Every once in a while, a game will come out that completely shakes things up. This year, one of the games to do so is Prey. The player takes on the role of Tommy, a Cherokee Indian who can't wait to get away from his heritage, to the chagrin of both his girlfriend and grandfather. However, all those concerns are soon tossed aside when cones of light start shining down from the night sky and the roof of the bar is torn open. Before anyone has a chance to figure out what's going on, everyone is taken aboard an alien spacecraft and soon processed in a multitude of ways. A mysterious figure frees you from the conveyor belt, and you begin your journey across the gigantic craft in search of your loved ones and revenge.

The thing that will blow gamers away is the ship itself. In the history of video games, there have been plenty of 3D shooters, but Prey is one of the few games that actually forces players to think in three dimensions. Gravity in this game is relative. There are walkways that can be turned on and off which allow you to walk along walls and ceilings. Additionally, there are pads which, when shot, will shift the focus of gravity to that wall. So, certain room puzzles will require the player to navigate a configuration that might include a specific wall or the ceiling as the floor. This concept is part of just about every aspect of the game. Thinking in three dimensions can be really dizzying sometimes, so anyone who has any vague sense of motion sickness when it comes to first-person shooters might want to give this one a pass.

Further stirring things up is the incredible portal technology. Oftentimes, aliens will open up portals and ambush you, which can become a bit annoying, but you quickly get used to it. There are portals that can be opened by activating certain machinery, and some that simply exist. They can be part of some surface, like a box, which looks normal from one side, but the other leads to a completely different area. These portals can sometimes only be a one-way trip, dropping you almost anywhere with a different sense of gravity. There is even one scene where a box comes rolling at you, with one portal surface, and aliens coming through to attack whenever that surface faces you. However, you can always see clearly through these portals, so going through them can sometimes be a surprise. Additionally, they can sometimes be a little cheap. You can fire through the portals, but the aliens on the other side are often too stupid to fire back through it. So, it's possible to clear half an area with your limited vantage point before walking through.

There aren't that many weapons to be found in the game, but the majority of them are so different and quirky that you don't really need too many. The first weapon you get is a wrench, which pretty much gets no use after you pick up your first alien gun, which is a sort of rod launcher, reminiscent of the nail gun from Quake. It works as an automatic weapon, but its secondary fire enables it as a sniper rifle, giving you infrared vision to quickly pick out your targets. All the guns have an organic feel, and the majority of them are literally alive. Your automatic rifle writhes in your hands. Grenades are explosive crawler aliens that you literally pick up along the way. The rocket launcher looks like it has some sort of life form trapped inside of it. The most interesting weapon is a sort of leeching gun, which has a changing function according to ammunition type. Certain areas will have charging stations with different types of energy, and the gun can leech the energy and use it for ammunition. Heat will fire rapid bolts of plasma, similar to the plasma gun from Doom. Ice will freeze foes in place, and they will quickly melt away (unfortunately, you can't use another weapon to shatter them). Most impressive of all are the electrical and solar energies, which we'll leave to you to discover. However, this gun doesn't hold a lot of ammunition and you never know when there will be another charging station (most can only be used once), leaving it to be used under specific conditions.