Watch: Johnny plays Prey (2006) for the first time
In this week's Late to the Party.
Bethesda's Prey launched last month, to decent critical acclaim and middling sales. In the run up to its release we published a few Prey videos on our YouTube channel, and there one theme in particular that kept cropping up in the comments - fans were not happy with how different this Prey was to the 2006 original.
As the comments continued to roll in I could understand their frustration, but only in an abstract way - this owing to the fact I had never actually played Prey. Fellow video team member Chris caught wind of this recently, however, and decided to put things right in this week's episode of Late to the Party.
To be honest, I think I get it now. This year's Prey really is nothing like the original Prey, though to be fair to Bethesda I think that's because nothing is like the original Prey. With alien bum doors, almost-great gameplay mechanics and an awe-inspiring disregard for cultural sensitivity, Prey is an amazing snapshot of what games could sometimes be in the mid-to-late 2000s. It's bold and brazen and weird enough to be genuinely fascinating. I can see why it's fixed so firmly in the minds of its fans, but goodness me was it ever weird to experience it for the first time in 2017. Anyway, you can see how I got on in the video below.
You know, one time during a campaign of pen and paper RPG Deadlands: Reloaded, I played a Native American character called Kohana. He was handy with a tomohawk and I did a (probably very offensive) Native American accent when I spoke as him and everything - and yet I still suspect I managed to be less insulting than Prey. It really is quite something.