Matt’s Somewhat Serious Bit
Anyone who has been interested in PC gaming for the last 10 years or so would have heard of Prey. Originally set to compete with games like Quake in the latter half of the 90’s, 3D Realms put Prey on indefinite hold in 1999, believing that the portal technology the game employed was a little too small an idea to base an entire game on. However, in 2001, 3D Realms reacquired the Prey IP from then publishing partner Infrogrames (now Atari), licensed the Doom 3 engine and commissioned Rune developer Human Head Studios to begin work on the game again in secret. Then in 2005, seemingly out of the blue, a beautiful new Prey trailer was shown, displaying many of the technologies spoken about in the original game’s development spec. The lengthy demo is available now from all the usual sites, and is well worth checking out. Playing Half Life 2: Episode One and the Prey demo did make me think about something important that seems to be becoming increasingly lost in games – good level design.
If only more shooters had such well designed levels
Some might argue straight off the bat that Prey has bad level design, but these people hate video games and need to find a new hobby. The thing that sets Prey apart from most games is the sense of scope and wonder that the game passes off – I think this is something that many first person shooters seem to have lost in recent years. Remember the first time you made it to the surface in Unreal? What about the space station levels in Duke Nukem 3D? Or the giant room deathmatch level in Sin? The sense of wonder in many first person shooters has dropped off and been replaced in many cases by a need for better graphics and more hulking marines in armoured suits. Surely it’s about time developers realised that you can’t play graphics, and that the gameplay is king. Look at Doom 3 and Halo 2 – lots of cut and paste level design, but fantastic graphics. Look at the later Unreal Tournament games – thoughtless, wide open areas, but again, great graphics. Far Cry – lovely lush environments as far as the eye can see, crap gameplay. F.E.A.R. – great graphics, excellent AI and gunplay – terrible cut and paste level design and too much brown.
Of course, maybe the level design in Prey is a little too over the top – anti-grav floors, portals all over the place to the point where you can literally see yourself crawling around and those anus doors, but damned if it isn’t really cool, and something I’d like to see more of. I fear for those who think that games like Gears of War are going to save the next generation, which is lagging in gameplay terms from nobody daring to do anything new. Then again, Human Head Studios has had 5 years to put Prey together, which is much more than many developers will put into a game. By that logic, maybe Duke Nukem Forever will have the best levels ever.
Things that make you go “WTF!?!”
Prey’s anus doors.
Easy Feedback
Which games do you think have the best level design? What do you think makes those particular levels stand out? Post your answers in the comments thread.
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