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Prey is an innovative deviation from the standard corridor crawling FPS formula, and promises to turn the genre upside down – literally.

One of the innovative features included in Prey that differentiates it from other sci-fi oriented shooters such as Doom III, the engine upon which the game runs, is the ability for gamers, and their enemies to fight on walls and ceilings and to alter gravity altogether.

This inclusion of “wall walking” adds a great bit of variety to game play. Enemies will no longer be simply in front or behind you, but you will now have to watch for enemies below you as well as those walking on walls and hanging from ceilings. If the retail version is able to build on the action showcased in the demo there will be plenty of frantic, fast paced firefights for gamers to encounter when the game hits shelves next month, and you’ll be fully equipped with a variety of alien weaponry with which to survive these encounters. Adding to the hectic pace of these battles will be the game's unique use of portals that will allow instant passage from one part of a map to another with no loading time. These portals are also capable of defying gravity and even changing the player’s size.



Another innovation is the game’s “Spirit Walk” feature which allows the player to leave their body in order to pass through obstacles to solve puzzles and to sneak up on unsuspecting enemies and pick them off with your powerful, but limited spirit bow. At this point you may be wondering why the hero in Prey possesses such extraordinary abilities. Well there are a few things you should know about this hero, a man by the name of Tommy who begins his quest after being abducted by aliens along with his grandfather and girlfriend.

Tommy is a Cherokee living on a reservation in Oklahoma who has spent his life rejecting his heritage, but now in order to survive he must embrace it and become attuned with his spiritual side and the powers that come with it if he is to survive and save his girlfriend. This back story adds some nice variety to the classic grunt blasting his way through hordes of enemies to escape from a hostile militaryalien base.



Continuing on the theme of Native American spirituality you will not die and have to reload in Prey. Instead when you “die” you will travel to a spirit world where you must try to pick off as many spirits as you can before you are sucked back into the land of the living in the same spot you were in when you departed. This process will only take about ten to fifteen seconds and will come as a huge relief to those of us who forget to save as frequently as we should.

The multiplayer in Prey offers tried and true deathmatch and team deathmatch but does include all the gravity flipping, portal jumping, spirit walking craziness of the single player game. One of the multiplayer maps included in the recently released demo showcases all the topsy-turvy possibilities nicely. You may have an enemy dead in your sights one moment, only to have him suddenly flip to the ceiling above you and take you out before you have a chance to realize where he went.



All the fast paced action found in Prey is only enhanced by the graphical capabilities of the Doom III engine which does not disappoint; all of the mood enhancing real-time light and shadow effects found in Doom III are present in Prey. If the full version of the game continues in the direction the demo begins with then sci-fi shooter fans will have plenty of alien blasting fun ahead of them this summer.

Preview by Chad Cid Hogan.