullwave emitters, recycler charges, emp grenades, typhon lures.. thats all you really need in additon to the wrench to get through the game.
telepaths can easily be disabled as well as technopaths and the advanced phantoms.
throw a nullwave and they turn into little bitches because they 100 percent rely on their powers to do real damage. then just kill them. a fully upgraded shotgun can down everything very easily especially with a sneak attack. you can throw a lure and the typhon will stare at it. then you can sneak by no problem. you are ignoring like 50 percent of the equipment here at least. and the q beam when upgraded will kill everything as well. you dont need alien powers. its easy to finish the game without them.
as well using typhon powers is a choice that has consequences. because the more you use them the more you become a typhon being. turrets turn against you, and it effects how the ending will play out. not the true ending but the ending. january will NOT let you leave if you are filled with typhon material. you have to kill him if you want to do that ending. as well the typhon powers influence how often the nightmare comes for you if i am remembering that right.
and see this is where i really disagree with you. the whole side quests give you the way to do things is ridiculous. for one lots of the side quests are chained together. for example in the deep storage when morgan locks you in danielle tells you how to get out. but you had to have done the cooks side quest line then find the transcribe that tells you where to find danielle. without that she wont even know your alive let alone help you get out of deep storage.
and when you say i wish arkane had made it more clear how to do things differently you are telling me "i dont like finding out things for myself" which says to me that you dont like games like prey and system shock and bioshock. and thats fine. but acting like the game should be this way is dumb. because thats not how these kind of games work. investigate things. look around. explore. find the information. there are terminals everywhere filled with hidden knowledge and alternate methods of finding stuff and getting places.
i completely diagree with the premise of your arguement in this section. you clearly havent tried to find different things. you just decided hey im going to do the easiest and most clear route then complain that i can do that.
Holy shit I raged so hard watching this video and reading this comment was extremely cathartic. I don't know if it's in poor taste to bring up Joseph Anderson, but I remember a part in one of his videos where he says to do a critique/analysis it should pretty much be mandatory to at least do two playthroughs, and videos like this one are exactly why. The amount of shit he missed is monumental, and even though some of it he really really should've figured out on his first playthrough, a second one might've given him a different perspective on the game and the ability to judge it more fairly.
Fuck, man. I'm mad.
DumpsterStiggy see you have to remember, some people are just unable to understand or play games that don't hold your hand, and then when they review those types of game's like this guy did, they call not being able to figure out the game "The Illusion of Choice".
I agree 100%. This Is a poor critique Video. You pretty much summed up why.
Nexus Spot on. Dude blames the game for his lack of awareness, creativity, and eagerness to read/explore. Boo this man. Boooooo
Man j have those same exact feelings. How can we praise a game like dark souls for having amazing level design and world detail and not give that same praise to prey. It has excellent level design that literally shows you all the possible ways to Travers and play the game without ever openly telling you. About 30%/40% in the game my player movement started to change. I found lots of doors and computers to hack to I focused that skill. Only a few spots actually required leverage so I didn't level it but one day just because a mimic was hiding by one of those blocked doors you need leverage 3 to access I threw a recycling grenade at it and boom the door way opened and the blocking material has turned into resources! Started looking for other ways to bypass other obstacles after that. I felt the genius of this game and very disappointed in this review.
Chris davis, the things you can pick up that have no purpose can be used to distract enemies, kill cystoids, and can be used for platforming to get to something higher up. Also you can use mimic powers to turn into the small object to get through a small gap.
That’s just one small element of this review where you have no idea what you’re doing.
not to mention if you spec into leverage its really fun to fuck up a phantom with a reployer
@@toetruck1589 i found chucking chairs while saying have a seat was pretty fun
get over it fanboy
I played this game on a hard difficulty level.
Neuromods are not "precious", with just a little effort of collecting and recycling I had so many of them by the midgame so I acquired all combat and stealth abilities that I could ever need till the endgame. Same for ammo, health packs, etc. I don't know why you bother that much with the game giving you typhon abilities a few hours after the beggining.
Playing half of the game with radiation poisoning, geez.
To my mind stealth abilities in this game are only for making a huge amount of damage to enemies while being unnoticed and quickly getting in and out of combat. This way they work just fine and can be easily combined with combat abilities.
Disruptor stun gun does wonders against all mechanized enemies, especially when upgraded it can one shot operators from stealth (that is one of many examples when stealth is useful), I don't know why would you ever use shotgun against them. They were just repair parts containers for me.
Heavy lifting is completely useless, the game gives you a lot of recycling grenades.
The shuttle that you can blow up and Dahl's shuttle are two completely different shuttles. That is obvious from the audio logs.
Tablets will never replace paper books!
Early in the game I killed phantoms consistently by freezing them with the gloo gun and shooting with the pistol. It was a bit challenging but really enjoyable. Some clever turret usage was required of course. Why would you ever want to avoid them if you are "minmaxing" the game? They give a lot of resources.
Overall it seems like you did not put enough effort in the game for an "in-depth critique". You have been blaming "bad" combat the whole video, but the only real issue is that you could not make it interesting for yourself. It is another question whether it is good or bad but that's how it always been with this type of games.
Recently got platinum on Prey, it's a stunning game really. Can only Agree with you.
I played the game the way I want on my first run and learned a lot trying to get the platinum trophy.
19:56 I actually played a second run of the game using only gadgets and human-abilities and not only thought it worked fine but also thoroughly enjoyed it, as it required me to think more creatively in combat and exploration rather than rely on the alien powers.
I can tell you that I played this game completely different than you did. Though I was a pretty potent combat monster by the end of it, able to kite telepaths and weavers, gun down nightmares and face most phantoms head on, even in groups. How'd I play different?
Well, to start with, I did stealth it, most of the way through, and got quite good at moving through maps in the late game without even being noticed, but to do this one must also focus on mobility, because proper stealth very much involves being able to get to out of the way paths through areas, like moving over the false ceiling or making some pretty massive jumps between pipes and support braces. I did not engage any enemy I didn't want to, even getting good at luring hostiles out into space and then rocketing around them to get in breached areas of the station, and psychoblast is all one needs to eliminate nests.
I also did not use the goo gun much at all in fights, but only for exploring, and was often disassembling my goo and other ammo and grenades to get a large chunk of the materials that went into my neuromods, my main weapons of choice being the pistol and the shotgun the whole way through the game.
I think it's a lot more "Playable your way" than you give it credit, especially seeing as how I've played completely through it twice now and found that huge areas of the mid-game played completely differently, myself unlocking locations and plots not only different places but from completely different ends of the station with different plot hooks... I also never had problems with the chef, because I was warned about him before I ever ran into him and gunned him down first chance I got.
There are some hugely different ways that one can play the game to the point that in my two play throughs, I only ran into Danielle once in one of the run throughs and never saw her once in the second one. Another difference between playthroughs for me was that I made a LOT of use of turrets in the first one and I pretty much broke them and left them that way in the 2nd playthrough.
But I can assure you, the game can be mostly stealthed as I did it twice, and most fights can be outright avoided if you don't want to do them.. You just have to be willing to make tracks. And in the two playthroughs, I did it once with a LOT of mimic powers and the other time with almost none.... Next time I play through it, I'm going to do it with no mimic powers.
Hi. I'm a touch aware that this comment could be read as confrontational. If it comes across that way, I apologize. It's not my intent, because I really appreciate your comment. Basically, you're the first person to claim that I'm wrong, so you're getting the brunt of my questions!
I'm a bit confused about your two completely different playthroughs. You said you did it stealth twice so isn't that quite similar? It sounds like you used alien powers once and human powers the second time, but that goes to the point in my video where I say that this feels like you're deliberately not using skills/powers just to make the game feel different. If you sneak around and then shoot phantoms with a shotgun, is that really that different from sneaking around and then using a typhon power on them?
Also, you mention not meeting Danielle in one of the playthroughs. Is missing content like this enough to make different playthroughs worthwhile? I like the idea of being locked off from content based on your choices, but here it just sounds like you skipped a side quest and considered it a different experience. I do like that you managed to discover who the chef was before meeting him. That's the sort of thing I'd have liked to see much more of. And unlocking locations from different ends of the station... I don't know, this just isn't all that satisfying to me. Getting into a room via a different route isn't something I'm going to play the game twice to experience. Getting into rooms I couldn't previously access might have tempted me, but I never came across a room I couldn't access with my build.
And then let's talk about stealth. It sounds like you still had to do a fair bit of combat. When I think of a stealth run, I think of not having to kill any enemies a la Dishonored. There were points in Prey where I 100% could not avoid combat. One example is going from Deep Storage to the Arboretum when the airlock was closed, but it happened multiple times. I tried a lot and could not avoid being spotted by the two phantoms and running was largely useless. I maxed out my mobility, but some of those phantoms are fast. I had to run to a load screen in the end. I'm not saying this was common, but there were some situations where I could not think of a way to avoid combat and that ruins the point of a stealth playthrough for me.
Thanks again for your comment. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say you're wrong or take away from your enjoyment of the game. If you liked it more than me, that's great. But if I've sold the game short, I want to know why, and at the moment it's not entirely clear to me. If you can provide any additional feedback it would be appreciated, even if we just agree to disagree. Cheers.
Not confrontational as far as I see it.
1.) Both methods were mostly stealthy, but with totally different ways of going about it. The biggest sample of a difference is that in the 1st playthrough I did it mostly as it seems to be scripted, going where January wants me to go when she wants me to go there, but the second time, I went all out explorer. I made a point to get as many places and see as much of the station as I could before actually pursuing the story, so I ended up approaching a lot of the plot elements that come later in the story before the story would lead you into them... A sample is that the first place I went after getting the full video was the shuttle bay, to clear it.. When I got the elevator working, I went down to life support to clear it out, as well as half the power level. As a result of this different approach, there were all kinds of situations where I had already done stuff that didn't come till much later in the game if you follow January and managed to unlock some stuff in the mid station and arboretum area from way down in cargo, again, doing it an alternate way that doesn't exactly follow the script... Cleared a lot of breaches long before I would be sent there as well... In short, it played like an entirely different outline for the game because things happen in different orders and Danielle was never camping outside the gymnasium waiting for me to clear the crew quarters, because I had long since made it safe for her to move on before I ever encountered her, so even after running into her message about pounding on the glass, she was NOT there. I am sure I will in my third, no mimic powers, playthrough, I will find other big plot differences from my other two playthroughs. Another noticed difference is that I played the music and did the fight in the nightclub in Crew quarters the 2nd play through and don't ever remember even running into the clues that lead to that event the first time through.
2.) I never had to fight anything I did not want to, with the exception of the big beasty at the end, and a handful of technophiles that must be killed in order to make portions of the base operational... I almost always hit nests, just cause they are really annoying if you don't, but I was able to avoid combat any time I didn't want to fight and the only reasons I fought in my second playthrough was if I needed the raw materials. Between mobility, fast movement, jump upgrades for the suit, and stealth, I was able to lose enemies in seconds, even if I was spotted and ran around many a nightmare... Guess I should also include the telepath in the crew quarters as a must fight, and I cleared the one in the arboretum cause I was going out of my way to rescue people, but for the most part, I was absolutely able to dodge stuff if I wanted to, like I never messed with any of the weavers in the G.U.T.S. but just snuck past them unseen each time I went through it. I may have done my moments of rushing into combat gung-ho, to clear a few phantoms or collect materials, but I could have avoided them if I wanted to and probably will be without any mimic powers to help me.
I know I grouped all my answers into only two points and you had broken it up differently, but I think I touch on all the questions at some point.... Eventually I will get back into a situation where I can stream games (internet where I am at now is just not stable enough) mean to do a few different rums on Prey in different ways so I will be demostrating it.. I tried to at one point (different channel I run) but lag issues stopped me about 3 hours in and I haven't given it another shot since.
PS: As an afterthought, I should note the difference in the way I treated turrets made for huge differences too, as the first playthrough turrets did most of the fighting for me, so I didn't need to.
Thanks. That does make sense. We might just have to agree to disagree because I'm just not seeing the sort of variation I want or expect from the developer of Dishonored. That could be a case of unreasonable expectations, but those are my expectations nonetheless. On your first point, it doesn't sound like anything about the game changes other than the route you take and missing some content. If I see Danielle, the chef, and the nightclub on my first playthrough, I don't think it's great that I can avoid all that on a second. What would have been cool is if you could only reach Danielle with a stealth/mobility build and therefore you needed two playthroughs to see all the content. What you describe sounds very different to that.
It is good to hear that you could always avoid combat. I guess you're just better at the game or more patient than me (or both!). I still don't think stealth was properly implemented. It felt like a path the game wanted you to take at the beginning and a path you shouldn't take at the end. At the risk of banging on about Dishonored, I'd say that game did a much better job of implementing stealth. Every part of that game is equally designed for stealth OR combat and a lot of the skills are specifically designed to help you be stealthy.
Mind letting me know your Twitch username? I'll follow you on there and keep an eye out for the playthrough. I don't watch a lot of playthroughs, but I'm curious to see it.
Stealth is a very different game than in most stealth games... and it's not about patience so much as thinking quick and being very acrobatic and the quicker you are willing to move around, the less likely you are to be spotted... On my second playthough, where I was trying to be as stealthy as I could, most of the stealthing was done at a full run and had more to do with the route I was able to take than how much I took my time, and if I happened to run headlong into an enemy, the being quick thinking came in, because it means immediately coming up with a plan to get around them or double back and either way, lose them as quickly as possible if I don't have reason to face them.... It was rushing around the station where I had my best stealth, to the point where running from the Hardware Labs airlock back to the lobby, I'd only run into a single phantom that noticed me and it's the one always camped by the hallway to the Lobby and I was through the airlock before he could move to a spot where he could attack, from his starting position off to the side lobby and reception desk. My trip through the Lobby from that exit was usually straight out to the bridge, up onto the top of one of the hanging artworks, straight across it and into through the glass of Morgan's office until it gets closed 2/3rds of the way through the game. Going through Life Support, I'd seldom touch the floor except near the transition exits to the neighboring maps.... In the G.U.T.S., I'm usually moving at a full burn, as fast as the suit will move, but it's moving behind conveyor belts, though the partial hallway opposite the conveyor belts, or just dodging around the few floating cargo containers in ways that when a weaver would go to investigate noise I intentionally made, I'm staying out of site and slipping around behind him.... Stealth in Prey is NOT being sneaky and hiding.... It's throwing things as distractions and moving quick while the enemy is not looking, as well as using paths the enemy not only won't take, but won't even look in the direction of.
I should add that my version of stealth never included mimicry or the phantom's surge abilities... It was pure running, climbing, jumping and throwing things around to distract enemy.
Chris Davis Dishonored is a stealth game first, the whole idea is if you are caught is to fight your way into a hiding place
I know this is really late, but I hope you got a chance to replay this game because by the time you wrote this, you'd missed a huge amount of the actual gameplay choices, and there are so many complaints in this video just targeted at things you missed. You can use physics props for recycling and combat with cysts, you can totally stealth past most encounters except minibosses, leverage 3 objects can kill most phantoms in one hit... Etc etc. You just didn't realize them in your first playthrough. This game really shines once you know all the rules and are actively trying to push back against this game.
so i shouldnt waste an hour and a half watching this? thank you!
@@Urban_Flux just play Prey with a fuck around and find out attitude. The game is a lot of fun once you learn how things work.
@@TheRealJohnux was more about this video, than the game! I've played it through twice now and started a third but haven't gone back to it for a couple of months but I will. Game is excellent, one of my faves of recent times for sure and yes FAFO I would agree with haha
@@Urban_Flux I just recently got platinum on it, so the experience is still very fresh in my mind. Ive been also watching a LOT of Prey related Videos over the past few days.
I kinda feel Bad not having bought Prey in 2017, that year truly had lots of excellent titles, and I ended up buying Nier Automata and Nioh. Shouldn't have bought Nioh, should have gone for Prey instead.
“If I can’t use a coffee machine why is it here”
*deep breath*
Well considering I morphed into a coffee cup and broke into a room after stacking “useless” boxes.
It’s not useless, it gives you way more options.
i was about to make a comment regarding him playing an immersive sim and having no creativity to do things like that. "why is the box there if i cant use it" its not the games fault you cant think outside of the modern gamer mindset to come up with a way to use the box....
Treetop Samuelson exactly!
I’ve gotten stuck in plenty of puzzle games.
Portal takes me longer than I’d like to admit if I haven’t played in a while.
But good lord, I never once got stuck while playing Prey.
The Gloo gun, mimic ability, upgraded gliding, there’s so many options of movement, so many ways to get to seeming inaccessible places, it’s amazing.
Treetop Samuelson saying it’s an “illusion of choice” because you have like 3 ways to do most things is like saying New Vegas gives you an illusion of choice because there’s 4 distinct endings.
Just because the very end of the game boils down to 2 choices doesn’t mean the process of playing and making other choices didn’t matter.
After all, Hoover Dam is gonna have a battle and you’re going to be on the winning side, guess that means New Vegas only has an illusion of choice.
@@Jessie_Helms little late to this party but just because some of the objects are useful doesn't make his point bad. You can interact with every object and I'd say they are absolutely useless 90% of the time.
And yes it is an illusion of choice. You can do things kind of differently but it always leads to the same outcome with very little variation. Me hacking a door vs jumping into a vent to go to the same room isn't really a huge change up.
And with combat you either use a mix alien and human abilities or you're just making the game harder for no reason. Stealth and engineering type builds are nowhere near as effective as just putting points into combat and targeting their weaknesses.
@@kingpinavatar if you have a different gameplay experience then it's not an ILLUSION of choice, it's a choice. that's what the intention was, to give you different ways to approach problems, not to give you different story branches. it also matters if it gives you a different experience, not just if you get "press A for this cutscene, press B for this other cutscene".
I keep hearing about people criticising the "It was all a dream" esq ending but I think the points been missed
Calling it a "Dream" assumes nothing was achieved but remember this was a simulation. One that convinced the enemy that they were a human struggling for survival and had numerous tough decisions to make that hypothetically only a compassionate human could navigate. It showed the phantom fear as it had to face itself and its brothers for countless hours in an uphill struggle, If nothing else the phantom has now experienced first hand how terrifying their kind are to humans. The choices in the ending are fair enough. To chose to kill everyone shows it was futile and they will never truly show compassion.. or to take Alex's hand shows it was all worth it
Plus it wasn’t a dream. It all really happened. The alien at the end is just ‘replaying’ those memories. The good ending is obviously the Cannon ending but the alien can choose whatever one they want.
So yes you are playing a simulation but it’s a simulation of real events. Morgan really did these things. The only difference is at the very end choice.
@@reidhanson4755 while most of the stuff is definitely real and happened... the choices that morgan there were choices that the typon made inside the simulation, not ones that were already decided because they already happened. that was (part of) the point after all, to see how the python would decide.
The scientists made it clear that these creatures were like animals, all they care was to eat and reproduce. They didn't have any morals like most animals on earth.
@@reidhanson4755 Why is the good ending obviously the cannon one? You could have played as a murdering Typhon and chose to continue that till the end.
Exactly
"What kind of game does it want Prey to be"
Pretty sure the developers were going for an Immersive Sim or am I wrong?
Within the first moments of this video, I already get a sense that you've misread what the developers meant with "play your way". This doesn't necessarily mean a multitude of moral choices, when I heard that I immediately imagined a multitude of gameplay options, which the game delivers on. Exploration and discovery really were a focus of the game. That's a minus in your book apparently, but that was exactly what I wanted out of a game like this. The several "moral choices" in the game satisfied my need for those, because I never imagined the game to be about a multitude of moral choices. Moral choices in games typically fall flat, with a rare few exceptions, because they're usually implemented in a ham-fisted way and it's difficult to really care. You're mostly just thinking about the ways in which the game will reward you for making one choice or another, and not really pondering the morality of your choice. When a developer promises freedom of choice, I always hope for freedom in the gameplay, not freedom in moral choices, and thank god that Prey delivers on exactly this.
I don't know if I was hearing something completely different from you but I didn't seem like moral choices were his main complaint about the "play your way" advertisement. It seemed to be that all the technically different styles of play basically only amounted to side by side options. they didn't have any exclusive things to the way you wanted to play it was just a different way to get from point a to point b but also not really cuz it was just basically a skill check. Also the fact that you have to apparently play very combat oriented even if you wanted to play different ways and be stealthy or hack turrets or whatever you still needed to focus on combat. In fact I don't seem to hear him complain at all about different moral choices at all, I don't know why that's what you're assuming he's critiquing.
@@Synnabelle This was a while back and I don't remember the video well, I'll remind myself and try to post a meaningful reply, but I'd like to say for now that combat can be almost completely avoided if the right tools are used which I think is an example of the freedom the game gives you. As for the morality question, l'll get back to you when I rewatch at least a significant amount of the video.
@@EvilTim1911 i second that you missed the point
@@EvilTim1911 I didn't expect it to be fresh in your mind I know this is a very late response but I just want to state my piece. I've been binging all of his videos and wanted to get different opinions and noticed that you seemed to disagree but it didn't seem like you were fully hearing his side.
It is a different view. I also do not agree with the opening, but there are also other analysis of this game.
Prey did have a few choices, the loading plus backtracking and that the game felt stretched brought my final score down to it is a good (maybe a good plus) game.
I never equipped Typhon mods, especially after what January told me. I also played primarily stealth. This was my first blind playthrough as well. Combat was fun the entire time as I was always figuring out new strategies to overcome obstacles. It was amazing the entire way through.
I think a major problem you had was in respect to your ability to think divergently.
I also went the chad real human route.
You definitely didn’t see this ending, but if you do decide to only play with human neuromods (like I did), you get another option where you can blow up Talos AND leave on the shuttle bc you have no Typhon material going back to earth.
Leverage 3 is only useless if you lack imagination and think its only function is moving things out of your way. My favorite application of that skill is a combat one (in a similar way to Bioshock's telekinesis), and with that in mind being able to carry really heavy objects is quite crucial. I mean, why waste ammo on a phantom, if you can just squash it with a sofa?
I agree 3 is a bit useless but I’d argue 1 and 2 especially are crucial.
I appreciate your critique but I find it odd that at nearly every point I cannot agree with you. I found Joseph Anderson's critique much more in depth with regards to how choice comes into play, the myriad volumes of ways choice can affect gameplay, and what it means for the story. I also strongly disagree with your assertion that the story is about thwarting an alien invasion and this somehow not being appropriately resolved by the ending. The story is a reflexive meditation on ethics, the *plot* involves an alien invasion. There are no right or wrong choices in this story, just like the trolley problem it's rather a question of ethics. That's why there's no "good" or "bad" ending or outcomes, only outcomes based upon the choices you make and how they make you feel, how you square why you made those choices.
The opening of the game tells you everything you need to know, that your world is not real and that your abilities are not as important as your choices when concerning their use. By the end of the game this is repeated. It's not that "nothing you did mattered" but rather "WHY did you do what you did?" Such as did you save people in the crew hold but later blow up the station? Why? How do you resolve that you thought it was worth saving people only to murder them later? Why not spare them the horror earlier? Is that murder? And this is just one of the *many many MANY* decisions you make for which there is no "right" or "wrong."
Thank you for the in-depth video and discussion of this game, I hope to watch future videos of yours even if I disagree.
Hey, thanks for watching and commenting in a positive way, despite disagreeing. First of all, you won't hear any arguments from me about Joseph's video being better! I do feel like you've slightly put words into my mouth though. I don't remember saying it's a story about thwarting an alien invasion (although to be fair, my memory only extends to my most recent video!).
I actually agree with you that the game is about ethics. I just happen to think it does a terrible job of implementing ethical choices. First of all, you mention sparing people the horror by killing them earlier. I agree that this makes sense and is something you should consider doing. But then what's the result of that? You'll get a few vague sentences from a bot that says something like "well he killed these people which is bad, but then he might just be relating to his inner typhon." Or some nonsense like that. It's so vague as to be useless. This is supposed to be a big moment where we're judged and yet it barely changes and feels weak. That's definitely something I disagree with Joseph on as he seemed to be more enamored with that bit.
But let's take the whole simulation thing out of it. I think many people have interpreted my "illusion of choice" comment to refer mainly to the fact that it's a simulation and that nothing else matters. That's not really what I was going for. Imagine the story didn't end with a simulation at all. The ethical choices are still terrible.
For example, the Igwe quest. That's a complete non-choice. The game clearly wants you to save him because he plays a role in the story, so it structures it in such a way that many players will save him without realizing it's even a choice. You need to bring in a container. Why wouldn't you bring in the one with Igwe? This isn't an ethical choice, but it easily could be with a few changes.
What about this? You can only bring in one container (let's pretend that the device is on its last legs). In one container is Igwe, however when you use the computer, you find out that another terminal has a crap tonne of resources in it. Loads of neuromods, ammo, maybe even a rare gun. Now you have to make a choice. Do you grab the loot or save Igwe? This is an ethical choice that means something and has consequences.
Or perhaps you find information on the computer that says Igwe is bad. With a bit of rewriting, he could even be the imposter chef. Now you have to decide whether to let a bad guy onto the ship. Maybe the terminal has information about him and you can talk to him and get his side of the story. He protests his innocence. What do you do? Perhaps somewhere else on the ship is proof that he's either good or bad, so later on you are forced to realize the error of your ways (or not). If you were really paying attention, you might already have the answer by the time you get to this stage. This is the sort of ethical choice I want to see and it wouldn't have taken much work. Prey's current choices are choices in the basic sense of the word, but they are rarely ethical decisions.
Probably should have included these examples in the video...
Anyway, I agree that Prey is a meditation on ethics, but I think it's a bad one.
Thank you very much for your response! While I do not agree with your points I strongly respect you for taking the time to respond to me. I think our point of disagreement revolves around whether the results of ethics decisions should manifest via gameplay. I believe it would ruin the effect on me if there were benefits or detriments to the gameplay (a la Bioshock's ADAM) for my decisions whereas I can see now that such additions would be a big benefit for your experience. Your example of using the rescue of Dr. Igwe I think is an excellent one that illustrates the point well as for me it would ruin the experience but for you it would fix the experience.
Even though we don't agree I again thank you very much for your time to respond to me and give me a more complete picture of where you're coming from. I just subbed solely due to this sort of discourse and I hope that other viewers will consider your well-presented points.
+Foxx Block Thanks for subscribing. I welcome this kind of criticism as opposed to aggression and name calling. It's a breath of fresh air. I look forward to seeing you in future comment sections!
As a viewer from a non-English-speaking country, I really enjoy reading the comments from both of you, all of them being very exquisitely and grammatically written. On top of that, the ideas you convey through these messages are clearly presented and thought-provoking.
I personally dislike the ADAM harvest choice in BioShock either, which by and large impairs my gaming experience, but fortunately not to the point where it's entirely ruined. And, that being among the VERY, VERY few choices that the game has, as well as the set of plasmids at players' disposal for combat encounters, is not enough to offer an immersive-sim-esque experience full of player's freedom.
i find it strange how he says theres no point in picking up physics objects when theres an entire skill branch based around fucking enemies up with physics objects
You are entitled to your opinions my man, but the more I watched your video, the more it seems that you kind of missed the real versatility of the game. Narratively I agree the game is so-so, but it does have depth when you save the crew and read the e-mails, listen to audio logs. It paints how Talos-1 was a living, breathing home and workplace for the crew, giving it a very Rapture feel of a place in a harsh environment outside the glass with people who lived there and had their own stories to tell.
As for the gameplay, I feel you limited yourself by not understanding the versatility of the Gloo Gun and some of your tools. I played with no Alien Powers my first time and I got a lot of mileage with the right Neuromod upgrades and making sure I salvaged all I could to keep myself resource happy so when the end game stuff came I was never going 'oh hell I'm out of X!'. Honestly, it feels like you weren't trying to play with an open mind, you just stuck to what YOU felt was the way to play and didn't flex. This game rewards player's with flexibility, you didn't utilize a lot of the game's mechanics properly. It reminded me of a few Let's Plays I've watched here the Let's Player utterly failed to notice stuff in the game and would rage quit out of frustration, the frustration they themselves caused by not noticing options B, C, and D were also there along with option A.
I feel your critique is flawed and actually does a disservice to those who never played the game and can easily get the wrong idea about it. As your mere opinion of it, again you're entitled to it and we shall agree to disagree. I just hope anyone who watches your video doesn't pass Prey over because of it as they're missing out on a fun experience. All that said I did find parts of your video enjoyable and you do seem to make many good points, so kudos good sir.
Prey is no masterpiece but it's a damn enjoyable game with some annoying bits and narrative lackluster that keeps it from being System Shock or Bioshock, but it is a good game worth a look and play for those wanting a SciFi flavored game with RPG-Lite elements, free-form exploration and satisfying problem solving and amazing environments to explore.
Prey is a masterpiece
wow so many fanboys
game is mid at best
I dont think you are seeing the full possibility of some of the games featured. Leverage 3 isnt just to pick up those few huge objects, it let's you pick up leverage 2 objects faster, manuever smaller objects even better, you can throw objects harder and farther, and level 3 objects aren't just moved from your path but can be used to make obstacles for enemies or thrown for damage.
Honestly this game is the greatest success I've ever seen when it comes to play your way. In my opinion
Yeah that is my biggest complaint about this review, besides his fundamental misunderstanding of what "play it your way" is supposed to mean. You can use the systems in many different ways, and you can often find solutions to obstacles that the developers didn't even intend if you screw around with the gloo gun, the powers, leverage, the super jump, etc. He seriously missed the mark with this review.
did this man find a single recycling charge?
"theres a sticky note on the first computer, so it says to the players there is not much point in hacking" when directly behind him theres a safe that is only accessible with a high hacking skill. The review is basically full of non-sensical "critiques" like that.
Stealth in this game is more about getting an advantage on enemies or avoiding them completely, than getting instant kills. It ensures you have the first move, which usually means victory. I don't much agree with the "difficulty" argument, I played the game on Nightmare my first time through, and had no problems whatsoever. I was very cautious in the early game, meticulously planning every Typhon kill, spending most of my points on Hacking and other utilities, then reached a point in the midgame when it all clicked. The rest of the game was a doom-esque running up to enemies undetected and shotgunning them for 200+ criticals, then Psycho shocking them for good measure if they weren't already dead. I don't recall having problems with any enemy after that mid point. Even the Nightmare was stupidly easy: Psycho Shock, Combat Focus, and about 5 Shotgun blasts. Had plenty of chips to refill Psi by just running around. Only thing that bothered me a bit were the space battles, since it was harder to close in to the enemies.
This guy gets it......but the review didn't.
Did you ever come back to this video to read the top comment of this video that eloquently laid out the multiple paths you missed on your first play through. Do you still hold the same opinion after reading that top comment. It's one you never replied to as opposed to more agresssive comments that have not approached you with such a valid critisim.
True. I guess valid criticism hurts a lot more, it is a lot more solid and factually true than the agressive comments. You dismiss the comments, but you cannot dismiss the truth. It hurts admitting you've done your job wrong. 🤣🤣
He answered to a comment that had similar issues back when the video was new, I doubt he goes back to answer comments on old vids a year after the fact. Apparently that’s what I’m here for lmao.
Yes; as many others have said below, I find this to be a poor critique of the game - it feels like a review by someone who doesn't like the immersive sim genre. Most of the 'choice' criticisms can be leveled at the Shock Games, Vampire Bloodlines, Deus Ex...
I almost never used the gloo gun in my playthrough, found lots of use for stealth (especially on ceiling beams and in vents), and purchased 0 typhon abilities. Shotgun/Beam were my jam.
It feels like we played a different game, which is the whole point of immersive sims. How did you get this critique so wrong?
Ah... played it on PS4... yeah... it was bad there. I feel that's an important caveat.
5:25 you can pick these items up and later recycle them with a recycle grenade
Generally I like your videos, but I disagreed with near every aspect of this one.
Ikr i was like wtf ? This game is amazing at every turn i was in the elevator and it topped and the light just shut out and I was like wth and a phantom popped up in back of me like that was amazing it was sooo different i played alot of games and I can say it's like if bioshock 1 and dishonored had a alien baby this is the game just a fun open map sandbox to me
@@CH369 I don’t think he got how much choice the game actually has
It's a good game but let's be honest 99% of his problems are valid, especially about the combat and story.
As a games designer, I always take issue when people say "the game only offers you the illusion of choice" thats not true at all, more aptly the phrase should be "all games only offer you the illusion of choice, its just how well hidden it is that tricks people into thinking otherwise"
Sorry, but I don't entirely understand this. Games do offer you choices. You can be good or bad in the original Mass Effect games, for example. Now, I admit, you don't have complete freedom, but that is a choice which impacts the ending and many of the smaller interactions you have in the game. Many games have something like this (Deus Ex, infamous, KOTR). There are choices. Usually limited choices, and often simply a case of good vs evil, but clearly choices.
Obviously, I'm not a game dev, so if you could help me understand what you mean, I'd appreciate it.
you are correct to an extent, basically the idea of choice in games is largely an arbitrary one. Take for instance, the mass effect 3 ending, which was largely divisive due to it essentially just acting as a colour swap and nothing much more. Most choice based endings are this, but good ones add on a ton of meat, more ultimately variables that make the endings seem more different than they actually are.
another bioware that did the ending properly was dragon age origins, which basically took more of your choices into account when it came to the ending, however this illusion of choice is shown more in how the sequels treat your game, the only carry overs is who is king and what your warden did. Two choices are the only ones that really carry over in any substantial way. however you don't really "feel" this, and thats the key, make the player feel like their choices are important, regardless of the fact that they are not in practice, they do this with the slideshow at the end, there are many different combinations of these ending slideshows that explain what happened based on the choices you made, but they never actually do anything, all they do is give you that slideshow telling you something happened, your choice results in an arbitrary slideshow with a little bit of story flavor behind it.
your choices aren't actually changing the flow of the game, you are almost always going to end up in one place in your ending with a slideshow to tie up the loose ends of your game (especially in RPG's) it doesn't matter though as if its done well enough, the player is too emotionally invested in learning, reading or hearing about the choice they made, what the "feel" like they did to the world. They didn't actually do anything, they chose the red or the blue pill, but it gave them a slideshow at the end telling them the choice was important which makes them feel good, it gives the player agency and that is important, that is how you mask choice in games. by making the player feel like their choice has done something, even if it hasn't.
"They didn't actually do anything, they chose the red or the blue pill, but it gave them a slideshow at the end telling them the choice was important which makes them feel good, it gives the player agency and that is important, that is how you mask choice in games. by making the player feel like their choice has done something, even if it hasn't."
True enough, but my point is that Prey doesn't even do this. It gives you two red pills and then the same slideshow at the end. You're right about the whole issue with sequels though and that's something I don't envy developers for. It's a nigh on impossible task to implement previous choices in a sequel in a compelling way.
oh yeah no agree, prey failed to add a greater differential contexts surrounding either endings, they acted more like teasers for something more than an actual ending. it wasn't enough to make me dislike the game since it does so much right but I can see how it wouldn't work for a lot of people.
That's fair enough. If I'd have enjoyed more of the game, I'd like to think that the ending wouldn't ruin the experience for me. I don't hate the entirety of Mass Effect 3 just because of the ending.
You said the tutorial didn't tell you anything about the typhon Powers but on a computer in the simulation labs by the testing rooms it has names for each room, such as "spooky action" ect hinting at the abilites you can get. Why do you Think they are so frustrated with your failures? They expect you to have typhon abilities with the nerumod you installed to test out but January had a blank installed so you have no Powers here. There is plenty of hinting if you explore, Plus, edit, you use stamina terribly. Hold the button to charge a Power blow instead of swinging wildy wasting it.
Sofia R Ikr. Also drink some booze which adds to your melee damage. You can 2 shot a phantom with a wrench with alcohol after you glooed him. Also stack up some O2 canisters, lure the enemy and blow him up. There are so many possibilities for combat. Plus you get mods that allow you to spot mimics so there shouldn't be an excuse for not sneaking up on one and either one shot him with the wrench or gun. This game clearly went over his head.
I might come off as a bit of a humble brag, but you completely missed the point. IF you choose to play without any typhon powers, the game stays a survival horror. With Typhon powers it becomes more of an MMO style point and click adventure, e.g. like WOW, or Dragon Age (not an mmo, but still). The fact that combat isn't fun, is in that it poses enemies as obstacles and makes combat less of a solution. Dishonored actually suffers from it a lot: you can power through many areas just by virtue of having powers that ... well, for the lack of a better word make it pointless to hide. The most fun you could have there is if you go high chaos, and that defeats the whole premise of it being a stealth game.
as for the illusion of choice: The gloo staircase is an option. The game clearly telegraphs how you need to use it for navigation, but it doesn't tell you that navigation is a clear alternative to combat. I have done a no needles playthrough, and I'll try to describe the experience. Every level has one fabricator and one recycler, but they're not always functional. No repair, no recycling. If you switch on weapon degradation, you usually need to recycle weapons, and treat all resources as expendables; so surprisingly, the resource management becomes even less crucial. What does, is finding alternative solutions to problems with limited resources. I swear to god, I found it mighty frustrating when your guns give out, you have burn trauma and radiation, a technopath in your way and no medkit. THEN you get a eureka moment - I don't actually need to fight him: I can just as easily make a gloo staircase and get out.
The backtracking is also a narrative device that blew past you. Simply put, this is about using the resources in the environment to your advantage. To give you a fair shot, you are let into the rooms twice, but then, you are encouraged to use your knowledge to avoid combat, avoid losing resources, and explore without it becoming a zero sum game. This is the only game where luring a technopath into a room and locking the door behind them is not only a valid, but a satisfying strategy. The goal isn't to give you meaningful choice as in "what do you want to get in the end", but to ask you "how many ways, and how cleverly can you solve a standard problem", and the neuromods are simply a get-out-of-jail-free card, not a necessity.
The reason why you didn't see meaningful choice is because you made the easiest most convenient choice for you and stuck to it. The games is far more rewarding if you play it like a puzzle.
I agree mostly, however, I must agree that the backtracking in Prey isnt always great. The last few sections of the game in particular are sapped by the amount of loading screens you encounter even with the game on an SSD. Its tedious as hell and doesn't make for an effective escape sequence. Especially if you got your friends off the station and made a decision only to realize that it meant basically nothing in the game's ending as mankind ends up in the same position no matter what.
@@Ironfist528 the whole point of the game is that such moral choices that will end the same way as immoral ones matter.
although I must confess the loading screens could have been done away with Dead Space style.
I have a fairly simple standard when judging a game, did I enjoy it? Did it make me feel a certain way? Prey is one of my all time favourites. My enjoyment of the game only increased with time and has mostly to do with the fact I realised I could explore in different ways and the fact the level design is absolutely the best I've seen in a video game. This, despite the fact I don't particularly like the combat. I don't think the freedom this game offers is an illusion, yes maybe the ending is the same no matter what you do, but there is freedom in exploration and that is what I enjoyed.
You can actually use every object you can pick up. The recycle grenade turns all movable objects into crafting materials. Carrying things and making a huge pile then throwing a grenade at the pile is quite useful. Just a little fyi for future viewers.
Tell me you are bad player without telling me you are bad player
Hey Chris! I'd like to say that this is a great video, which I'm sure it is, deducing from just having seen your entire ME:A critique, but I haven't watched it yet. I was just at the part where you suggested Noah's video. You might want to correct the link in the description so that it doesn't redirect the person clicking it to the 37th minute.
Alright, now back to the analysis. Like I said, I've watched your Mass Effect video, and I fucking loved it. Keep up the great work!
I had no idea I'd done that. Link fixed. Thanks for letting me know!
I like the stealth in this game. It works less like the "Insta-kill" method that a lot of other games use, and more like a Getting the first hit in, giving you an advantage in the upcoming fight, or just avoiding the fight all together. I actually wish more stealth based games were like this.
Even System Shock 2 had visible flashback ghosts of the inhabitants doing stuff around the ship.
The Fat Bastid something I credit bioshock doing too, even though bioshock was shit.
I give this game a 9/10, the most interesting & atmospheric game this year, System Shock reborn :D make sure to play on nightmare difficulty. This game is literally all about the journey & not destination, better than Dishonored 2, imo.
When you first wake up in the game don't get on copter break the sliding glass door first thing and see what happens? Can it be done
I wouldn't use the word 'analysis' unless you are a competent analyst.
I agree with all your videos except for this one. I love pray, played it again straight after my first play, I had so much fun with it
interesting, through my play through I went full stealth and only human neuromods. yes there were places where combat was forced (and they were annoying for sure), but it was definitely a viable build for stealth killing enemies, which helps you save ammo for the harder bits. guess you were just going about it differently or something? not sure why it didn't work out for you, but I got a chuckle when I heard you pretty much describe my build and then say "god help you if you play this way", I used the wrench a lot with the stealth so maybe that was the ticket (aka that horrendous weapon)
@Chris Davis, its not her/his short term memory that gets erased, but all the memories that have been made since the installation of the mod. As in, if a infant had a mod installed at birth and it was later removed. The person will have absolutely no memory at all, even if it was removed 20 years after installation.
Reference 21:00
Though that would answer an interesting question of why we have memories, time or experience.
What difficulty did you choose? I played on normal and found the game very easy for the most part. And I consider myself a very casual player.
Although I agree with a few negatives,
I found this game very intense and enjoyable!!!
Its a tough unrelenting sci-fi action thriller that demands tactical thinking outside of the normal shooter framework..
It has its faults and is far from perfect..but deserves much more respect than this in my opinion..
There is no cover system. Leaning, sidestepping and crouching anyone?
Because it is not needed
and the main problem with the "play your way" thing only actually works when you know the layout of the ship.
you can actually do certain things out of order. but you have to know how and what to do before that
I know this video is old and this is kinda of a shallow comment, but the military operators were free Q beam ammo for me. Just used the charge up wrench attack to cc lock them and picked them off one by one. They also don’t do a lot of damage if you can kite the laser.
As for the stealth aspect of the game. I think there are a lot of interesting stealth options in the game. The environment usually has a path for you and just making the decision to look up every now and then goes a long way. The huntress bowcaster is also a wonderful stealth tool for bypassing fights like the Technopath in Neuromod Fabrication I believe.
I liked Dues Ex more, but this is so close to it in spirit that I've really liked it.
I loved your Fallout videos and just finished Prey, so now I’m watching this vid. I’m 5 mins in and I can already tell we have wildly diverging opinions of this game. I much prefer Joseph Anderson’s critique, I didn’t agree with him on everything but I think he captured my opinion of the game much better. I’m going to add points on which I disagree with you to this comment as I go along. Already got my first:
5:10 - You complain that the random junk you can pick up serves no purpose, but it’s obvious to me they’re items for the mimics to duplicate themselves into. Being able to pick up these items adds a duplicity to them, as they might be a mimic. Also, you can use items and throw them at blocked doorways to unblock them if you are persistent enough.
9:01 - This isn’t really a criticism of your views on the game, but I for one, playing the game a year after release, didn’t actually know this was coming. Once I got the wrench I realized I should break the glass and I suspected the city may have been a painted image, but when I woke up and first started the game I believed I was on earth in a normal setting.
9:46 - Totally disagree that the game is terrified of locking you out of content. The ability to access different terminals/rooms/items through different methods is part of the fun of solving problems in Prey. This isn’t true for every bit of content though. Some areas have a hard requirement of a certain repair or hacking skill to access, and other areas require you to actually read terminals or pay attention to environmental information to know how to access a certain area. Referencing Joseph Anderson, he did 3 play throughs and from his footage I saw tons of things I missed. I played 28 hours and found a ton of things, but I did miss out on some content due to my characters skills and my personal lack of ingenuity in some circumstances.
10:58 - You just kind of invalidated your point at 5:10 , you can’t use any climbable objects in your inventory but you’re admitting that items have a use in being picked up because they can be climbed. Also what makes you think players who did this are smart asses lol. It’s a valid tactic.
Not going to set a time stamp because you talk about stealth for a long time, but I disagree that it’s not a viable build. You simply weren’t creative enough in how you tried to avoid enemies. I went for a combat build in my playthrough, but I would stealth occasionally and had no trouble doing so, even with several enemies around. I was barely speced into stealth too. Abilities like mimic and phantom shift (which you called a neutral skill, wtf?) allow you to sneak by very close enemies, and the verticality of the levels always gives a way around enemies. You’re blaming Prey for your failure or inability to adhere to your supposed attempt to stealth.
24:08 - I agree that the mimics are fast, but what you’re saying imposed over the footage you’re showing here is actually ridiculously laughable. Ever tried moving around a little man? You basically sit still in that encounter, whacking 3 mimics at once in a punching match. Maybe jump a little? Back up? Run away and regroup, or switch to your gloo gun when you’re further away? Use a combat skill if you have one? Also, it seems to me you’re playing on controller, and with a mouse your sensitivity can be much faster and your wrench strikes are much more accurate. Again, the mimics are fast, but your scathing critique of the melee / gloo gun combat with mimics seems a little more down to your ineptitude and unwillingness to think fast.
25:45 - Jesus Christ what you say here and show on screen again is so god damn frustrating. I have a hard time believing that you didn’t just fake that combat sequence to make it look as pathetic as possible. Maybe it’s just because you were using a controller (I think?), but I had no sense whatsoever that the combat was sluggish. What I remember from Prey was running into a room with 3 phantoms, using a kinetic blast, swapping to my shotgun and flooring them all in a matter of 15 seconds. It was fucking fun as hell. I don’t know wtf was wrong with your perceived combat experience. I play battlefield too btw, and the twitch combat in Prey, at least on mouse, is just as good.
46:55 - I see no reason why the ending is “bullshit and cheap.” It works as the game starts in a simulation, having it happen again flows logically. It’s a good surprise, and the game puts importance on your choices still, as it determines whether or not your Typhon character can cooperate with human kind. I don’t know why this ending bothered you, I think it’s brilliant.
50:02 - Really? The game would have been similar had Alex been the only other survivor? An essential element of the game is how empathetic you, as a Typhon, are towards other people. 4 of them judge you at the end of the simulation. They’re a absolutely essential to the story, and help to illustration your Typhon’s sense of morality.
18:04 - I'm sorry what was that? Necropussy? That sounds like a Riot Grrl band.
A lot of people don't seem to get it and I don't blame them. This game is much more about carrying the torch of a dying niche genre than just being a game about aliens and a bunch of other stuff.
If Looking Glass Studios means anything to you this game is probably one of the best experiences of the decade and the majority probably won't get it as I said. This game is probably one of the last breaths of a genre that will most likely die in the near future, at least for the triple A market. It's a game that was born in the 90s and hasn't aged a bit. A game from an era when developers and designers ran the business, not guys in suits.
As much as I like Bioshock I honestly feel like that game sold it's soul (it's roots) to make it more appealing and it pretty much succeeded, since it became such a huge franchise. Bioshock was excellent but it felt like something was missing. Prey is the truth. The only thing missing in Prey is Shodan, we can only hope SS1 remake will live to see the light of day.
"Looking Glass System"
Subtle
my first play-through was without any upgrades... it was really difficult, but fun.
Would you be able to consider prey a first-person metroidvania?
Quick note in terms of items you can interact with, but have no apparent use early on.
Smaller items are useful for your mimic ability. Need to squeeze through a small opening into a security office? Mimic a coffee mug.
Larger items are useful when you level up your Leverage ability. This allows you to hurl objects at enemies instead of spending ammo or psi, which can be sparse at times in the game.
Hey quick question. If you kill Alex is the ending still the same because apparently those were actually Morgans memories right and if you kill him he shouldn't be alive at the end.
+Chidi Tuke If you kill Alex then one of the machines (I can't remember which one) makes a comment along the lines of "he killed you" to Alex and then Alex brushes it off. Alex is alive in all the ending scenarios even if you kill him. That's part of the problem. We as the player have no idea which events actually happened and which were just inside the simulation.
Chris Davis Lol wow okay that's ridiculous! Anyways, thanks for responding so quickly I really appreciate it. I'm loving your Analysis. I've watched this one and Andromeda today and I'm watching your review of Neil right now. Keep up the great work.
+Chidi Tuke No problem. Thanks for watching.
the 4x comment was hilarious!
+magnusberge And true! I would genuinely need alien enhancement to understand those things.
It ain't hard. You just need to grow up playing 4X's :)
+Khan Khomrad I actually used to play Civ 2 as a kid although I was presumably terrible. One of my big regrets is that I stopped playing those games because now I can't get back into them.
To be fair I started playing 4X's Quite late. I can only speak for myself, but what helped me get into the gist of the thing was a mixture of 4 things:
1- My love for History;
2- Listening to the Podcast "Three Moves Ahead";
3- Playing to learn, not to win;
4- Endless Legend ( It helped me a lot to internalize some major 4X principles).
Anyway, just finished watching the video. Loved it.
Would you recommend Endless Legend as a good starting point? I've heard of it, but actually thought it looked more confusing than other 4X games, not less. I can't imagine getting to it anytime soon because the channel keeps me pretty busy, but I'd like to keep an eye out in case it goes on sale.
My understanding is that the Nightmare only shows up if you use a certain amount of alien mods. I also ran into the "man I wish I had more combat skills" when the mercenary showed up. It was a real chore hacking all those bots. I didn't mind the twist at the end since it otherwise was a bit bland.
The answer to the trolley problem is always multi-track drifting.
Well at least it didn't end like The Sopranos where it just cut to black in mid sent--
Haha. I love The Sopranos and I refuse to accept that ending. There's a good critique online (masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/) that makes a great case for Tony dying because of the way the scene was shot. I'm taking that as definite because I refuse to accept the ambiguity.
Hmm, like almost always, I first played the game (finished it yesterday on PC) and then watched reviews, explanations, etc. I have used only a few neuromods (max leverage, hacking, and suit upgrades to carry more stuff) and none of the typhon abilities. All of the gameplay was stealth. There were only a few times I had to combat enemies which were quickly dealt with recycle charges and turrets. I was playing really slowly, taking time, backtracking didn't bother me at all. Enjoyed every moment of it.
@Chris Davis - would you entertain the possibility that Prey 2017 is actually Half Life 3?
God, I hope not.
I think the ending is also a simulation because it flashes a blue screen to really quickly while Alex is talking to the typon and the other operators 🤷🏻♂️🤔
finding the mimics by looking for out of place objects reminds me of prop hunt
I haven't played it, but yeah, looks similar. The crowbar in Prop Hunt is almost certainly more fun to swing around than Prey's wrench though.
What the hell?! Your critics are based around
1) an over-interpretation of a marketing phrase ("play it your way")
2) your expectations of what you want the game to be (a stealth game where avoiding combat is a viable option) and
3) your inability to "learn" the game (standing still and unloading your guns into enemies).
You criticize the game for not having choices (regarding gameplay/combat) but play it in the most linear, boring and inefficient way possible.
Just an example: You want to play stealthy and max out leverage first? What about sneaking???? And you just use leverage to move objects that are in your way? What about the damage it deals when you throw stuff at enemies? Or the increased range you can throw explosive objects? Leverage 3 can also allows you to open unpowered doors. Everything opens up "new options" for you to play the game. And the only thing you actually mention is neglectable, as you can use recycle grenades or the mimic ability to get past those obstacles.
Ugh you should watch his Metro review, its PAINFUL.
I have a theory on the null wave device. It was actually made and taken off of the Talos station to the first city that was infested by the Typhon by the Yu's and a crew of soldiers. However, during setup/activation, the Typhon attacked the site (the device may or may not have been used earlier on Talos, I'll leave that up to the individual person to decide on that) and Morgan was either killed or taken over by the Typhon and Alex and his forces were decimated, being forced to abandon the device. If a second Prey game is made where you play as the Typhon with Morgans simulated memory and my theory is correct, then the device could be the big end goal, with the player being given one last moral choice (maybe even two, if Morgan was taken over by the Typhon of either killing Morgan to get to your goal or freeing them some way) of either destroying the device and ensuring the Typhon as Earths rulers, or sacrifice yourself and activate the device (which probably has some sort of network set up to spread the signal across the globe, which may or may not be the main plot of the game)
I think this review is a good example of one of the biggest shortcomings of prey. The first time I played it, I put in about 2 hours and absolutely hated it. Although I did enjoy the beginning, I felt like i didn’t understand how to play. After a year or so I gave it another go and loved it. Something clicked, and prey is now my favorite game. I really don’t understand exactly why this is though. I have showed prey to many people and everyone I know who’s tried it has had mixed feelings. And consistently my friends (and myself initially) summed up why they didn’t like something along the lines of “I just don’t get it” or “I don’t understand what the game wants me to do”. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can confidently say why this is. Maybe it’s a sign of more popular fps games lacking the “emergent gameplay” sandbox approach that prey does? I’m not sure. I hope you managed to replay at some point and enjoyed it!
It's a lack of imagination. Most games made are rather scripted and handholdy. Prey went the route of creating a game where you can literally do almost anything in any way you want. There's always at least two, and often three, four or even five ways into an area if you're creative enough. This also applies to the combat, you can approach the combat in so many different ways I'd say it's hard to really grasp the full depth of it until that, 'click' moment. For anyone struggling with combat however, I'd straight up just recommend combat focus. It's almost literally an 'I win' button. Especially with the shotgun.
i played it in two diferent ways and i got nice results in both of them, i got lots of resoursces but no skills at the first and the second i got lots of skills(powers) and almost no rescources. i found stealth even at the end to be possible, but as the game progresses you'l need to get better at this so obviusly it will get harder and there are parts that you cant do it like you planed it, and that shows the weakneses of your skill tree, while the parts you found to be easy shows the strogness of it. sorry this is is'nt my first language
''the guns feel awfull'' we played thee same game right?
''theres no ads''so?
''theres no cover system'' most atacks are ranged projectiles wich you can dodge and the rest have very small range
I played with human only Neuromods from start to end. Mostly stealthily with only a few combat skills. It was hard, but completely doable.
You said that there was always a way to get turrets in front of the door and I have to disagree I was only able to get 2 turrets and had to kill everybody in the area to get the key card. There is a lot of spots in your video that I would love to debate with you about if you ever feel up to it
this critique is one which I mostly disgaree with as it fails to take a deeper look at... well everything such as calling a coffee machine useless whereas one might serve multiple purposes for stealth by either the player or the enemy, as a resource, as a weapon or simply as a prop. joseph anderson's critique is superior to this flawed one.
I guess you're not familiar with immersive sims?
See that part where you put down a turret and immediately also hack it? That's what is stopping them from shooting you for having too many Typhon powers.
Using your gauge I’d give it a 4/5.
Although it also has some of the best opening 5 minutes of any game I’ve ever played.
Personally, I like how it slowly changes from Survival Horror into a bit of a power trip, again much like Dishonored, though there is a difficulty spike towards the end.
I very much enjoyed this game. Its different than the usual consolified games.
I feel the majority of the issues with peoples opinion about this game revolves around 3 key issues, firstly; the name, prey shares the name of an old game with the exact same name, and apparently, people can't prevent themselves from misunderstanding this is a completely different game. Secondly: comparisons to other games, bioshock, system shock and dishonered are the big 3 that always seem to get brought up when explaining the game, which makes it harder to explain how the game promotes you to be creative, and with the assumption that the game is mainly a shooter, greatly damages the expectations newcomers will have. Thirdly: User intelligence, the game mainly revolves around using your mind to survive, about the conundrum that is: risk vs reward, whether you fight or fly, and how all these elements come together in a very interesting way.
I just flat out disagree with the things you say about combat. It sounds like you struggled with combat in your play through and are basing it on your personal experience. I played through the game on Nightmare difficulty on PC and I rarely had any struggles with combat and resource management. I found myself with an abundance of suit repair kits, Psi, First Aids, and crafting resources. Every time I came across a Recycle/Crafting Station I could renew my resources, mainly ammo, and continue on my way. I personally think that there are WAY more resources on Talos 1 then are needed but that's my personal experience and how I went about playing the game. Each enemy is tough at first, but once you learn what they're weak against they become a lot easier to deal with. I found myself using several combination of abilities and weapons while making my way through the game. It felt really nice to have that sense of player progression and character build progression. I had to learn how to effectively deal with each enemy, and then I had to obtain a skill or item to deal with them in that way.
While watching the game play, I see you using maybe 10% of what the game offers you in terms of mechanics. I don't think I seen you use the disruptor gun at all. With everything I explained, it really hammers home your point of not being able to " Play Your Way " when it comes to combat. If you're not using a a mixture of abilities and weapons, you're going to have a hard time.
Other then combat, resources, and the game being difficult, I can almost agree on everything else!
Miniishadow you still don't understand how to play this game, so much ignorance here.
@@johnstark7850 your comment makes no sense
I thought the point of being able to pick up junk like coffee machines was so you could use the recycling grenade to turn them all into raw materials by popping everything in a corner and chucking a nade at it
+Molly Schatz That's the best use for it, but it's a little cumbersome to go around piling up trash like that. I wouldn't mind so much if you could put the junk in a recycling machine but you can't. So the recycling grenade works but not the machine.
I completely disagree also. But you inspired me to go back and try a non-typhoon playthrough.
I had to use the wall holes speedrun glitches to achieve that with minimal stress 😁. Try the kill everyone achievement. It's the hardest
i kept human only first time around simply because i knew there was an achievment based around being wholly human and wholly alien and after finishing and actually giving the alien mods a look over i felt like i would have spent far less time carrying around a turret to do the job for me and trying to set up sneak attacks and avoid encounters all together with some of those abilities
I'm probably really late to the party, but when you get to the part of the game where you choose whether or not to blow up Talos I, if you smash the glass that displays the Apex Typhon, the image is partially destroyed, hinting at the ending: that you're in a stimulation within a simulation. Behind the glass which is apparently looking glass, you'll find what appears to be a set piece similar to the one you wake up in at the beginning of the game and you can crawl around in some vents under it. For that reason, I blew up Talos I, because I was sick of being gaslighted with simulations.
17:45 or you can just use a recycle charge to do the job.I decide to play stealth at start, just like you, but I kept the mod available, later combat focus, this ability is crazy good at anything, you can use to flee, beat phantom to poop on stealth, at late game just slow down time to loading maps...and I was only use human ability.
that one frame at 14:19 Morgan is in T pose xD lul
I know I'm late, but the tutorial has no Typhon abilities, and it is intentional as part of the story. SPOILERS: Alex is testing to see whether the Phantom you are playing as realizes it is a Python, or has human instincts.
What I noticed is that a lot of the combat critique points brought up in the video (mainly the clunkiness) really are only a problem on console. I played it on PC, and I never really had any trouble keeping track of mimics during a fight, even on hard difficulty. It seems much easier to dodge Phantom projectiles on there as well.
I also never used the googun in combat until I started running into Technopaths regularly, since those are ridiculously hard to kill when you play without any alien abilities (as I did during my one and only playthrough), at which point gooing them up to get close enough to zap them repeatedly with the zap gun appeared to be pretty much required, as their constant AOE "mine"! attacks made the Q-beam kinda hard to use.
I can't say for certain as I haven't played on both platforms, but you're almost certainly correct. There's a general absence of people complaining about PC controls and the opposite for console. On PS4, it constantly felt like moving through treacle and I can't imagine that being the case when playing with keyboard and mouse. Have you tried it with a controller on PC? I wonder if that makes a difference?
Gave it a try today, loaded a random save file from about halfway through the game and oh god, I don't think I ever would've finished the game if I'd had to play it like this. It seems all versions of the game simply have horrible controller controls.
+zerg0s Thanks. That's good to know. I know most people say KB+M is better for first person games, but most people playing this will be on console and that includes people reviewing the game. I wonder how much review scores were affected by this issue? Pretty shocking to allow such a basic issue to go unchecked, although I suppose PC players get their fair share of bad ports to contend with too.
It's particularly frustrating when an otherwise very enjoyable game struggles because of port problems.
Just as another example, and because I'm spending my day off listening to your past reviews while making beef jerky (great job on what you're doing, by the way!) and just wrapped up the Nier one; I gave up on playing Nier: Automata halfway through 2Bs story because the hacking minigame had what felt like 10x higher mouse sensitivity than the rest of the game. Which made aiming the little cannon more of a gamble than anything so much as bordering challenging fun. I've been tempted several time to go back and "properly" finish that game, but every time I think of the hacking parts my motivation just drains away.
+zerg0s I've seen the PC footage of that hacking mini game, and yeah, it looks terrible. Some of the hacking sections later in the game are pretty tough. I'm amazed anyone on PC can complete it with those controls. I suppose you can adjust the sensitivity, but it's another basic error that shouldn't make it into the final product. Thanks for watching the videos!
Thanks for your perspective and the video! Although my opinions on some parts differ it comes down to taste. I am just a sucker for those "interdimensional/alien threats" kind off stories.
But I strongly disagree on your statement regarding the difficulty when skipping on Typhon abilities.
I played on hard through the game with human abilities only and in the end, I had a metric ton of ammunition for all my weapons, a stockpile of around 40 Medkits and PSI-Hypos and enough raw material to refill any ressource I needed to. In fact, I started to recycle PSI-Hypos and Food for more material to craft more Neuromods.
I agree on your overall statement about the combat tho, it was too stale for my taste. It wasn´t bad, but it wasn´t good either.
TL;DR: Human-only is a viably strategy.
Thanks for watching! If you're playing on hard then you're a better gamer than me because I struggled with normal at times!
When I first read your comment, my immediate reaction was "I never said human-only wasn't a viable strategy." I said stealth-only wasn't viable, but I couldn't remember saying the same about human only. I went back to read my script and have to admit that I was pretty unclear about this.
What I *meant* to say was that you're making life tough on yourself if you only use human skills, but not that it isn't a viable way to play. In fact, like you, right at the end of the game, I had a decent amount of ammo for all my weapons and they did a lot of damage. However, that was after going through a difficulty spike which I would have found much harder if I didn't have typhon skills. But yeah, I worded it badly and should have been clearer when talking about my opinions on stealth-only vs human-only because they aren't the same thing.
It's also probably worth noting that you clearly aren't the average gamer if you're playing on hard. I know of some fairly experienced gamers who ended up turning the difficulty down to easy for this one!
I'm a sucker for stories like this one as well, but Prey just didn't do it for me in that regard.
I might had it easier because I looked for every opportunity for stairbuilding with the Goo Gun, so maybe I was in luck and just found more stuff early on. I had to much time on my hand I guess.
I considered myself the average because I know some people who are really really good at what they do and in comparison I suck. But you might be right, in the end I play alot which might be anything but casual. I haven´t tried to see this from a more general perspective.
Anyway, looking forward to your next video. I really like this kind of analytical critiques.
Nice! Saturday morning with a ton of coffee and some nice analysis. Thank you, good sir!
No problem, and thanks for watching!
I don't even get why it's called Prey.
Brand recognition I guess. Pray is an existing title so they figured slapping the name onto it might help sales. Its really dumb though, this should have been its own IP, it has absolutely nothing to do with the original Prey and if anything it just pissed off the people who were looking forward to an actual prey sequel.
Unfortunately, the answer = $$$. But yeah, it's silly. Bethesda has enough money to market new IP and Prey isn't so well known that this game is guaranteed success on the back of an 11-year-old game.
Agreed. The original Prey has a cult following, but the thing with cult followings is that they don't particularly appreciate it when you mess with the thing they love. So by calling it Prey, Arkane/Bethesda pissed off the people who actually liked Prey, and didn't get any tangible benefit from the name as most gamers don't recognize it.
I mean, to be fair to them, its not like its nothing contextually like the original prey game, I totally see why its called prey, both are games centered around alien invasions that are first person shooters. As a reboot of the original it totally works and is deserved of the name prey.
Now if you had a game called Red Dead Redemption and it was a sci-fi space opera THEN I would get your point.
I personally just don't see how a change in aesthetic of the franchise, while dealing in the same genre and subject matter, is enough to criticize it for capitalizing on the cult following and not delivering a similar experience, when it very clearly has obvious connotations and similarities to the original.
Only thing that irks me is the complete lack of portals when that was kind of the whole gimmick of the original Prey... I get why, though. Because they used Cry-Engine... It cannot do multiple cameras at one time, which makes their whole hologram effects a tad more impressive, because they found a way to fake a lot of it without actually using multiple camera to do it.
tbh, I didn't notice that Radiation Damage was causing me to sway until a loading screen said it so your not alone :)
+Raging Raving Thank God! Always nice to get a bit of confirmation that I'm not the only one who has these issues.
crazy awesome tipps ! thanks for the 1 hour vid lol
'If I can't use a coffee machine or barstool why let me pick it up?'
You can use it dude. Objects can be stacked together and then recycled with a grenade. Thrown objects create noise and can distract enemies. Stacking objects can help with climbing if the surface can't be gloo'd like glass. And with Leverage, thrown objects can cause damage which is essentially a resource-free source of dealing damage.
So that's 4 (Four) uses for picking up physics objects you somehow never connected in your head.
I give this game a solid 9 out of 10. It was such a pleasure to go through last year. GOTY for me. You said that you pitty anyone who chose to play only with human based skills and I couldn't disagree more.
Judging from the movement of your camera... Have you been playing on console? I can't imagine how hard fighting mimics must have been while using controller. It's much easier to hit them with mouse and keyboard
choice could be an illusion in of itself , id prefer to call choice games branch gameplay because that's what it is - each option leads to a predetermined path, its not really a choice as you will most likely go down a branch you are familiar with or the one you upgraded enough
I guess the weird controls(aka console) are to blame, I had no problem whatsoever to stick with human only neuromods on PC. But then again, I have no idea how easy it would have been with typhoon neuromods.
Sadly you kinda soured me on your channel bud hope you got better
I loved Prey and I would even call it a masterpiece.
First, this is a PC game and combat might not be as good on PS but on PC it is amazing.
This is a survival/action FPS game with elements of horror and stealth.
The aiming with mouse is responsive and the shotgun is so good and meaty that you can pretty much kill anything with it if you spend enough neuromods in it and know when and how to use it. + there is a secret to get the golden shotgun which is even more powerful.
With shotgun you can one shot jump scares from mimics if you have the reflexes.
(I am an old FPS gamer so it I might be used to it)
I played it differently then you, I saw the turrets and they were deadly for me but weak against the phantoms of unknown powers(at the time).
So it never crossed my mind to even consider stealth for this game, but from the power mods I saw it was possible and later on I saw possible paths for stealth approaches.
BUT the entire story and situation shouted to my instincts that this is a survival game and the key to survival is to be the hunter and not the PREY.
Yes I was immersed, I was stranded on a station with an unknown alien infestation. If it was you, you would not be so arrogant to think that you could sneak past them, since you do not know their abilities yet. Thus there is only one safe path, the path of strength and adaptability.
And I think this is what you missed about this game, you did not get the hint from the title of the game.
This game is constantly testing your intuition about everything and how will you prepare yourself accordingly.
From the start you are hinted to doubt everything you see, yes including the title, you are not the prey.
This is the reason you were constantly forced to put neuromods in things you felt they were needed after the fact.
You did not immerse yourself enough to think ahead for them.
You are not human, but you don't know this until you notice that in the bathroom there are no mirrors, no mirrors anywhere, there were also hints elsewhere. From that point onwards i knew that this was not reality and everything that was off but I dismissed before became apparent to support my hypothesis like passwords left around too apparent. Also the fact that you seemed to be guided around by not one, but 3 different characters to make difficult choices was hinting me that something was off. Also hacking is mandatory, not for hacking computers but to hack turrets to use to assist you until you get your shotgun neuromods powerful enough if you are going the non alien path.(turrets can be upgraded and hacked to distract enemies)
You can finish the game without(or few) alien powers easy, (I did on hard difficulty), but you need to maximize recycling neuromods and save ammo where you can by throwing objects and explosive objects at the enemy.
Yes lifting heavy objects is key since you can throw them at the enemy for massive damage and find more secrets faster.
Wait till they get next to something that explodes and then throw another explosive thing at them and booom they are dead, saving you ammo.
I killed everything, I was the hunter and it was so rewarding.(except the nightmare).
I had no issues with bugs on pc, and really loved that the nightmare killing December and thus lost some options for the story.
That meant that the devs also left it for chance that I get to some content or not.
They were not desperate for me to get all the content like you said in the video, quite the contrary.
After I cleared Neuromod Division and placed 2 upgraded turrets protecting the area, I went with on with the story until the story asked me to go back to Neuromod division, upon entering I was shocked to see for the first time this HUGE NIGHTMARE black thing right in the middle in front of me facing the other way destroying December(my 2 turrets were already destroyed).
That was shocking but also an unexpected amazing experience that had me quickly run like crazy to the corridor where I thought he could not follow.
Yes I was scared shitless with a WTF!!! RUN!!! moment.
About the ending, its perfectly inline with the entire story.
The simulation is a series of results that COULD have happened depending on Morgan choices.
My ending saved everyone and the human race by finding a way to defeat the aliens and control their power.
The ending twist shows that the result that I worked so hard for, was not what actually happened and the aliens made it to earth just like my brother said they would even if I blow the station(Morgan maybe escaped on the shuttle?,which was not my choice).
I was given Morgan memories to try to make the alien more human, the entire simulation was a test using the simulation of those events and choices I made as a way to analyze if I(an alien) have become more human and thus save the human race that way.
At the end they are analyzing your choices, not criticizing you per se, they are helping you to make a choice about the way you played. The last choice will show if they succeeded or not in their intent of making the alien more human.
Kill him or take his hand.
The choice is yours.
Well in your video, you prefer to be an alien lol
Jeff Vella Golden shotgun? No? There's a gold PISTOL.
You find it in the locker in your office but it is not available in nightmare difficulty.
You imply that once the game loses stealth as a viable option it’s no longer survival horror. So no Resident Evil is survival horror? The first 3 Silent Hills aren’t? (haven’t played the more recent ones) I get that stealth can add tension when done correctly, but saying a game can’t be survival horror if it forces or encourages combat is a misunderstanding of the genre as a whole.
I loved the game and the story but i do agree with the difficulty problems. I played it in Story mode (Easier than easy mode but i still had a hard time towards the end. I am not a pro at shooters and they do scare me away often since I prefer a gamepad but this combat was just frustrating at times. I often found myself running at phantoms with my wrench and the gloo gun and just slashing away in the middle. I tried normal and easy at first but it was so hard to get through. I still powered my way through and did enjoy the game especially the story but the gameplay wasn’t as enjoyable as some other games I love.
That's the second time you've said people prefer silent playable characters because of immersion. This is a mischaracterisation I think, because 'immersion' is not a single thing. You are indeed correct in this specific instance because you play as a set character, but for games that let you create a custom avatar not having a voice means we get to imagine our own and how our responses are delivered-- there's little point going through all the effort of creating a unique looking character and then to have it demolished because he talks like John Blah that famous Hollywood star. It's one thing people hated about Fallout 4.
Great, detailed work! Got a new sub. There are a few things I would like to bring up. For point of reference I played my first run on hard on PC:
- For PC players the input lag/turning oddities were not present on my end, YMMV.
- I am confused about your scarcity issues. One of my gripes with the game is there is too many resources - I was never without plenty. I could not imagine running out of ammo. Even Nerumods - I was able to essentially max of all the human skills I wanted and a few alien ones.
- Mimics are a pain, did you use charge attack? I think the devs were trying to impart patience wins the day. If you do not 'panic', charge your attack and wait for a jump it stuns them.
- Shotgun shots do stun enemies when you are up close, especially if you sneak attack them.
- The guns are not satisfying.
I would like to bring up, you are very good. Keep in mind, just because you are using a hammer instead of a screwdriver - it's not the game's fault. Military Operators are pain, but using the stun gun can two shot them once upgraded. Use the right tools for the job. At the Military Operators part of the game, you should be able to use your alien powers at will. Water gives you 'mana' as well as 'coral' - if you got the MOD. Same with radiation balls the spawn, use the Gloo Gun - the pistol is the worse choice.
Edit: I liked the game, but it was not awesome. I come off fanboi-ish - :/
Hi Richard. Thanks for your comments.
I think a lot of the control issues are console only (or even PS4 only for some of them). For ammo scarcity... I don't really know. Maybe I wasted some early on and then never caught up? Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe it's a PS4 thing again because you're more likely to waste ammo with reckless shooting on console? I'm not the only one who has this complaint, but you're also not the only one to say there are loads of resources. Maybe it's a console vs PC or maybe it's just how some people think Dark Souls is easy and don't understand why others find it difficult. I scavenged as much as I could and there weren't many places I didn't go (I'm actually not aware of any places I didn't find, but I'm sure I missed a few). There is one point of correlation I've noticed between those who say there are lots of resources vs those who don't. The ones who thought there was more than enough of everything tended to play on the hard setting or higher. I think it's just that some people (like yourself) are a lot better at games than others. For the average person who plays this game, I stand by the general comment that ammo is often scarce. I wish there were difficulty related trophies/achievements for this game, because I'd love to know how many people complete this game on hard. I'd wager it's a small percentage.
I used the charge attack sometimes, but the stamina cost when I missed was quite high and that put me off if I had more than one mimic to deal with. I upped my stamina later, but by that point I was facing tougher enemies so it didn't help a lot. I mainly used charge attacks when an enemy was already frozen.
I got a lot of sneak attacks and I honestly never noticed anything that looked like a stun, but then they are incorporeal black blobs, so maybe it's just hard to notice.
I guess I wasn't clear enough in the video about the military operators. I thought I mentioned that you can stun them with the disrupter gun, but everyone keeps pointing that out so I guess I didn't. My complaint was that if you haven't upgraded the distruptor gun up until that point you are kind of screwed against the military operators. To be honest, even after upgrading the disruptor gun, I still ended up avoiding military operators because there were just so many of them. Even when they weren't challenging, they were tedious. And yes, you can use alien powers a lot... unless you haven't got any which the game tells you is an option.
I'm not sure I like the hammer and screwdriver analogy. I do see where you're coming from (and I'm aware this reply already comes across as quite defensive) but a better analogy is that the game tells you you can use a hammer or a screwdriver or a wrench or allen key, but then says "no, actually you have to use the screwdriver. I hope you still have one."
I agree about the guns though :-) (sorry for all that coming across as negative. Just trying to clarify where I'm coming from).
Richard Cox I personally can’t imagine Chris Davis enjoying a game like Sekiro if he doesn’t learn how to use “the right tools for the job” lol.
@@ChrisDavis_Games The stamina cost of a charged attack is the same as a normal swing....
The turret bit is optional because you can just kill Sarah and take the key.
Oh yeah, that makes sense. But WHY would you kill her? You're not given any real motivation to kill her other than saving a few minutes finding turrets. And you'd likely have to kill everyone else as well because they'd all turn on you. It's good you have the freedom to kill her if you want, but it doesn't exactly pose a difficult moral quandary.
Yeah it's definitely an over-engineered choice in a way -- it only appeals to the sort of person that wants a base level jolt from the feeling they're throwing a wrench in the designers' plans or doing something overtly malicious. Fallout 3 type moral quandary.
I am one of those types of people though.
@ChrisDavis_Games if you're trying to optimize your time and resources, helping survivors at all is counter intuitive in most cases. And if you're already committed to blowing up the ship, you could make the argument that killing them now and using their resources to see out your goals is ultimately morally justifiable. Almost every major interaction you have with other people is deeper than it appears to be on the surface, but you have to actively think about it. Think of all the people who sacrificed the prisoner in the labs due to the info on his rapsheet, only to later find out that the rapsheets are exaggerated to make the scientists feel better about themselves.