he backstory on Prey is a beyond interesting one.  Not many titles get to be developed over a 10-year span, but not surprisingly it was originally conceived by the minds that are still working on Duke Nukem Forever.  And that game is still supposedly coming out, as well.  Back when Prey was announced, The Bob Dole/Bill Clinton battle was beginning, The Unibomber was arrested, Dallas won the Super Bowl , Braveheart was the best picture, Tupac was killed, people fell in love with Jerry Maguire, and Alanis Morrisette won Album of the Year.  On the videogames front the Saturn and PlayStation were rolling along nicely, Lara Croft was born, the N64 was just released, and 3D graphics cards were just beginning to surface.  Man, doesn’t that feel like eons ago?  Lordy.

Originally announced in the mid-nineties by George Broussard and the Apogee / 3D Realms crew, Prey was a bold vision, and planned to use revolutionary lighting, bone based skeletal animation, and portal technology. While a lot of what the original team planned isn’t all that unique in today’s first person shooter realms, back then these concepts made many a PC gamer drool in anticipation.  In the years that followed the games announcement Prey changed as much in its concepts as the many different now-famous players who were involved in the project such as Tom Hall,  William Scarboro, Mark Dochtermann, Paul Schuytema, and KMFDM on music.  If you’re young on the PC game scene, go do a search on some of these names and what they’re doing now.  Or check out the true history of Prey at Lon’s Prey Page which chronicles this game's fascinating history.

Now light years later, Madison, Wisconsin based Human Head Studios has been working on the game since May 2001 with 3D Realms keeping an eye on the process.  Utilizing a highly tweaked Doom 3 engine, Prey will be released later this year for the Xbox 360 and PC.  We didn’t get to see the Xbox 360 version, but the 360 version is said to be identical with Xbox Live support, as well as unannounced Marketplace and Achievements.  Currently Prey is on track for a (when it’s done) June release, and Game Informer Online got an intimate look at the single player mode, as well as hands-on with a good chunk of the multiplayer.

Prey is based around a non-hero Native American named Tommy Tawodi.  Tommy lives on a reservation, and really isn’t to hip with the whole Native American culture and beliefs, and wants to get out and see the real world.  But Tommy’s a sucker for the ladies and loves his girlfriend Jenny.  While Tommy and Jenny are knocking a few back at the local watering hole, Aliens come down, tear the roof off the bar and start sucking up everything in sight – including the couple. 

After the abduction, Tommy sets out to find his girlfriend on this mysterious spaceship/world, rescue her, and get her off the ship.  While Human Head is still keeping a tight wrap on the story elements, we do know that somewhere Tommy embarks on a vision quest, and gets sucked out of the physical world into the land of the ancients.  The spirit of his dead grandfather tries to get him to believe in his heritage, as well as his destiny to save the world.  The grandfather explains that if he trains and believes in his heritage he’ll have a much better chance to save his girlfriend and make it back to Earth safely. 

But Tommy doesn’t want anything to do with that.  He rejects his grandfather’s wishes, and wants to be sent back.  The grandfather sends Tommy back with two new special abilities.  One is a companion spirit of a hawk named Talon that Tommy had when he was a child.  Talon can understand and translate alien text and speech (much like in Quake 4 when you get Stroggified), and also helps Tommy in battle by distracting enemies.  You have no control over Talon, but it should be quite helpful to let Talon move up ahead and keep attention away from you while you snipe away and pick off baddies one by one.

The second ability is being able to Spirit Walk, which more or less allows Tommy to leave his body in a spirit form.  In single player mode your Spirit cannot be damaged, and as long as your Spirit Meter is full, you can fire shots with your Cherokee bow.  Your body is still vulnerable while you’re ripping around in Spirit Mode and if your physical body gets attacked while you’re in Spirit Mode, you’ll snap back to your physical state.  Finding a safe spot to store your body is imperative.  While we didn’t see how this will work too much in the single player mode, Spirit Mode will be relied upon heavily to solve puzzles. While this is triggered you can go through force fields, non-disrupt trip mines, and wires.  We’re assuming this will come into play a lot to open doors and avoid other physical traps.

The alien ship – currently called the Sphere - feels much like an extremely organic Borg-type vessel.  The ship itself is a hollow where there is an artificial sun in the center that’s the source of light, heat, and energy for its inhabitants. The aliens aren’t just sucking up humans, they’re ingesting hunks of earth and whatever happens to come with it.  For example, in the bar that Tommy’s abduction took place in, a draw poker was captured and you’ll encounter it along your exploration.  The machine will be hooked up to alien technology and is still operational.  So while you’re strolling about blasting baddies, you can play a few rounds of poker.  Hit a big win and you may be awarded a power up or two.  We also saw Tommy riding in a glass elevator, and an airliner that got sucked in by the aliens flew around and crashed into a nearby structure. 

The world of Prey feels very alive because, organically, it is.  There won’t be medical packs lying around.  You’ll run across health spores that will regenerate your health.  Weaponry is also quite organic.  For example, instead of grenades you’ll get to use crawlers – little spider-like guys.  The crawler’s primary function is a grenade which you tear its legs off and throw it.  The secondary form is ripping off only one leg, and throwing it onto a surface where it will stick.  It acts as a proximity grenade and will destruct when a foe gets anywhere near it.  Prey will have guns, and many also go along with this alien tech/organic theme.  The launcher will shoot crawlers (further than throwing) and alternate fire grinds them up and sprays them in front of you, acting like a misty shield that absorbs fire. One of the more unique weapons in the game is the Leech Gun which gets ammunition from different colored leech nodes found around levels.  Each different color is a different type of attack.  For example, the red node enabled the gun to fire out a red plasma-like sun beam.  There’s going to be quite a number of different nodes, and how many has not been discussed yet.

Enemies that we saw ran the gamut. Not only will enemies be your adversary but the environment itself as well.  Plenty of aliens will shoot at you with standard gun, but there’s also going to be things like the Vomitor which will barf harmful materials your way.  Enemy AI will be extremely reactionary once you get into the room with them.  If they need health, they’ll go to a health spore.  They will know what they need to interact with to keep you in harms way or keep themselves protected.

Prey is introducing a number of things into the first person shooter genre that will set it apart.  Even though the concept of portals isn’t new, how Prey will utilize them is very unique.  Instead of waiting for loading once you jump into a portal, everything will flow smoothly.  Portals will open when you get near them or just be open already.  You’ll be able to see everything that lies on the other side of the portal, and attacks, projectiles, and sounds will pass freely through portals.  One of the types of level puzzles will be portal mazes where you’ll be able to actually see yourself in front of you running around.  If you follow exactly where your body is going, you’re going the wrong way. In the build we saw you could technically shoot at yourself.  Human Head is still determining whether or not to keep this feature.

Gravity is a big element in Prey, and there will be no ladders in the Sphere. Instead, you’ll be able to wall walk on specific surfaces.  These surfaces are powered, and if an enemy sees you wall walking, most likely he’ll try to turn it off.  Also certain rooms contain a gravity flip, and everything that’s not nailed down will be flipped around.  This adds a new dimension to the shooter and forces you to look in front, on the sides, and on the ceiling for adversaries.  For those of you who get disoriented easily, be wary.  Prey will mess with your skull.

Another intriguing concept is the fact that in Prey you never completely die.  Instead of dying, you Death Walk and get transported to another dimension where you have the ability to fight your way back to the world of the living.  In this dimension enemies will attack you as you’re getting sucked into a worm hole that transports you back to life.  The more enemies you kill the more health and spirit you’ll have once you return.  You will always return to life, but if you don’t kill any enemies, the chances of your survival will be much less.  Once you do return you have a few seconds before enemies will realize you’ve come back to life.  Hopefully, that is…
 
Human Head is teaming up with Alien crackpot and complete and total whacko  expert Art Bell, and in certain places in the Sphere you’ll encounter radio transmissions of Art chatting with callers that explain the events that are transpiring on earth.  Even though the calls are staged, they’ll be quite humorous as well as keying you in on story elements.  And alien nutjobs aficionados will eat this up.

Even though Human Head is focusing primarily on the single player experience, the multiplayer portion is what I actually got to go hands-on with.  Adding the elements of portals, gravity, gravity flipping, and Spirit and Wall Walking really adds a whole new dimension to the first person shooter.  Also, instead of taking all of these elements and hoping for the best, each level won’t try to mash everything together, but focus on specific ones.

The first level we tried – Salvage Walk - was more of a warm-up level that contained portals and wall walking areas.  Standing on the ceiling shooting at players really made for some exciting moments, but I do fear sniping campers will have a little too much fun with this.  The important thing I quickly realized was to make sure I kept my eye on the ceiling and walls for potential targets.  Portals are great fun, and being able to see and affect what’s on the other side really changes up their functionality.

Sphere was the second level, and in this level there were two spheres accessible through portals that you could run around, since the gravity pulls you towards the center.  This level truly exemplified the tricks on gravity and running around on the outer portion of the sphere wasn’t too overly disorienting.  It just felt very different.  This level was where I discovered a good nook to safely hide my body as I Spirit Walked around and took people out with my bow.  Once my opponents realized that I was walking around in Spirit form, they quickly sought out my body.  One shot snapped me back into my body, and the next shot took me out.  Looks like I need a better nook.

Finally, the last level – Escher – took the portal and gravity flip concepts and melded them together to create an M.C. Escher like arena where each portal you went through changed the orientation of gravity so your left wall may be someone else’s ground.  While completely disorienting, once you figured out which way you’d flip when you went through each portal it helped to figure out where to aim if you were chasing someone.  Blasting someone through a portal that’s running sideways on your wall is cool, yet very strange.

Another interesting addition to the genre is the fact that you’ll be able to tell where your opponents health is each time you land a shot.  As each shot hits, the opponent will flash either yellow or red indicating how close to death they are.  I’m still not sure how I feel about this.  On one hand I like the intensity of facing off against someone not knowing if one more shot will take them out, but on the other hand shooting someone that’s running by and knowing they’re almost dead makes them frag-bait even more.  It’s a tough call.  Human Head hasn’t allowed server administrators the ability to toggle it. They said that it wouldn’t be too hard to implement.  Please do.

The game will support up to 8-players online, and even though I only played the game with 4 total people, the gameplay was frantic and intense.  Much like Doom 3, Prey will only support deathmatch and team deathmatch modes out of the box, but modders will have access to all of the game’s assets to make their own levels.  All of the portals, vehicles, gravity, weaponry, and Spirit Walking can be used in player created mods, so it should be quite interesting to see what the community hashes together.  But I have to admit it’s a bit disappointing not to see some more multiplayer game type variations from the developers.   I mean, c’mon now.  Prey has been in development for an eternity, what’s wrong with waiting a few more months to get a few solid multiplayer variations in there like Capture The Flag, or a seven living beings on one Spirit Walker?  Reliance on community for multiplayer variance doesn’t always guarantee that we’ll get solid mods.

My multiplayer experience as a whole did take some adjusting, but after a level or I was good to go.  I also have to apologize to 2K’s Jason “loonyboi” Bergman who took a number of headshots once I got used to my surroundings.  Even though I could only play for a few levels, I could have played it all day due to how fresh the experience was.  The concepts that Prey introduces totally remix how you play a first person shooter.  I really enjoyed what I played so far, and I can’t wait to see more not only on the single player scale, but multiplayer as well.  I just wish there was more on the multiplayer front from Human Head.

Human Head still hasn’t announced how beefy your computer needs to be, but they did say that if your computer can run Quake 4 or Doom 3 you’ll be able to handle it.  The rigs we played on were outfitted with an AMD 64, ATI based X800 video cards, and a gig of RAM and ran very smooth. 

So far, I have to admit that I walked away quite excited.  With a 15+ hour single player experience that utilizes some brain melting concepts, as well as some extremely novel multiplayer, Prey should be an interesting twist on the first person shooter genre when released later this year.  We’ll be back then with the full report on single player, and let you know if the wait for Prey was truly worth it…