Prey review

Which brings us to the most fundamentally disappointing aspect - the guns. Or, more specifically, the lack of ammo for the good ones. Even once you get the fantastic acid-spitting shotgun or the fire and ice torrents of the Leech Gun, for instance, you'll still regularly end up back with the annoyingly pathetic, weedy clatter of the default weapon, a thing which makes Quake III's machine gun feel potent.

Tommy refuses to believe in Cherokee spiritualism and we're clearly supposed to care about his resulting relationship troubles. Unfortunately, even after being kidnapped by aliens, talking to a relative he's just seen killed, transported to a mountain that doesn't exist and meeting the ghost of his dead boyhood pet, he's still utterly sceptical.

Above: The organic weaponry is wonderfully imagined, such as the acid-spitting shotgun or the fire and ice torrents of the Leech Gun

Only the most boneheaded man would interrupt a fight with aliens to tell a ghost he doesn't 'believe'. It's impossible to take Prey as seriously as it takes itself, and a single 'comedy' reference to Doom won't convince anyone.

Many of Prey's flaws disappear in multiplayer. While there's only deathmatch and team deathmatch at the moment, the maps are themed around the game's various oddities - portals, gravity walkways, asteroids, pods and so on - so jumping into whichever takes your fancy lets you take advantage of the technology (and the better guns) without delay.