 If you ever play or simply witness Quake 2 running at full particle-sparking glory on a Nokia N95 you’ll be blown away by the capabilities residing in today’s modern cell phones. The powerful Iphone would seem ready to deliver some high-quality first person shooters to our pockets after demonstrating it’s chops on recently released 3 rd person standouts like Terminator Salvation and Resident Evil. Now arriving on the mobile killing fields is Prey Invasion for the Iphone by the storied 3D Realms. Ease of control is critical in a FPS both for immersion and survival. Prey offers you two choices unfortunately one is broken. The analog control method with two touch control wheels is abysmal and should be avoided like a diseased alien. Luckily, Prey provides a digital control method with eight rectangular touch buttons around the edges that, while it looks intimidating, works well enough. The two buttons on the left are for forward and back while the two buttons on the bottom right are for turning. The bottom left buttons are for strafing and the two on the right edge are for looking up and down. The buttons can be moved to wherever you like and sensitivity and movement speed can be adjusted. Firing is handled by a simple touch on your target although you can choose to play with a manual or assisted target reticule if you don‘t like your fingers covering the screen. Once you get the controls untangled you’re ready to roll.
 
The graphics are good enough to provide an immersive experience but nothing mind-blowing although the weapon animations look nice in your hand and have good sound. Regrettably, the weapon effects are weak. I don’t have a blood lust but I like my FPS’s to have some kick when I fire, some visual feedback. Firing weapons in Prey shoots out a small dot that has very little visible effect on the target until they crumble. Although there is a lot of sound, most of the graphic blasts and explosions are from the aliens. Prey contains very little, if any, visual extras that are commonplace amongst high-end shooters like particle effects, shadowing, rag doll or nice lighting effects.
 
The 5 levels that Tommy Hawk traverses are extremely short and uninspired and mostly involve going down hallways toward doors. Unlike most FPS the doors in Prey don’t actually open, you just suddenly pop up in another room. This is very disconcerting especially when you’re getting chewed on or shot at. Tommy picks up a Spirit Bow that allows him to regenerate when killed by shooting man-of-war like fish in an underwater regeneration realm. So thankfully, you don‘t have to replay levels. The bow also gives Tommy the ability to wall walk certain walls and leave his body for a time. It’s all very mystical but not that compelling.
 
There’s an attempt at atmosphere with an ominous soundtrack but it cuts out intermittently along with the flimsy story. When you try to walk up ramps or stairs if you don’t hold the forward button you’ll slide backward and there’s some clipping through some of the wall edges. At times some aliens will appear to be floating in mid-air and you can’t shoot them even though they’re chewing on you.
This game needs more play testing. With its shortness, technical and control issues and overall dullness, Prey Invasion feels more like a 2 star tech demo than a complete game. On the bright side, the Iphone easily handles everything fired at it giving FPS fans hope for much better action in the future.
reviewed by goyami - Iphone |