I completed a couple more areas in Bionic Commando: Rearmed, but the difficulty is getting to me a bit; I just don’t have the patience anymore to sit there and redo a whole level a few times, I guess.

Oh well, having just completed a fairly lengthy RPG, I think I’ll go for something a bit…lighter for the next major game. I haven’t played a shooter in a while, and looking at my list of installed games, I think it’s finally time to give Prey a whirl. It received rather average reviews, but it was dirt cheap when I bought it, and it shouldn’t take too long to finish, so it can’t be too much of a waste.

It starts out in a fairly atmospheric bar, with all sorts of interactive bits like a TV, video games, and jukebox, and as the characters are introduced it’s obvious that the story’s going to involve the main guy embracing his native heritage and all that cliche stuff. And then the aliens arrive, abduct everyone, and I start out in the bowels of the alien ship with only a trusty wrench.

The alien ship has an interesting organic feel to it, with all sorts of bizarre creatures and living recharge stations and such. It does make it a bit hard to tell what’s actually usable or not at times, but it’s still a bit impressive. Moving around often involves portals. They’re not quite as advanced as the ones in Portal since they’re fixed in place and basically just teleport you between specific spots, but the effect of seeing through them is neat.

The first couple areas were fairly linear and easy, though there were a few unexpected surprises, like discovering that enemies can use the health ‘packs’ lying around as well. Or the gravity-generating surfaces that can have you walking on walls or upside-down, and occasionally fighting enemies on a completely different gravity plane.

And then I got ‘killed’, went to the “Land of the Ancients”, learned to use the spirit walk ability to get through obstacles, and picked up a bow, before being dumped back into the alien ship. That’s where I decided to leave off for the night, not yet having had a chance to actually use those abilities yet. From what I’ve heard they make the game a bit too easy, but that’s okay, I’m not really looking for a serious challenge out of it right now.