Welcome to Thunderdome

Posted: **Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:58 pm**

Went to pick up Quake 4 (again) yesterday, and my eye was (again) drawn to something else... Prey is out.

I remember when this game was first introduced 8 or 10 years ago with the much ballyhooed "Portal" technology that many other games are starting to use today. I'm not sure why it took 8 or 10 years to release this game.

You play an indian who gets snatched out of a bar with his girlfriend and grandfather. I must say... this was one of the more enjoyable game beginnings I've seen... top 3, easily. They got a lot of licenses to use rock music from the last 30 years.

And I LOVE the song that ramps up just as the shit hits the fan.

It's built on the Doom 3 engine, so it's pretty. Fighting the initial bad guys has me having deja vu from the original Unreal. Not sure why, just the same vibe.

So far... I'm a little underwhelmed. 2 or the last 3 FPS's I've played were Chronicles of Riddick: Butcher Bay and Farcry... so at the moment my expectations for a brand new game are really high.... this game feels pretty simple in comparison. So far the levels are extremely linear, and there are more tricks to solve than I like... think jumping puzzles, but not.

I'll be finishing this game, but I don't think it will be remembered as great.

Somewhere between "Not Crap" and "Really Good." But not equal to either.

Figure on spoilers to follow after this initial post. Ye been warned, pale face.

Edited By GORDON on 1153792792

Posted: **Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:11 pm**

This one just doesn't appeal to me at all. All the preview pics I saw looked so boring.

Posted: **Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:45 pm**

Played the demo. Liked it and will probably pick up the game. They did a good job developing his character. I'm not big on playing every shooter out there, so maybe this is more common now-a-days.

Walk into a room. "This is fucked up"

Walk into the room. "Okay, this is REALLY fucked up."

Posted: **Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:20 pm**

And another thing: gravity flipping.

In a single room, depending on where you stand, your floor will be someone else's ceiling... and often times you can change the gravity direction of a room completely by shooting the "gravity switch" panels. This has already irritated me, because I already got stuck in a room for a long time before I noticed the gravity panel waaaaay up a hole in the ceiling. Impossible to see unless you stand right under it and look straight up. I never noticed how much I ignored random ceilings until this game.

Thing is, if you see a gravity switch panel, you know you're going to have to use it. Good things the aliens put them everywhere in their ship that an invader would need them so he can get around better.

Posted: **Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:10 pm**

Looked at the review in PC Gamer last night (87%) and while I'm sure it's a decent shooter, something about it just doesn't interest me. Ditto for Quake 4.

It just looks dull and like it has no personality.

I'm waiting for Crysis, HL2:Ep2, and Bioshock. In the meantime, I may pick up Sin:Ep 1.

There might also be a zombie shooter coming soon made by the guy who did the zombie mods for HL. PC Gamer published them all for free. His name was Neil something...I think it started with an M. GREAT mods.

Posted: **Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:05 pm**

There might also be a zombie shooter coming soon made by the guy who did the zombie mods for HL. PC Gamer published them all for free. His name was Neil something...I think it started with an M. GREAT mods.

I think I saw a Pre-review of that the other night. The graphics didn't wow me (if it's the same one). I'm just not big enough into zombies just for the sake of zombies.

Posted: **Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:57 pm**

Veeeeeeeery short game. I bet I only played it 15 hours before I finished it, and I'm not known for finishing games faster than usual. Make sure to wait until the credits end so you can see the lead-in to the sequel.

Final assessment: I was impressed that they used actual indians for the indian voices, but I finished the game not really caring about any single part of the storyline. Even in Farcry I felt SOMETHING for the character by the end.

I bought the collector's edition of this game for $60, mainly because that was the one on DVD. It came in a cool metal box that will look good in the software collection, it had some pewter figurines inside, I think there's a soundtrack in there, etc. But by my reckoning I paid about $4 an hour to play this game. Ehhhhh.............

Edited By GORDON on 1154307508