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Prey v1.2 PC Patch Released
Today we're bringing you the latest Prey patch for the PC. This is
the "additional content" patch you've been hearing about. This new
content came out earlier today for the Xbox 360, and now we're
releasing it for the PC as well. Here's a short listing of what is new
in this patch:
Five new multiplayer characters/skins: Becky, Elhuit, Hunter, Elite Hunter, & Jen
Four new multplayer maps: Gravity Labs, Space Oddity, Topillogical, Tunnel Rat
There's a few notes about the patch:
- This will work on either v1.0 or v1.1 of Prey.
- This is only for customers who bought the CD or DVD version.
We will have an announcement very shortly on how Triton customers will
be handled.
- There are no new game play modes in this patch.
- An updated version of the Windows server files are included with the patch.
- An updated version of the Linux server files are available seperately (see downloads page)
In addition to the new content, there are a couple of bug fixes in this version, too:
- Network protocol version bump (will no longer be able to see 1.1 or 1.0 servers)
- Installer will now update uninstaller. This fixes the missing installer problem.
- Game DLL interface bump for upcoming mod SDK release (so mods will only work with v1.2)
- Fix for a weapon switch exploit
You can download this patch right now by visiting the Prey download page
here on the 3D Realms website. If you'd like to read more about the new
levels and characters, then continue to read more of this story here:
PREY v1.2 README:
This add-on includes new maps and multiplayer models as well as a
number of bug fixes from previous versions. Please note that this
version is network incompatible with previous versions, so by
installing this version you will not be able to join any 1.0 or 1.1
multiplayer servers.
This add-on includes four new multiplayer maps and six new multiplayer characters.
New DeathMatch Maps:
The original DM maps in Prey were best suited for 4-8 players. The
maps in this add-on were designed for smaller number of players,
especially for 1v1 or 2v2 play.
DM Gravity Lab: DMGravityLab takes place on board a
floating extension of the Sphere's main Spindle. Players will find
themselves running along wallwalk and hanging catwalks all throughout
the map. Snipers get to have fun this time around with a large outdoor
section complete with wallwalk platforms and portals. Designed for 6
players.
DM Topillogical: The first Prey DM map to feature
Outward Gravity. Run 360 degrees around the inside of a giant Sphere to
get the best firing position on your enemies. Intriguing side-rooms
offer gravity-warping corridors and devious wall-walk ammo depots.
Fast-paced action for 4 players.
DM Tunnel Rat: Danger lurks in all directions but
down in this maze-running map designed for 6 players. Sharp twists and
turns conceal danger at every corner, but eyes up! A mirrored version
of the maze forms the ceiling above you.
DM Space Oddity: DM Space Oddity is designed for 4
players and features a large central crossover room with perpendicular
gravity pathways. Rack up the kills by dominating the crossover with a
rocket launcher!
New Multiplayer Models:
Several new character models are available in DM, three female characters and two alien characters:
Jen: Jen is Tommy's girlfriend, and the owner of the
Roadhouse bar. Don't let her dainty looks fool you: all those years of
serving drinks to random travelers have toughened her up and made her
quite the ass-kicker.
Becky: This young blonde is an unfortunate victim of the
Sphere. First aliens abduct her and now she finds herself fighting for
her life in a deathmatch arena!
Elhuit: The leader of a race of humans who managed to hide and survive living on the Sphere for centuries.
Mother: Mother is a tough, enigmatic character. All you need do is prove your worth.
Alien Hunter: The Hunter is part of a race taken by the
Sphere long ago. Now the Hunter serves as one of the chief minions of
the Sphere, acting as an enforcer force for any humans who try to
escape.
Elite Alien Hunter: Same badass Hunter, cooler-looking armor.
Bug Fixes:
This update also includes a number of bug fixes:
* Network protocol version bump (will no longer be able to see 1.1 or 1.0 servers)
* Installer will now update uninstaller. This fixes the missing installer problem.
* Game DLL interface bump for upcoming mod SDK release (so mods will only work with v1.2)
* Fix for a weapon switch exploit
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:35 PM
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Prey 360 Additional Content Now Available
If you're a fan of Prey for the Xbox 360, then this story is for you.
Available right now on the Xbox Live Marketplace is the "additional
content" that has been promised. It's all free, and this is what you
can download:
Becky-Multi-player character
Elhuit-Multi-player character
Elite-Multi-player character
Hunter-Multi-player character
Jen-Multi-player character
Gravity Labs-Multi-player map
Space Oddity-Multi-player map
Topillogical-Multi-player map
Tunnel Rat-Multi-player map
So fire up your Xbox 360 and head over to the marketplace to download these maps and multiplayer skins.
This content will be released on the PC side shortly. We'll have more info on that as soon as it's available.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:58 AM
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Prey Additional Content to be Free
A little while back, we announced that additional content was being
worked on for Prey. It is still being worked on, but we have a small
(but important) update to bring you on this.
This new content will be free of charge. This goes for both the PC side and the Xbox 360 side.
Just to remind folks, we're working on some new multiplayer skins
(play as Jen, Elhuit, etc), and some new multiplayer maps. Both are
coming along nicely, but the exact number of both is as of yet not
finalized, so I can't tell you exactly what will be in the content pack.
As usual, there's no date for this, the materials will be out "when
they're done" (although sooner than later I'd imagine ). Given that we
received the "official" word this afternoon, we didn't want to wait to
bring you this update, which many people have been asking us about.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:10 PM
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Canadian Prey LCE Coupon Info
This morning we have received an email from 2K Games about a minor
problem with the versions of Prey distributed in Canada. They were
missing the download voucher for the Prey Soundtrack in the box. We are
here to bring you information on how to obtain said coupon if you were
one of the affected customers. Here is the text from 2K Games on this
issue:
2K has identified that certain units of the Prey PC and Xbox 360
Limited Collector's Edition distributed in Canada did not include the
DirectSong free soundtrack download voucher in the package. 2K has
established a redemption program to provide soundtrack download
vouchers to Canadian customers who purchased the bilingual Limited
Collector's Edition and did not receive the voucher.
Affected customers should mail the bilingual Prey Limited Collector's
Edition sleeve (o-card) that fits over the metal case, along with their
name and complete mailing address to:
Prey LCE Redemption Program
c/o Interlinc Direct
1-65 Superior Blvd
Mississauga ON L5T 2X9
The sleeve will be returned along with the voucher. In the event the
sleeve has been discarded, customers can mail their original receipt
with the Edition circled. Receipts will not be returned. This program
is only valid for customers who purchased affected copies of the
bilingual Canadian Prey Limited Collector's Edition.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:49 AM
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Prey v1.1 PC Patch Released
Today 3D Realms & Human Head have announced the release of the
v1.1 patch for the PC version of Prey. You can download the patch for
free from our Prey downloads page here.
Here is a list of what's changed/fixed in the patch, from the changelog provided by Human Head:
- Multiplayer bandwidth optimization to allow better play on higher latency connections
- Fixed projectile effects not showing up on dedicated servers
- Fixed crash at startup due to time/date validation on some systems
- Fixed crash at startup due to querying old OpenAL drivers
- Fixed an occasional crash on the dedicated server
- Fixed a crash when using image_usecache cvar with very big
textures. Textures whose lowest mip map doesn't fit will be default
texture. This was causing a crash when a modified prey was loading
"Mother's Embrace".
- Fixed a crash on some machines when reading savegames.
- Some timedemo features not appearing if you restart prey between record/playback
- Added widescreen resolutions to menus
- Updated multiplayer browser to fix servers not showing up due to DNS resolution
- Updated multiplayer browser not keeping join button up to date when server summary wasn't the active tab.
- Updated multiplayer browser so punkbuster icons show up in their column properly
- Updated multiplayer browser so mod games' icons show up
properly updated multiplayer browser so server scanning is more
consistent on slower connections
- Fixed multiplayer weapon exploit
- Bumped network protocol version. Unpatched games will not be
able to play online with patched games. This means that if you are
playing v1.0, you can not play against or on servers running v1.1 (and
vice versa).
This is a tech/bug fix patch, there are no new game play elements in
this update. Please note that the previously announced "new content"
(maps, multiplayer skins) is not part of this update, and will be made
available at a later date.
Customers who have purchased Prey through Triton should NOT
use this patch. Triton customers will be updated through the Triton
system. You will be notified that an update is available when you run
the game, and will be asked at that time to update; Triton will handle
the rest.
Please note that if you use this patch, the dedicated server files
will also need to be updated if you are already using them. The Windows
based version of the files are included with this patch. The updated
Linux server files can be obtained here.
The existing server files that were released in mid July are for v1.0
of the game, and will still work for that version, but the v1.1 patch
requires updated server files.
Special Thanks to ZeTortue for bug testing.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:00 AM
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3D Realms is in the toilets
At least according to men's magazine Maxim, we are.
They recently ran a story entitled "The 12 Greatest Videogame Toilets of All Time",
focusing on, of all things, the best toilet usage in videogames. It's
quite silly, and of course, 3D Realms placed pretty well in the list.
In fact, we had three entries in the article, a full 1/4 of the entire
list! :) Anyway, here's what they had to say about games we were
involved in:
Prey: Ranked #12
This toilet looks like Kirstie Alley and Bruce "Hollywood
Squares" Vilanch were trying to spell out the words STAR JONES on it
with their rectums after a midnight Arby's run. Forget trying to clean
this place: Just scatter some jet fuel, light a match, and move to the
next-closest state.
Max Payne: Ranked #9
Ask Elvis: There's no shame whatsoever in dying on a
toilet. None. But dying while wearing silly underpants? Let's just say
that this just-shotgunned guy has brought much shame on his house. Much
shame.
Duke Nukem 3D: Ranked #1 Best Toilet!
Duke was the first game to dive headfirst into the murky,
log-filled virtual septic tank. We were thrilled when we popped open
stalls and found random aliens dropping a load of gravel. Maxim Tip:
Pop the alien in the head, bust up his toilet bowl, and then take a big
hearty drink of toilet water for a health boost.
Head on over to Maxim's site now and read up on all the greatest toilet action!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:57 PM
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Prey Weekly... Er... Monthly Update #24
Hi all -- Welcome to the latest edition of the Prey Weekly update.
Er, hasn't really been weekly for the past few weeks, though.
Things around here have been busy, but not nearly as busy as when we finished Prey. What have we been up to this past month?
Well, we've still been settling into our new offices; preparing the
Prey patch and additional content; we had a fantastic Prey release
party; many people have been taking vacations and sabbaticals (after
you've been with Human Head for six years, you're granted an extra
month off vacation. A lot of people are exercising that vacation now
that Prey is done); and we're preparing for future projects (training,
rethinking the design process, etc).
Prey Release Party
On July 20th, we threw a rockin' Prey release party in downtown
Madison at the historic Orpheum Theater. More than two hundred of our
closest friends and business associates attended, socialized, drank a
lot and generally had a great time. There was an eight-player Xbox360
set-up for people to play deathmatch that was constantly busy
throughout the night. Music was provided by Kid Beyond who was amazing! The things that guy can do with his voice were simply insane.
Overall, it was a damn fun night. Huge thanks for the group here who
set the whole thing up, and a huge thanks to everyone who attended and
helped us celebrate this monumental occasion.
Big thanks to Scott and George for attending as well. Although
George's camera should be banned from all future parties where there's
booze involved! :) We'll try and get some pictures online if we can pry
them from George's hands. :)
Prey v1.1 Patch
We're currently working on a 1.1 patch for Prey to fix several bugs
and a couple of additions. Here is the (not final) list of changes:
- Fixed a crash at startup on some machines
- Fixed an occasional crash on the dedicated server
- Fixed a crash when using image_usecache cvar with very big
textures. Textures whose lowest mip map doesn't fit will be default
texture.
- This was causing a crash when a modified prey was loading "Mother's Embrace".
- Fixed a crash on some machines when reading savegames.
- Some timedemo features not appearing if you restart between record/playback
- Added widescreen resolutions to menus
- Updated multiplayer browser to fix servers not showing up due to DNS resolution
- Updated multiplayer browser not keeping join button up to date when server summary wasn't the active tab.
- Updated multiplayer browser so punkbuster icons show up in their column properly
- Updated multiplayer browser so mod games' icons show up properly
- Updated multiplayer browser so server scanning is more consistent on slower connections
- Fixed multiplayer weapon exploit
Venom is working on a 360 patch for Prey which will address the
network lag issues on the 360 as well as fix several bugs there as well.
No ETA yet on the release of either of these patches, other than we hope to have them resolved and out very, very soon.
New Content for Prey
There's also new content for Prey coming soon -- still in the
process of finalizing the new maps. We've read online that some people
have requested maps that function well as 1v1 maps. So, we've taken
that to heart and have been working on four maps that work better with
a smaller number of people 2-4 players. Of course, you can still play
with more than four in the maps, but they can get pretty insane.
Also, we're adding in six new player characters:
- Four female characters: Jen, Elhuit, Mother, and Becky (the blond
victim you see occasionally on slabs in the single player Prey)
- Two Hunter characters: Hunter and Elite Hunter
Similar to the 1.1 patch, no ETA on the release on this, other than
soon. We're still working on finishing the maps and play balancing
them. We'll announce the release date for this, once we're closer to
final. Watch 3DR's page, or Prey.com for that info.
Yes, this additional content will be released on the 360 as well.
Further details about possible points cost of the extra content for the
360 has yet to be determined.
Well, that's all for now. We'll definitely keep everyone posted on the status of the patch and of the new content.
Until next time, stay out of trouble.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Visit our Prey Downloads Page to get the PC Demo!
Visit Xbox Live Marketplace to download the Prey 360 demo!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:47 PM
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A Retelling of Prey
There's a really cool Sims style of game out called "The Movies",
in which you can direct your characters and make a movie out of the
actions in the game. The game allows you to export the videos/films you
make in the game, and share them with others. That is what we're
bringing you here.
Prey fan Urafaerie has posted this video on our forums. It's
entitled "A Retelling of Prey Part 1" done in "The Movies". It's quite
funny, although if you haven't played the game, you might not
understand some of the jokes in it. But if you have, it's most
definitely worth checking out!
You can watch via the embedded video below, or head to Youtube's page for the video.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:40 PM
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Prey's Music Composer Nominated for MTV VMA
Here's your chance to make video game history! GameTrailers.com
and MTV are proud to announce two new MTV Video Music Awards to be
presented on MTV's Overdrive during the world famous VMAs - "Best Video
Game Soundtrack" and "Best Video Game Score." GameTrailers has selected
five nominees for each category, and you decide who wins by casting
your vote now! So what are you waiting for? This is your chance to
participate in the first ever video game related VMAs!
Why are we telling you this? Well, it's because Prey composers
Jeremy & Julian Soule have been nominated in the first ever
videogame category for the MTV video music awards show. Now they're not
nominated for Prey, but they are nominated for the music they did for
another AAA title; that being The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
If you are a fan of either Prey or Oblivion, head on over
to this link and vote for Jeremy & Julian Soule. The winner of this
award is directly chosen by you - that's right, it's a popularity
contest, so head on over to gametrailers now and vote! Voting ends on
August 28th, and the show airs on August 31st.
Additionally, if you're a fan of Prey and haven't checked out their soundtrack, you can get your own copy right now over at DirectSong's Prey site.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:33 AM
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Official Prey Wiki Launched
Available now is an information wiki from Human Head, Venom, & 3D Realms. It's available here. This is a non editable wiki (which means it's only editable by us).
It's purpose for existing is to disseminate information about the
game to the public from the developers. Not a general Wiki like Wikipedia where everyone can edit pages.
The first batch of information from Human Head is available now.
This consists of some tutorials on how to use Preditor to do various
things. There is also some general information about the gamee, plus a
copy of Lon Matero's excellent "History of Prey".
Future updates will include information about patches, more
tutorials, and other relevant information from the developers. Check it
out today!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:54 PM
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Prey Burning up the Sales Charts!
That's right, Prey is the #1 game on the Xbox 360 in the UK as per this chart info over at chart-track.co.uk.
Prey is beating out such current heavy hitters on the console such
as Chromehounds, Moto GP 06, Table Tennis, & Elder Scrolls IV:
Oblivion!
If you haven't checked out Prey on your Xbox 360, the demo is available for free right now in the Marketplace, or you can check out the purchase info here on our site!
Prey is #1 on the UK PC sales charts too - besting the Sims 2 (as
well as one of its expansion packs), and World of Warcraft, and other
titles like Half Life 2: Episode 1. Check out the full UK PC sales
chart here.
Prey is also up at the top of the US PC sales charts, too. Gaming site Voodoo Extreme
is reporting that for the week ending July 20th, Prey was #2 in the
overall sales chartes, behind only perennial powerhouse World of
Warcraft. Check out the complete list over at Voodoo Extreme!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:17 PM
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Prey Strategy Guide now available!
Having
a problem getting by a certain level in Prey? Want to find out all you
can about the secret areas in Prey? Then we have something for you.
It's the Official Prey Strategy guide book. Available now, this guide
is a comprehensive guide to Tommy's world of Prey.
BradyGames' Prey Official Strategy Guide includes the following:
- A comprehensive walkthrough that guides you through every twist and turn of this epic adventure
- Multiprey coverage: crush the opposition in multiplayer with weapon locations, item locations, and strategy for every map
- A full bestiary with tips and tactics to help you obliterate the gruesome foes that threaten your existence
- A complete list of Xbox 360 game achievements to help you go for the best Game Card score
This guide is enhanced with bonus online content! Look inside for
the BradyGames Connected icon and follow the URL to access these
exclusive features:
- Boss fight, strategy, and puzzle videos in three formats for PC, iPod, and PlayStation Portable (PSP)
- Downloadable wallpapers featuring Prey artwork for your PC desktop, in four sizes
This guide covers both the PC & Xbox 360 versions, so whichever
platform is your choosing, this guide has something for you! You can
order your own copy right now by clicking on the cover art shown here.
You can also check out other books about our games on our books page.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:56 PM
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Prey Music LIVE!
This story came to us very late, but it's still something cool, and
we wanted to pass it on. Tonight in Philadelphia some of the game music
from Prey will be played LIVE in concert! This story is brought to us
by our friends over at Joystiq.com. Check out what they had to say:
Philly is racking up the video game concerts this summer.
First, the Video Games Live concert at the Merriam Theater in June*,
and now rival production PLAY! at the Mann Center tonight, 8:30.
Just to make the evening super special, the promoters added some
music from the (better than you'd think) Prey soundtrack to the already
impressive program. Other titles on the RPG-heavy lineup include Final
Fantasy, Chrono Cross and Trigger, Morrowind, Kingdom Hearts, Shenmue,
and more. Tickets are still available so if this is the first you've
heard about it, get buying.
This is very cool news to hear. If anyone reading this attended the
show, please write in, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks again to
Joystiq.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:51 PM
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Prey Windows Dedicated Server Binaries Available
A couple of days ago, we released
the Prey dedicated server binaries for Linux. At that time, we said
that the Windows ones were still being worked on. We're here now to
tell you that they've been completed, and are being released now.
Available on our Prey downloads page,
the Windows server files are ready for downlod for free right now.
There is a readme available online which you can check out before
downloading. That file is available here.
The file is about 1.5Mb in size, and is a zip archive. You will need
some files from your original Prey registered CD (or DVD). Details as
to what you will need are in the readme file.
Officially, these files are unsupported. They have been tested, and
do work, but if you run into problems getting them to run, our official
support channels cannot help you. Having said all that, we're aware
that folks have been clamoring for the files, so go download today!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:20 PM
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Prey Party Wallpaper Image
On Friday when we posted the news that Prey was out in Europe we
included a "Prey Party Image". Since then we've gotten several requests
to release that in wallpaper sized versions. So that's what we're here
to do now. Available now are signficantly larger versions of that image
- click on the resolution you wish via the choices below.
We also had a few queries about the origins of the image. It was
created Human Head as part of an invitation to a private industry
function to celebrate the Prey launch.
Enjoy - and thanks to James Sumwalt of Human Head with providing the larger versions.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:55 PM
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Prey Linux Dedicated Server Binaries Available
Human
Head Studios, Incorporated is proud to announce the availability of a
dedicated multiplayer server for Prey running on the Linux platform.
Instructions for setup are included in the package, which may be
downloaded for free from any of the locations on our Prey downloads page.
There is a readme available online which you can check out before downloading. That file is available here.
The file is about 5.2Mb in size, and is a Linux archive (bz2). You
will need some files from your original Prey registered CD (or DVD).
Details as to what you will need are in the readme file.
Officially, these files are unsupported. They have been tested, and
do work, but if you run into problems getting them to run, our official
support channels cannot help you. Having said all that, we're aware
that folks have been clamoring for the files, so go download today! Thaks to Ryan over at Icculus for all the hard work on this.
One final note - the Windows based dedicated server files are still
being worked on. They should be available shortly; we'll have more word
on that when we have news to report.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:47 PM
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Prey is out!
It's Prey Day! It's been a long time coming, but the full retail version of Prey has been released!
It's out in retail today in North America, and on the 14th elsewhere
around the world in both PC & Xbox 360 formats. Run to your local
retailer to get a copy. If you don't want to run, you can SpritWalk
over there. :)
If you haven't checked it out at all, there's a demo available for the PC version as well as the 360 version (on Xbox Live Marketplace). You can try them for free now.
But the game is available in retail now. You can also download the full game over at Triton
if you don't want to stand in line at a store, or save some gasoline.
:) And speaking of Triton, here's a news flash they sent over to us:
Triton, the world's fastest online game streaming service,
is providing uncapped bandwidth for the launch of Prey! Customers will
enjoy over 30 gigabits of bandwidth and 48 terabytes of caching across
thousands of servers around the globe for the delivery of Prey, with no
cap on download speed per connection! The more bandwidth you have, the
quicker you get up and playing, and the faster the game streams to your
PC!
Once you've gotten the game, make sure and join in the discussions on our Prey forums by clicking here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:30 PM
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Interview with Ed Lima on Prey Audio
Out today is a new interview with sound man Ed Lima (formerly) of Human Head on Prey related sound. Here's a few quotes from the full interview:
"Q: Prey has had an interesting development cycle, was
there any old content you inherited from the old "Prey" that was being
developed by 3D Realms? Or any direction from back then for sound
design?
A: As with most other elements of "Prey", 3D Realms very generously
gave Human Head free reign to do what was required. Since the monsters,
weapons and settings were all newly created for the game, all of the
audio content was similarly built from the ground up. We did use some
original Grandfather voiceover in our first E3 2005 trailer for "Prey",
but beyond that, every audio asset is brand new.
Q: What was your role on Prey and what other games have you worked on in the past?
A: I was Audio Lead on "Prey", which means I was responsible for
everything you hear in the game, including sound effects, music and
voiceover. I also directed the voiceover actors, and contributed some
additional writing to the game. My previous titles include "DOOM 3",
"007 Nightfire", and Empire Earth."
Check out the full interview over here at soundblaster.com.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:15 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #23: GOLD Edition
Welcome to an edition of the Weekly Update that I've been dying to write for a long time. Prey is officially GOLD!!
After five years of development, Prey is done and on its way to manufacturing.
It's a good feeling. No, it's a great feeling. Of course, like any
project, there are a hundred little things I wanted to fix. But there
comes a time when you have to stop and agree that it's time for the
game to escape into the world.
Understandably, spirits are really high here at Human Head. We just
went gold, and last week the PC demo was released to an amazing amount
of praise (a huge thanks to everyone who emailed us to say congrats --
we all truly appreciate the letters of encouragement).
And other good news today -- the Xbox 360 demo has finally been
released! If you have a 360, go grab it! See what that kid up the hall
with the PC has been raving about lately.
The demo was, in a way, an interesting experiment that's paying off
very well. I mean, think about it: how many games these days release a
demo before the full version is released? We noticed that trend that
felt that we could get a demo out before the full version. Nothing
markets a game better than the game itself.
Not only that, but I've heard a lot of people are happy that the
demo contains so much content. Why did we choose to release a fairly
large five-level demo? Well, we've always wanted to release the demo
from the start of the game. At the same time, we knew it was important
for people to experience SpiritWalking and DeathWalk. But neither of
those features come into play until the fifth level of the game. So, it
was pretty obvious that we needed to include all of those levels in the
demo. And, of course, we needed to show off MP. So that added on an
additional two levels. End result: A pretty big demo.
A few people have mentioned that we've shown off all the tricks in
the game already in the demo. Not by a long shot. There are still a lot
of things that we held back: the shuttle vehicle, a lot of other cool
portal and gravity puzzles, more creatures, and different environments.
But, this is starting to sound like a marketing pitch...
So what's going on here at HH now? Well, many people here at HH are
taking well-deserved breaks, before we dive into our next project. But,
we're committed to supporting Prey. We're also working on additional
content for both PC and the 360 -- nothing concrete that we can
announce right now, other than some new DM maps (especially some maps
designed specifically for one-on-one matches!). No estimate on when
this content will be released, but we hope to start internal testing of
at least one of the new DM maps next week.
We've also been spending some time online deathmatching in the demo.
So if you see a Human Head person online, you know, take it easy on
them. :-)
Until next week, stay out of trouble and enjoy the Prey demos!
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
P.S. Sorry there was no update last week, in the aftermath of the PC demo release, we totally forgot to do one last Friday!
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Visit our Prey Downloads Page to get the PC Demo!
Visit Xbox Live Marketplace to download the Prey 360 demo!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 6:19 PM
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Prey Has Gone Gold!
It's gold!
Prey has gone gold. The game will be released publically in North
America on July 11th, and in Europe on July 14th. If you haven't
pre-ordered your copy already, there's still time! Check out the preorder page for full details on the different versions available, and how to get them.
If you want to read the full press release from 2K Games and 3D Realms, you can do so here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:56 AM
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Prey: Videogame Music Finally Grows Up
Now that the PC version of the Prey demo is out, those of you who
have played it have had a chance to sample the brilliant musical score
in the game. There's lots LOTS more in the full version, but the demo
does give you a taste. If you enjoyed the music, then you'll want to
check out a new article over at soundtracks.net entitled, "Prey: Videogame Music Finally Grows Up".
This article goes into detail on several aspects of the music in Prey,
which was authored by Jeremy & Julian Soule. Here's some tidbits
from the article, which is definitely written for someone who is
heavily into music, and in particular soundtracks.
"Prey is destined to effect industry-wide change: from
defining a new standard by which music commissions for flagship
interactive titles can be judged, to sounding a welcome death knell for
the use of through-composed material. It is a key milestone and one
that is the culmination of a decade's work spent to bring the true
sound of Hollywood into the home."
Scott Miller, 3D Realms' CEO, acknowledges that the importance of
Jeremy's contribution to Prey is a testament to their shared vision,
"It was a fantastic stroke of luck that Jeremy was coming off of the
back of another project and was able to sit-down with us and bring to
the game that level of Hollywood excellence he's renowned for. We had
felt that it'd be very difficult to get him, but he was so enthused
about the project from the moment we approached him, so in-tune with
our needs that he ended up coming on-board straight away."
In this latter vein, the game owes much to Julian's co-composing
sensibilities, who points out that "working on Prey was very much like
scoring a whole season of a network drama in a few weeks. Thankfully,
though, we didn't have to deal with constantly moving goalposts because
everyone involved had a clear sense of direction from the start."
Finally, don't forget that you can purchase the soundtracks to Prey right now over at Direct Song's Website.
You don't have to wait for the full game to come out to hear all the
music. Here's what the article above says about the soundtrack:
"With
ardent PC and Xbox 360 gamers chomping at the byte for Prey's arrival,
two volumes of music featuring Jeremy and Julian's soundtrack have been
released in advance of the game's summer debut. Prey - Volume 1 and,
unsurprisingly, Volume 2 showcase almost 145 minutes of courageous and
thrilling music.
The albums are available exclusively for download at DirectSong.com,
the gaming industry's leading music portal. Whilst you'll require
Windows Media Player (version 7.1 upwards) to play the music and
transfer it between devices (the tracks have built-in DRM), DirectSong
must be applauded for offering their content at 320kbps - as close to
the rawness of CD quality audio available today via digital
distribution and surely a kick in the teeth for their competition."
And finally, for reading through this story, you get another chance
to win a free copy of Prey. The soundtrack.net website is giving away
five copies of Prey. Head over to their contest page to enter!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:10 PM
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Official Prey Servers
On Friday, we told you about several official Prey Demo Deathmatch
servers available. Well there's more now, and we wanted to tell you
about them.
"Official Prey Server 1 [NSI Hosting]".
"Official Prey Server 2 [NSI Hosting]".
There are also some official servers at Human Head. They can be found with this nomenclature:
"Official Human Head Server #1"
"Official Human Head Server #2"
"Official Human Head Server #3"
"Official Human Head Server #4"
There was a server up over the weekend called "Human Head Demo Server" - this server has been removed.
If you'd like to read it, here is the original notification remark from Human Head last Thursday:
The response to the Prey release last night has been phenomenal. We
are glad that y'all seem to like the game so much. We have had requests
for Official Human Head & 3D Realms servers. While we're looking
into it at 3DR, Human Head does have some servers set up now. We got a
message from Tim G at Human Head about this situation:
"The server is up at 8.15.1.15:27719, and also in the main server list as "Official Prey Server 1 [NSI Hosting]".
Since that email, there is an Official Prey Server to go with this,
as well as a server at Human Head HQ named surprisingly enough "Human
Head Demo Server". :)
If/when we get more Official HH/3DR servers online, we'll be sure to
bring you that information as well. A special thanks goes out to Kirt
Senser at NSI Hosting who has helped out in getting all this going.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:15 AM
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Prey Collector's Edition Box Art & A Dedication
A few days back we posted the final box art for both the PC &
Xbox 360 versions of Prey. Today we're here to bring you what the final
version of the Limited Collector's Edition box arts look like. As you
may remember, the LCE comes with not just the game, but some extra
goodies. A couple of pewter figures, a booklet on the Art of Prey, and
other cool stuff. This all comes in a cool metal box, so here's what
you'll see when you get your copy.
If you haven't pre-ordered yours, we've recently expanded the
pre-order program that is available in North America & Canada with
additional outlets to pre-order from. Remember, if you pre-order you
get the third pewter figure (Mutate) as well, so if you're interested
in all the figures, pre-ordering the LCE is something you're going to
want to do. You can check out the full details of the pre-order program
on our site here.
Finally, now that Prey is out, we wanted to take this moment to
remember a fallen comrade, William Scarboro. William was one of the
orginal Prey team back in 1995, he worked here on Rise of the Triad as
well. Unfortunately, and quite sadly, William died in August of 2002
of an asthma attack. It is to my great pleasure that he is remembered
11 years later upon the release of Prey, as the entire game has been
dedicated to William, Prey's original lead programmer. If you've run
through the credits of the demo already, you will have seen the
dedication already, but if you haven't, here's what it looks like.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:00 PM
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New Tim Gerritsen Interview
Now that Prey is out, the interviews about it can change slightly,
since Human Head and 3DR don't have to be so guarded in what they say.
The website Eurogamer has a new interview up today
with Tim Gerritsen of Human Head. Tim talks about several things,
including the origins of certain game ideas, why only Deathmatch &
Team DM in the game, and other issues along these lines. Here's a few
quotes from the article:
Eurogamer: Why are there only deathmatch and team deathmatch modes? Why not capture the flag, or something more original?
Tim Gerritson: Prey is predominantly a single player game, and we
didn't want to divide our focus by trying to add on a ton of half-baked
modes to multiplay. Instead we decided to focus on making Deathmatch
and doing it right. We reasoned that if we did a good deathmatch mode
and got it right, and released the editor and SDK, we'd be in a far
better position to create or support new modes down the road.
Eurogamer: How does the anti-gravity element of the gameplay affect the way multiplayer matches play out?
Tim Gerritson: It's not really anti-gravity so much as different
gravity, and it's the key to why our multiplayer is fun. By throwing
out the typical rules of gravity, we created multiplayer situations
where you really have to be thinking and reacting at all times.
Eurogamer: The PC demo has just been released? What can players expect from it?
Tim Gerritson: It's a fairly large demo. Not necessarily in terms of
size, since it clocks in at about what most demos do these days, but in
terms of how much content. We've shipped with two multiplayer maps and
the first five levels of the game. You get to see a fair bit of the
game in action to get a feel for it.
If you buy the full game, though, the demo save games work with the
final version of the game (at least on PC) so that you don't have to
replay sections if you don't like.
There's a lot more Tim has to say, so head over to Eurogamer today and read the full interview.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:49 AM
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Update on Prey Demo for Xbox 360
Here's a quick message from our forums, posted by 3DR president George Broussard about availability of the Prey 360 Demo.
We do not want 360 people waiting up for the demo or having
false expectations. The 360 demo will not appear on Marketplace
tonight.
I'm still waiting for specifcs, but I'm being told that it's still
in testing at Microsoft. From what I understand this isn't Microsoft's
fault, and is more likely just an issue of timing.
I'm hesitant to give any estimates for a release, but I've been told
it should be reasonably soon after the PC release, but could be as long
as a few days.
We will post an update as soon as we have more solid information.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:22 PM
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Exclusive Gamespot Demo Preview Video Available
As we count down the hours till the Prey release later tonight, we
wanted to make you aware of an exclusive new video just posted over at
the Gamespot site. Available here now, this video, totaling 10 minutes and 48 seconds is an interview with Chris Rhinehart of Human Head.
In it, Chris talks about various aspects of the Prey Demo, and the
thoughts that went behind various aspects of designing the demo. Chris
shows off some of the game play in the demo itself, running through a
few parts of it. Chris goes into some of the weapons in the demo, and
how Tommy acclimates himself to the Alien environment. Chris also talks
about how the authentic Cherokee nature of the character impacts the
game.
This is a new video, it hasn't been posted before, and is only
available at Gamespot. So head on over there to check it out right now.
Although, some of the stuff Chris talks about is spoilerish for the
demo, too - so be warned. :) But Chris does go into detail on various
modes of the game, and it's nice to hear from the game's developer the
thoughts behind some of the various modes.
Come back later tonight for the long awaited Prey demo!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:20 PM
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Prey Demo Almost Here!
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the Prey demo
will be available this coming Thursday. It's a moment that is both
exciting for us, as it's a major point in the completion of the game.
It's also scary as it's that moment where you always wonder "will they
like it?" Anyway, the demo will world premiere at Gamespot on Thursday
the 22nd at 12:01AM EST. (That's -5 GMT for those of us not in the US).
Gamespot will have the demo first, so if you want it the fastest,
you should check out the Gamespot Prey demo page by clicking on the
graphic below.
Now Gamespot won't be the only place to get the demo, but they will
be the first, and will be ready immediately upon the game's release
Thursday morning. We will have a list of alternate download sites
available once the game is out, please check back after the Gamespot
premiere for further details.
While you wait these last few hours for the Prey demo, we have a
review of the Prey Demo for you to read. The site Firing Squad has
posted a preview of the Prey Demo. Here's a quote from them about their preview:
This article will give you some impressions of the single
player demo along with what is contained in the multiplayer portion as
well (two deathmatch-team deathmatch levels will also be included).
Since everyone else will get to play this demo very soon I will not be
giving away everything I saw or did in the demo version, and the
screenshots of the demo that accompany this preview only show the first
two of the five levels in the demo. We'd rather not spoil all the fun.
Their preview does give away bits of what you see in the demo, so at
this point with less than two days to go until you can check out the
demo yourself, if you want to remain totally unspoiled, you may wish to
skip the preview. For those who don't care about that, then by all
means check it out. They do have this to say about the demo overall, though:
If the rest of Prey's single player campaign is as
entertaining and unique as the demo's first five levels, the long, long
wait for this title may be worth it.
And finally, you'll want to check out these images. They're the
final revision of the box art for Prey for the PC (standard version)
& the Xbox 360. These will differ a little from what you see in the
stores, as the one on your store shelf will have quotes from reviews of
the games, but those have not been included here. Otherwise, these are
what you'll see in the store.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:24 PM
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Xbox 360 Achievement List for Prey Posted
If you have an Xbox 360, then you are familiar with the concept of
achievements. On the 360, the achievement system is a way to gain
points for your gamerscore. Each game has them and you can get either
200 or 1000 total points, depending on what kind of game it is (regular
vs. XBLA). If you'd like to read more about achievements, you can do so
over on this page at Xbox.com.
With the Prey release right around the corner, we thought we'd bring
you some information about the achievements in the Xbox 360 version of
Prey. Here's a breakdown of some of the points for the game:
- 44 total achievements
- Single player points total: 655
- Multiplayer points total: 250
- Secret points total: 30
- Hard mode points total: 65
- 1000 total gamertag points possible
There are three secrets that are not on the list, though. These
three are a secret, you'll have to find out what those are on your own
by playing the game.
Please note that this achievement list is for the full version of
Prey. As such, some things are in this chart that are most definitely
spoilers for the full game. If you do not want the game spoiled for
you, you probably should not read through this list until after you've
played the full version of Prey.
Having said that, if you're interested in checking out the list of achievements, you can do so on this page here on our website.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:32 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #22
And we're back. Apologies for missing last week. Things were pretty
busy leading up to Friday and I wasn't going to be able to write the
update on time.
But I'm back this week and writing this early. Very early. Right
now, it's 2:30 in the morning and I just woke up. Admittedly, I'm still
rather tired, so apologies in advance if this update is a bit rambly.
No, I'm not in some crazy crunch mode right now. I just have to be up
early to catch a plane to Dallas.
So what has been going on lately in the world of Prey and at Human
Head? A ton of stuff. Mainly, we've been playing the PC and 360
versions, as well as tweaking the 360 demo (the PC demo was wrapped up
a bit ago). Time is getting tight with this, since the demo will be
released next week.
That's right. The Prey demo is going to be released in less than a
week. Are we nervous here at Human Head? Yeah, admittedly a bit. But
mostly we're excited to finally unleash the game we've been working on
for the past five years.
Although a bit of history about those five years: Technically, yes
it's been five years as we signed the project in May of 2001. But, we
didn't actually get the Doom 3 code until fall of that year, so the
first few months were all design work. When we received the Doom 3
code, there was a huge shift in learning the new tech.
Then there a pretty big Design Apocalypse around 2003 where we threw
out a lot of stuff and started from scratch. Not the most efficient way
to develop (and I would prefer to avoid so much wasted work in the
future) but in the end it was a huge learning experience that paid off
as the game turned out great. Of course, I'm just the slightest bit
biased.
Anyway, back to the present: Things are starting to slow down a bit
at Human Head. We're still busy, but a few people are done with their
Prey tasks and have been taking their end-of-project vacations, and
others have started some research/learning projects in between testing
Prey.
Some of the level designers have been creating new DeathMatch levels
for the game. They've been working on some new looks as well as
creating some levels that are better designed for one-on-one battles
(most of the levels in Prey are designed to work well with 4-8 people,
although a some also function pretty well with fewer than four
players). We don't have an ETA when these maps will be available.
They've just started on them and aren't at the testing phase yet.
Next week, I'm headed out to San Francisco and Los Angeles for a
Prey PR tour. The demo we'll show during the tour consists of about 40
minutes of gameplay from various parts of Prey (showing both PC and 360
versions). I'm looking forward to it -- especially since I'll be
showing off some areas never before shown to the press. Should be a
pretty interesting trip.
Speaking of trips, I see now that I need to get ready as my flight leaves in only a couple of hours.
Remember: Next week the Prey demo is released. Grab it, play it, and
comment on it. I'm very much looking forward to what everyone has to
say.
Until next week...stay out of trouble.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:56 AM
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Prey Weekly Update Update
Just a short note about this week's Prey Weekly Update. There isn't
going to be one this week. Chris sent over an ICQ message saying
they're just too busy to take the time to write one today for the
update.
This is understandable, as they're incredibly busy at this point as
they race toward finishing the game and the gold announcement that
we're sure people are waiting for. Chris wanted to pass along his
apologies for not doing an update this week, but we're sure you'll
understand.
In the meantime, if you haven't seen it, make sure to check out our Camera Captioning Contest, where you can win a free copy of Prey!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:33 PM
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Prey.com website relaunched
The
Official website for Prey has been redesigned. Sporting the best of the
old design, and a bunch of totally new content, you can check it out
now over at http://www.prey.com.
There's quite a few new pieces in the site, here's a list of some of them:
- The features section now shows small example videos of styles of gameplay such as Gravity Flipping, Wall Walking, etc..
- Several game videos available in streaming or downloadable formats (E3 2006 Trailer, gameplay trailers, etc)
- All new "Characters" section where you can see some of the
characters and read about them. An example of this is shown in the
screen capture to the right.
- Downloadable AIM & MSN Prey Icons
- Downloadable Wallpapers for your computer
That's not all, either. There is a "Music" section in the site which
currently does not have anything in it, but will shortly - info on what
will be there is forthcoming.
Special thanks go out to the crew at 2K for putting all this together, it looks really good, guys! Head on over and check out all the changes, and download yourself a few Prey items for free!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:21 PM
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Prey is "Worth Your While"
Gaming news site ign.com is running a story now entitled, "The Games of Summer 2006".
In it, they talk about how most games are released towards the end of
the year and hardly anything is released during the summer months. The
focus here is how 2006 is not like the norm and there are a lot of good
games for the Xbox 360 coming out. They even go so far as to say
"Generally, however, summer is the kiss of death for games. We're happy
to say that between now and the end of August a handful of original,
worthwhile Xbox 360 games will hit retail stands."
Of course Prey is in this article; here's what they had to say about Prey:
"Human Head has taken a game that started eight years ago
(the first tech demo was shown in 1995), was put on the back burner,
and was then reignited and made something genuinely awesome. That's one
hell of a story in itself. But the real story is how beautiful the game
looks and how well it plays on the Doom 3 engine. Starting with the
initial story based around alien abduction and Native American
mythology, gamers soon learn they haven't just been brought onto a
space ship. They've been transported to an organic, living alien
universe, replete with portals, anti-gravity gameplay, and spiritual
weapons. The game runs smoothly in both single- and multi-player modes
(the latter of which we witnessed at E3), and the mixture of high tech
alien and low-tech Native American weapons gives the game a real unique
spin. The demos we played enabled eight people in multiplayer, and
we'll find out more if that's the final number or not. Still, this
should give your summer a real boost."
Head on over to IGN to check out the full article and see what else you can play when you're done with Prey. :)
UPDATE @ Noon: Turns out they have a similar article
on Summer games for the PC as well. Prey is listed there too. Prey is
actually the only game that IGN has listed on both their 360 & PC
articles. Here's what they said about the PC version:
"Well, first impressions of Prey were underwhelming -- it
looked like a Doom 3 knock-off. Then came the E3 video, and everything
was different. Prey was brightly colored, appeared to contain a solid
storyline featuring an unconventional hero, and made us dizzy.
Literally. We're still impressed by the idea of changing the direction
of gravity (or maybe it's just the room rotating around us, who knows),
and those portals look both fun and fascinating, especially when
they're set up in a circle as we saw in one recent clip -- so you can
see yourself walking through the portal before you walk through the
portal. Also, choosing a Dyson sphere of sorts for its setting is also
intriguing. Futuristic cities and glowing nebulas are great, but how
about a living ship the size of a small moon? We look forward to it,
although we may need to get some airline sickness bags."
Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:27 AM
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Prey Weekly Update #21
Well, it's June 2nd, and we're twenty days away from the demo launch
on the PC & Xbox 360. The game is closer to release, and as such,
Chris Rhinehart has had to ask for backup for this week's weekly Prey
update. This is again not Chris, this is Joe Siegler of 3D Realms.
Chris asked me this in an email.. "Would YOU like to do the weekly
update this week? Give 3DR's perspective on what you've been working on
over the past couple of weeks or so?"
While my personal involvement outside the forums is mostly
deathmatch testing, I said I'd take a stab at it. So without further
ado, here goes the Prey Update for this week.
Recently at 3D Realms, we've spent a bunch of time on MultiPrey both
in the full version as well as in the demo. It's a real hard job being
forced to play deathmatch at work, but hey. Someone's got to do it.
Because of the repetitive nature of testing games close to completion,
you tend to know the source material pretty well. Since most of what I
do in testing now is MultiPrey, I'll give a few of my own insights into
that.
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The MultiPrey Server Creation Screen
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The "Prey stuff" that is in deathmatch definitely brings a whole new
world to the concept. I started playing Deathmatch in videogames with
most other people, back in 1993 with Doom. To most of us that were
around back then, it's still held up as a great game with great
deathmatch. Sure, there's been plenty others over the years (Dukematch
and WangBang come to mind). Online play has expanded over the years
into all kinds of various modes, but Prey Deathmatch is a really cool
mix of old school deathmatch feel, as well as being more up to date
with the gravity flipping and portals in the current technology.
It's all pretty darn cool. The first few times you play, if you play
against someone else who knows the concepts introduced with Prey
Deathmatch, they'll school your ass, as you're not used to looking in
every direction for incoming fire generally. Back in the old days with
Doom, ROTT, and the like you had just left and right to contend with.
Quake introduced up and down to the mix, and it's pretty much stayed
that way until now. While Quake allows for incoming fire to come from
almost every direction, the base play remained the same, as you had to
be "on" something - up and down were constants for the most part,
despite the Z axis now being brought into play. Prey changes that with
gravity flipping and wall walking. Quite frequently I play one of the
levels with a bunch of wallwalks, and as I'm being shot, it's sometimes
hard to tell where the shooting is coming from when the guy is above
your head shooting straight up at you. It's quite interesting to be in
a map looking straight up, and seeing another character doing the same
thing to you - up and down are quite different concepts here, and
seriously impact how you play deathmatch.
Portals also bring an interesting twist to the party. I was playing
MultiPrey in one level, and kept shooting myself, but I didn't realize
it at the time. You see, there was one bit where the level designer
constructed the layout of the portals such that when you came out of
one portal, you saw what you think is someone else going into another
one. This being deathmatch, you shoot at everyting, so you fire at it -
and it ends up being yourself! What's brilliant about this particular
bit of level design is that you get to see just enough to let you know
someone is there, but not enough to know who it is. So if you're heavy
into deathmatch and aren't paying attention to what you're shooting at,
you're likely to be shooting yourself. It's quite funny.
The maps that come in the Prey demo for deathmatch most definitely
show off the cool wallwalking and gravity flipping aspects of Prey.
There's a couple of screenshots below showing a few of these things
from MultiPrey. Prepare for something new to the genre of good old
fashioned deathmatch.
Some other things we've done at 3DR recently have been design issues
like approving the box art. It might not seem like a lot - just put a
picture up there, but there's a million small fiddly bits regarding box
art, placement of logos, names, images, etc. I've been here a long time
and have seen a lot of games come out, and box art design has always
been an issue where the smallest most minute detail gets a lot of
discussion.
The game manuals are also underway - there will be a print manual
both with the PC & 360 versions. They all have to be read over many
times for accuracy as well as other things again like placement of
images, things of that nature.
One other section that has been tested a lot is the Triton delivery
system. Sure, you can go to the store and buy a box, but you will also
be able to buy the full game over Triton, and this needs testing. The
last few beta builds we got at 3DR have come through Triton, which is
kind of cool. What's nice about the Triton system is that you don't
have to wait for the entire title to come down to play. After a certain
percentage of the game has been downloaded, you are asked if you want
to start playing right away. You can choose to start playing (depending
on your download speed) after a short while, and the remainder of the
game will be streamed to your computer in the background while you play.
We're also testing the Xbox 360 version, too. In previous updates,
others have mentioned testing going on. At 3D Realms we get the builds
from Venom in the UK - they get copied to the dev kit 360's, and away
we go. While I personally haven't played it, I've watched others, and I
have to say it looks as smooth as the PC games do - Venom has done a
great job here. You can't really tell the difference, and the hitching
that seems to plague Quake IV on the 360 is not in evidence here. It's
a smooth title. Looks good and feels good on the 360.
Builds have been coming pretty frequently the last few weeks (in
some instances multiples in one day), it ends up being a lot of work.
Yeah, it is work at a game company. Yeah, it's fun, but when you're
told "OK, you have to focus on such and such a level in this mode", and
you want to play another level... Yeah - I know what you're thinking.
Shut your whining, you work for a game company. You get to play games.
:)
Venom has been crunching hardcore over the past few weeks to get the
360 version of Prey together. Some of the highlights they've done
recently:
- Tons and tons of bug fixes
- Overall gameplay tweaks based upon feedback from HH and 3DR.
Some creatures were designed for the fast movement of the mouse, so we
had to rework some of the gameplay values for those creatures
- Greatly improved texture resolution (there were some memory
issues for a while, and as a test, Venom reduced the overall texture
resolution on the game.) But, they found the memory issues, fixed them,
and now have bumped the resolution back up higher.
- Tweaks to the feel of the controls
- A few tweaks to the default gamma/brightness
- Tweaks to the autoaim system to make it fair and useful
- Overall, they are kicking ass on the 360 version of Prey. Visually, it looks identical to the PC version.
Prey is close, my friends. You're gonna want to visit back in 20
days when the demo is released, and you can check out all this stuff on
your own.
Until next week,
Joe Siegler - Webmaster
3D Realms (aka not Chris Rhinehart)
P.S. Just because he didn't think I'd actually post this, here's a picture of myself getting totally schooled by someone else up here. Check out this score. There, I did it Bryan - you happy now? :)
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:20 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #20
I'm writing this amidst the dust and piles of unopened boxes of our
new offices. That's right, Human Head has moved offices -- not to a new
city, just across town. We're still here in Madison, Wisconsin.
Why did we decide to move now? Well, there were these stalkers...
no, just kidding. We decided to move office space about a
year-and-a-half ago, because we wanted a larger space and a better
layout for our workflow. That, and we were just getting sick of the old
place and wanted a change. We tried to schedule the move until after
Prey was complete, but due to various timing issues as the place was
built, the move was eventually scheduled for this week.
Overall, it's going smoothly -- we packed everything on Monday, the
movers moved everything on Tuesday, and then we started the process of
unpacking. There's still a ton of stuff to do, but we finally have the
server back up, and we all have internet access again.
Only a few annoying moments so far -- they didn't have the air
conditioning up until late yesterday, so the movers had to move
everything in the sweltering heat. Glad that none of them collapsed
from heat exhaustion -- it was pretty rough.
Two nights ago it rained horribly -- turns out they hadn't completed
everything with the roof yet so we were getting leaks in about seven
places here in the office, including directly onto my desk. So now I'm
typing this with a very large bucket sitting on my desk to catch
anything should it rain again today.
Still, the new offices are considerably better. Our old space wasn't
optimal, because it was divided in half (the reception area was in the
center of the space, so the team was split up). Interestingly enough,
we divided into artists/animators on one side and programmers/level
designers on the other side. So, Human Head was unconsciously split
into a right brain/left brain arrangement. Weird.
The new space has no more cubicles. We have decent-sized offices, in
which we have 2-3 people per office. Sliding doors adjoin many of the
offices to facilitate cross-discipline communication.
And, of course, there are the nice amenities such as a large
breakroom, multiple conference rooms, showers, and a theater room (of
which the inaugural movie we watched was BloodRayne.)
Once the space is finished and we're all moved in, I'll post up a bunch of pictures of the place.
Anyway, on to stuff about Prey: The move ate into our development
time, of course, but we are doing our best to not let it sidetrack us
too much.
Venom is cranking on 360 bugs and tweaks -- they fixed a couple of
pretty heinous bugs relating to memory management, and they are working
their way through their bug database, eliminating bugs or throwing them
our way should the bug turn out to be in the PC version of the game as
well.
We're also still working on the PC demo. Nearly everything is
together for it, we're working on the intro and exit screens for the
demo. Once we have everything together, all the text in the demo has to
be sent out for translation, and the demo itself has to go through QA.
Venom will be working on the 360 demo, which should be pretty much identical to the PC version.
And, let me say, it's a pretty big demo. It's not exactly like the
shareware days of old -- we aren't giving away a third of the game, but
there's still a ton of content there. I estimate it should take the
average person an hour or two to get through it.
I'm very much looking forward to everyone's reactions to the demo. Not that much longer now!
Anyway, I need to get back to unpacking and going through my mountain of email. Until next time, stay out of trouble!
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:22 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #19
Well here we are. Update #19. Since E3 was last week, seems about right that I update on the big show.
Before that, though, I first want to extend a huge thanks for Jason
Blair and Eli Quinn for writing excellent updates over the past two
weeks.
As usual E3 went by very fast. Always feels like I never have enough
time to see everything I want to see, talk to all the people I haven't
seen in person in a while, and still spend a lot of time showing off
the game.
Last year at E3 we showed a 12-minute video showcasing some of the
new gameplay elements we've created in Prey. It mainly focused on the
single-player. This year, we focused on the multiplayer, with systems
set-up for people to actually play the game.
Prey was featured in four places at E3:
- The 2K booth, of course, had eight-player PC multiplayer set-up,
with a major tournament scheduled throughout the show (more on that
later).
- Creative had a very nice eight-player PC set-up as well.
They were running tournaments and giving away t-shirts and other prizes
to the champions of each round.
- Logitech had a four-player PC set-up of the game in a good
location where people could very easily stroll up and play the game.
They also had an announcer there who publicly called the matches and
taunted the player. It was also conveniently located close to the Sin
girls, so I imagine that helped, too.
- Lastly, Microsoft had a four-player Xbox360 set-up, where people could frag each other in the console version of the game.
We took along enough Human Head people so we could make the rounds
and ensure that there was a Human Head employee at each of these four
places at all times. Turned out, though, that each location did such a
great job showcasing the game, that our job basically turned into a
constant wander around from location to location just making sure that
nothing was going wrong.
We did spend a lot of time at the 2K booth, helping people and
showing them some of the less obvious features of multiplayer. As
mentioned in previous updates, I was still impressed with how quickly
people acclimated to the wallwalking and gravity changes in the game.
No one puked on their keyboards, so that's a good sign!
Here's a brief rundown of each day:
Tuesday, May 9th:
Our flight left at the crazy early hour of 7:40. I didn't get any
sleep the night before, so I literally slept the entire flight. Fell
asleep when we took off, woke up when we landed. I tell you, it's like
a portal opened up in front of the plane.
When we arrived, we first had a panicked call from 2K asking when we
were showing up, as the machine needed to be tested. We headed straight
to the convention center to start setting up the game.
Of course, something went wrong right away. The map cycle script
wasn't working. In fact, it appeared to not be included in the build at
all! A bit more investigation and I realized that we had brought along
the wrong build. See, we generated two builds for E3, the recent one
and one from a week before (as a backup stability build in case there
was anything wrong with the newest one). We brought along that older
build, but neglected to grab the newest one. Oops.
No big deal. 2K had internet access so we quickly snagged the proper build and installed that instead. Problem solved.
We tested all the machines, dealt with minor issues with drivers, plasma tv setups, etc. All was in working order.
That night we had a great dinner at Fogo de Chao, then had a few drinks at the hotel bar before crashing.
Wednesday, May 10th:
Morning came way too fast. I still think I was sleep deprived from the lack of sleep the night before. Oh well.
We arrived at the show a bit late, so had to scramble a bit to
set-up on all the various places throughout the show. But, we made it
about on time as journalists started to pour into the convention center.
The first day was mainly us walking around and watching for any
crashes or freezes or anything. No major problems, other than a few
issues over at Creative, which we fixed by tweaking a few things in the
audio settings.
The first day of the show is always more chaotic than the others.
People are getting into the groove of explaining stuff about the game,
kinks are worked out in the setups, and so forth. Overall, it went
really well, though. The dedicated servers ran all day without any
problems.
At 5 PM, James Sumwalt (co-owner of Human Head) and I were scheduled
to be featured on G4's E3 special, showing off Prey on the 360.
We had to arrive at the G4 location around 1:30 for a tech check.
Glad we did. See, Prey is a mature rated game, so there is a bit of
swearing in there. There's a profanity filter in the PC version, but
not in the 360 version we had with us, so we had to tech check the
swearing for approval. Some of it was okayed, but a few lines were not
approved.
Unfortunately, we had no control over some of the line (as they are
randomly played when the player is damaged). So, to fix this, G4 had us
on a seven second delay so they could bleep out any swearing that
inadvertently gets into the broadcast.
If you've seen it, you know they didn't have to bleep us. Still, damn cool that they had to delay us just in case. :-)
At the end of the show, we removed the game from all the various
machines at 2K, Logitech, and Creative, just as an additional step of
security. This would mean that we would have to reinstall the game
again the next day, but luckily the show didn't start until an hour
later on Thursday.
Wednesday night, we had a fantastic dinner with some friends at
Katana in Hollywood. Many good stories were told, many good drinks
consumed. I'm not a tequila fan, but one of the shots we did was
absolutely fantastic.
Didn't get to bed until late.
Thursday, May 11th:
Again, morning came way too fast. Seems that's another staple of E3: Not quite getting enough sleep.
This time, we got to the show very late -- turned out that we
thought the show didn't start until an hour later than we originally
thought. So, again it was a scramble to get everything set up on each
machine. We got things done roughly on time, though.
Thursday was very similar to Wednesday, walking around, making sure
that everything was in order. Again, the dedicated servers were totally
solid, and no major problems occurred.
That night went to dinner with Scott Miller and few people he knows.
It was an odd dinner -- the place was way too loud, and it was hard to
hear people even sitting right next to me. Note to self: In the future
for dinners like this, we definitely need a private room.
Thursday night, ended up hanging at the hotel bar again. And, once again, didn't get to sleep until late.
Friday, May 12th:
I was starting to get used to waking up without enough sleep.
Friday was the day of the big finale to the 2K tournament (the grand
prize was a $5000 Prey-skinned VoodooPC decked out with tons of great
shit).
The tournament was fantastic -- the final game came down to the
wire. The top two players had 25 kills to 24 kills. Literally at the
last second, right before the scoreboard pops up, there was the loud
splat of the Acid Sprayer. On the final scoreboard: 25 to 25.
There was a stunned pause then the crowd erupted in cheers. It was a
tie! So the top two guys would have to face-off against each other.
Unfortunately, the maps we brought along were all designed for 6-8
players, so they would have been rather empty for just 1-v-1.
As a compromise, we threw in two Human Head people (James and me),
and Luna from 2K. After a harrowing battle, one of the guys emerged
victorious to win the Prey PC.
How did we do? Yeah, I came in dead last. Embarrassing, but these guys were damn good at the game. I was impressed!
After the tournament, there were a few on-camera interviews with
various magazines, and then the show was over. We did our final install
of the game, ensured that we had all the CDs with us (wouldn't want
that getting out!), and left the convention center.
Overall, the show went very well for us. The feedback I received in
person and online has been extremely positive. Plus, we've received two
nominations and an award thus far:
That about wraps up the details of the E3 trip. It was tiring, but very much worth it.
So, until next week. Stay out of trouble.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
P.S. Oh, and here are a few pictures taken during the actual trip!
Tuesday: Setting up the game in the 2K Prey booth.
Standing under the giant
Prey display. This is on Friday, near the end of the show (can you tell
we look tired?). The people are, left-to-right:
Chris Rhinehart
(Project Lead), Tim Gerritsen, (co-founder & CEO), Nick Taylor
(Animator), Jason O'Connell (Level Designer and LevelMaster), James
Sumwalt, (co-founder and Senior Artist)
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:33 PM
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Prey for June 22nd!
June 22nd is a date that an awful lot of gamers will be waiting for. On that day, the Prey Demo will be released.
Available that day on the PC as well as in the Xbox Live Marketplace
will be a 5 level demo containing both single player and multiplayer
modes of the game. The size of the demo, which levels, what time it is
to be released has yet to be determined, but June 22nd is Prey Day -
you're going to want to keep an eye out for that!
Don't forget about the Prey Pre-Order Program which is ongoing - you can get further details about that on our Pre-Order Page here. Finally, here's a few more resources for Prey news on our site:
Mark your calendars for June 22nd, 2006.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:40 AM
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Prey Wins Best Shooter of E3 from Gametap
Well, the annual sensory overload in Los Angeles known as E3 is
over. Now come all the game websites giving out their awards for best
of show in various categories. Today we bring you the news that Prey
has won in the "Best Shooter" category from Gametap. Here's some of the
text from the press release:
LOS ANGELES - (May 18, 2006) - GameTap, the
first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network from Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.) today announced the winners of
its first annual "E3 2006 GameTap Picks" awards. While scouring the
vast Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) show floor at the Los Angeles
Convention Center from May 10th - May 12th, GameTap created its nominee
list. And now, after careful deliberation, GameTap editors have
selected the best of the best in 20 categories.
Some of the other categories they listed were Best Simulation Game
(Spore), Best Sports (Wii Sports), Best Action Game (Assassin's Creed),
Best Platform Game (Super Mario Galaxy), and even Best Swag!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:17 PM
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New Prey Ad in Magazines
There's a cool new Prey advertisement now hitting magazines, and we
thought we'd bring you a peek at it. This ad is currently running in
the July 2006 edition of PC Gamer, but should be turning up elsewhere
soon. There's some cool copy in the advertisement, here's some of it:
- "Imagine a place where gravity isn't always down! it can be
controlled, twisted, flipped, and even wrap around small planetoids.
Imagine walking on walls and ceilings. Can you handle this new
challenge?"
- "Multiple gameplay innovations from the developer that
brought you Bullet-time, including Deathwalk (dying is no longer
annoying, it's fun) and Spirit Walk (leave your body to explore,
ambush, and solve mind bending puzzles)."
- "Portals change everything. Experience for the first time the
reality bending effects of a portal world. Prey sets a new standard
that will completely mess with your mind."
- "Living Weapons, a faithful sidekick, vehicles, giant
environments, jaw-dropping memorable moments, a story of redemption and
destiny, and a 3-hour epic soundtrack by Jeremy Soule (Oblivion, Guild
Wars). The FPS of the year is coming."
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:10 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #18
Hi everyone, welcome to another Prey Weekly Update. I'll have you
know that this is not Project Lead Chris Rhinehart speaking (or typing)
to you right now, he is currently a bit swamped at E3 showing off the
madness and mayhem of Prey. This here's Eli Quinn, I am an artist at
Human Head Studios. I worked mainly on the environmental textures in
the game, along with various skins, GUI's, etcetera.
The art tasks for Prey are pretty much wrapped up so the art staff
is focused on playtesting right now. We have a number of XBox 360
development kits in the office so we're banging on Venom's version of
the game. It looks and sounds great. Although I'm a PC gamer at heart
it is a refreshing change. Speaking of the PC version, we are certainly
still tearing into it as well. With a portion of our staff gone at E3,
Prey Art Lead Rowan Atalla has taken on the not-so-glamorous burden of
compiling the list of bugs and fixes. I'm sure that his nigh-legendary
coffee intake has only increased in light of that!
The single-player version of Prey has truly come together. I've
worked on the game ever since 3D Realms decided to relaunch it with us
as the development team in 2001, which feels like roughly a billion
years ago. The learning curve with the Doom3 engine was pretty fierce
for all departments. You see, back then us texture artists had to paint
all the highlights and shading onto one layer, like a photograph. We
had to walk twelve miles to school in a blizzard and it was uphill both
ways. We had dirt for breakfast. Lead paint scrapings for lunch.
Where was I? Oh yeah...
All of a sudden this new technology came along and we were able to
model normal maps and paint diffuse, specular and height maps. Needless
to say, it took a while to perfect the look we wanted. It was both
intriguing and frustrating much of the time but all that toil has
certainly paid off.
Multiplayer Prey (or MultiPrey, as it has been so coyly coined) is
one hell of a good time. I can't say I'm the greatest at it compared to
others on the team but I still have fun. I don't really sweat when I'm
sitting still but I've found that after a good deathmatch round I am
covered with a sparkling sheen, like a nerdy James Brown. It's intense,
man! A really fun trick that I haven't mastered yet is to hide your
body and spirit walk out to the battle, you can't be harmed by a
physical body in that mode so you can essentially chase everybody
around. Until someone finds your body of course, then you get violently
pulled back into the physical realm and you're probably toast. I look
forward to getting my ass handed to me by all you deathmatch experts
out there once the game is released! Or "pwned" or whatever the hell
you kids say these days. Learn to speak English! Pull up your pants!
Put that visor right-side-up and turn it around! Pardon me, I have
misplaced my cane...
Congratulations are in order for Human Head Concept Artist/Level
Designer Ashley Welch, whose dazzling rendition of the sphere in Prey
was chosen for the "Into The Pixel" show at E3 this year. What is that,
you say? Well, from their site, "Into the Pixel is a juried exhibition
of the art of the video game, curated by experts from world-renowned
art museums, cutting edge galleries and interactive industry veterans."
You can read about it and see Ash's art at this site:
http://www.intothepixel.com/view-art.php?year=2006
Well, that's about all the rambling I am capable of. I'm not a
writer really, I just draw the purty pitchers. Chris will be back next
week to fill everyone in on the happenings at E3. So far it sounds like
the reception is amazing so he should have some good news for us.
Take it easy y'all, I'll see you on the Prey Forums where I can rid myself of this dastardly punctuation.
Eli Quinn
Texture Artist
Human Head Studios
(still not Chris Rhinehart)
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:44 PM
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E3 2006 Prey Trailer
If you have an Xbox 360, you should go to it right now. In the Xbox
Live Marketplace is a new Prey Trailer. It is under the name of "E3 06:
Prey Trailer". This is a new trailer, not having been seen anywhere
else. Once we get more information on availability of said trailer
outside of the Xbox 360 Marketplace, we'll have more information on
that.
But for now, head to your Xbox 360 and download this new E3 trailer.
This is part of Microsoft's "Xbox Live: E3 Bringing it Home" program.
They have tons of other trailers avialable now on your 360 besides
Prey. But you should go download the Prey trailer first. :)
The trailer offers these quotes about the game..
- "Doom 3 hiked the bar.. Prey may transform the bar altogether." - 1up.com
- "Prey looks like one of the best first person shooters of the year." - IGN
UPDATE MAY 12: The video is starting to show up elsewhere on
the net after originally being on the Xbox Live 360 Marketplate. Here's
some links you can grab it from. Unfortunately, most of the people who
would post this on their sites are at E3, and aren't as quick to
respond to video requests at the moment. :)
UPDATE MAY 13: You can now view the video streaming on our site through Google Video below.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:26 PM
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Prey Soundtrack Released
DirectSong, the world's first official game music expansion service
offers a musical experience you won't forget! Spanning across two full
volumes, Jeremy Soule's monumental score from 3D Realms' and Human Head
Studios' Prey is now available. Long awaited and highly anticipated,
Prey sets the stage for the ultimate gaming experience. With Prey,
DirectSong's British Academy Award-winning team explode out of the
Fantasy genre and into the world of Sci-Fi Action-Adventure. The game's
beautifully developed orchestral score turns FPS conventions upside
down - the likes of which you'll only find in Hollywood's biggest
blockbuster hits!
DirectSong is proud to present the Prey original soundtracks at a
sample rate of 320kbps. This is in response to an overwhelming demand
by fans for the highest possible fidelity delivery of Jeremy Soule's
symphonic scores. This exceeds the sample rate found at iTunes,
Rhapsody and Napster ensuring an unparalleled listening experience!
Scott Miller of 3D Realms has this to say about the soundtrack..
"The three-hours of original scoring in Prey elevates it to a Hollywood
blockbuster level. I couldn't be happier with the final result, as Prey
has become a far more enriched, emotional experienced from start to
finish. We will definitely be working with DirectSong in the future."
You can get your copy of the Soundtrack right now, by heading over to the DirectSong website.
Jeron Moore, who was the producer of the material, chimed in on our
forums with some details about the soundtrack and it's production. You
can view that post here, where he talks about various aspects of the soundtrack's release. Here's a quote from Jeron talking about the music:
Personally, I think the music in Prey eclipses all music
to-date in the FPS genre. In fact, the classification "First Person
Shooter" does Prey no favors. Prey is a First Class, Cinematic First
Person-Action Game. Those who decide to take the leap and explore the
music of the game in its full glory will experience this impression
first hand.
And as an added bonus, we have some images for you - they're small
versions of CD art for the two Prey soundtrack CD's on DirectSong. When
you buy these CD's, you will receive a pdf with higher quality images
from DirectSong pre-formatted for you to print the art and create a CD
insert.
Prey Soundtrack Volume #1:
Prey Soundtrack Volume #2:
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:06 PM
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Prey "Portals and Gravity Flipping" Video Trailer Released
Available now on IGN is the second "Countdown to Release" Gameplay
trailer. This new trailer (dated 05/05) is a new trailer which is being
released as part of the "Prey Countdown to Release" video series. This
new video totals 2:30 in length, and is has plenty of gameplay footage,
focusing this time on 'portals & gravity flipping'.
Of course, if you don't want any of this spoiled for you; wanting to
experience the gameplay for yourself when you buy the game, then you'll
want to skip this video.
UPDATE SAT MAY 6: This file is now available at other sites besides IGN. Links:
Posted by Joe Siegler at 7:45 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #17
I'm not Chris Rhinehart. That's my usual greeting when meeting
people, not just the opening of this weekly update. I just like to make
sure there's no confusion. My name is Jason L Blair, though, and I'm
the Director of the Adventure Game Division here at Human Head Studios.
Chris asked me to write this weekly update because, as you can
imagine, everyone here is going through a hardcore crunch right
now--not only with finishing the game, but preparing for next week's
computer and video game extravaganza, E3.
Prey will have a strong presence at this year's E3. It will be shown
not only at 2K Games' booth but Creative Labs' and Microsoft's booth as
well. All three spots are amazing traffic centers and I'm confident
folks will be blown away by what they see.
Both the PC and Xbox 360 versions will be shown at E3. A MultiPrey
tournament will be going, showing off Prey's mind-bending Death Match
experience. As you're reading this, you are probably fully aware that
Prey plays hell with gravity, wall-walking, and even allowing your
spirit to leave your body during game play. Not only is that an amazing
part of the single-player game but it opens up entirely new dimensions
in MultiPrey. You'll have enemies coming at you in true
three-dimensional space. The potential to frag and be fragged by people
behind you, in front of you, above you, and underneath you cranks up
the tension and anxiety that make Death Matches so much fun. And be
sure you stash your body someplace safe if you decide to let your
spirit roam.
The Xbox 360s that will be running the game will also be sporting a
snazzy Prey faceplate, made exclusively for the show. There is a
picture of what this faceplate looks like at the bottom of the update.
Future public availaibility of this item has yet to be determined (in
other words, we don't know if you can buy them or not), so there's your
answer before you ask it. :)
If you're a person who is not going to E3, like me *ahem*, you
needn't worry about missing out. Prey will be receiving full coverage
by the major video game news outlets and I'm sure Chris will be back
next week with a full summary of everything that happened.
As part of finalizing Prey, we've had some beta testers from 2K
Games in the office the past six weeks. This is an official shout-out
to Larry and Darren who did phenomenal jobs in working first-hand with
the development staff to knock bugs out of the game. While, yes, this
made more work for the poor developers, it also helps make Prey that
much more of a great gaming experience.
My main job is creating and overseeing the development of board,
card, and roleplaying games for Human Head, and I am a writer at heart
- that's my passion - so I felt very fortunate to be brought in on some
of the writing of Prey. With a script already in hand, the task of the
in-house team was to focus on bringing together the artistic "big
vision" of Prey's story with the technical realities of creating the
game.
The core story of Prey is a classic hero's tale so the work that
needed to be done was punching up the dialogue and making Tommy's
transition from reluctant hero to possible savior smooth, gripping, and
dramatic. Tommy is a guy with a lot on his plate and, working with the
original script, the in-house team was able to fully meld the narrative
with the game aspect of Prey.
Of course, Prey is also a love story and it is Tommy's love for Jen
that propels him into the world of Prey and, once in, even more starts
to unfold as he encounters obstacle after obstacle and even becomes
embroiled in another, overarching plot that truly puts the weight of
the world on Tommy's shoulders.
As a gamer and a writer, I find Prey fully satisfying. Folks may
think I'm biased but this isn't my game. This is just a game I was
fortunate enough to assist with - from helping with dialogue, to
writing ad copy, to writing the manual. But the game play experience is
what I'm talking about here, and Prey delivers. I'm excited to read and
hear the reactions from E3 and, later, from gamers and reviewers who
get a chance to play the final game.
This is going to be an exciting time for Prey, from E3 on through
gold, now is the time where Prey truly gets to shine. I can't wait for
you guys to see it.
I'd be remiss not to talk about what I do here at Human Head. As
stated above, I'm the Adventure Games Director and it's my job to
produce our company's traditional games. This spans from the latest
entry in our GOTHICA line of horror-themed board games, released last
year, to VILLAINY - The Supervillainous Card Game, coming in July, to
our upcoming pen-and-paper roleplaying game, NORMAL, TEXAS. You can
read more about what I do at http://www.humanheadgames.com.
So, that's the update; the outside-insider's view of Prey. Thanks to
Chris for asking me to write this and thanks to me for giving Chris
this update off to get back to the grind.
Thanks to you for reading. Chris will be back next week, exhausted
from all the debauchery at E3. If he doesn't have pictures, I'll kick
him for you.
Jason L Blair
Adventure Games Director
Human Head Studios
(aka Not Chris Rhinehart)
The Xbox 360 Prey Faceplate created exclusively for E3 2006
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 6:41 PM
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Prey goes Into the Pixel
Some of the art from Prey has been chosen as a winner in the "Into the Pixel"
exhibition to be shown at the E3 show in Los Angeles next week (May
10-12). What is Into the Pixel? Well, from their own site..
Into the Pixel is a juried exhibition of the art of the video
game, curated by experts from world-renowned art museums, cutting edge
galleries and interactive industry veterans. Now in its third year,
Into the Pixel is videogame artists' one annual opportunity to receive
recognition for their creative achievements by peers in both the
digital and fine art worlds.
If you are attending E3, you will be able to see the artwork in the Los Angeles Convention Center Concourse Foyer.
Back on April 27th, a ceremony
was held, in which the pieces of art for the E3 exhibition were
selected. Being selected for this exhibition is prestigious, as it
allows an artist to get their name out there and have people see the
artwork in a different kind of format than they normally would (inside
the game). Ashley Welch from Human Head Studios was selected for a
piece called "The Sphere".
You can check out all the winners
(which include art from such other games as Metal Gear Solid 3, Turok,
The Godfather Game, Guildwars, as well as Ashley's entry for Prey. You
can also download a hi-res version of the Sphere artwork for yourself
there.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:38 AM
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The Music of Prey
A lot has been made of the atmosphere and environments of Prey. A
large part of that atmosphere is the music in the game, and we're here
to draw your attention to a great article published last night over at
IGN. This is an article by Jeremy Soule entitled "The Music of Prey". In this article, Jeremy talks about writing the music, and how he feels it adds so much to the overall game experience.
If that wasn't enough, the entire six minute Prey Overture as well
as a full song from the Prey Soundtrack are also available over at IGN.
The song is "Take Me Home" by the band "After Midnight Project".
This is a great read which will give you some insight into a part of
game design that you might not otherwise be aware of. Definitely go check it out over at IGN today! But before you do that, here's a few quotes from the article:
Much like in Half Life 2, there are scripted and epic
events in Prey. The game is just loaded with content. Tommy (the main
character) has a very simple objective but his struggle is very
complex. The landscape shifts, the storyline makes hidden twists and
turns. Music was needed to help make sense of everything because of the
emotional impact of the game's visuals and story.
There's just something about having the senses be fully embraced
when you're playing a game. After all, our brains want stimulation and
we will often logically pay good money to have a great gaming
experience. Music is just one component but it's an often overlooked
and very important part of a game's experience.
People want a whole experience, not just a fancy rendering engine
and a $50 price tag. As the bar continues to be raised, the main
questions in game development will be more directly connected to
entertainment value ideals rather than obscure mathematical
achievements.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:08 AM
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New Prey Gameplay Trailer Released
Available now on Gamespot is a new Prey trailer which is being
released as part of the "Prey Countdown to Release" video series. This
new video totals 3:23 in length, and is teeming with gameplay footage.
Of course, if you don't want to see that, and want to experience the
gameplay for yourself when you buy the game, then you'll want to skip
this.
But it does look cool - and it sounds.. awww you don't want to listen to me. Go to Gamespot and check out the video.
It is listed on their page as the "Official Prey Trailer #3". If you're
a Gamespot Complete member, you can download a 133Mb HD version of the
video, too! If you're not a member, you can still check out and
download the video. Go! ;)
UPDATE MONDAY MAY 1: Here are some more links where you can download the video. If you are a gaming website and wish to be on this list, please [email protected]. Thanks. These links are all the 130Mb Super High Quality version unless otherwise specified.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:00 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #16
Hey all,
Welcome to the 16th edition of the Prey Weekly Update. Today, we're
covering many of those great Ask Prey questions that people send to us.
A huge thanks to everyone for writing in with your questions. A few
things to mention first:
- We received our shipment of the pewter figurines that will be
included in the collector's edition of Prey. They're pretty kick-ass
little figurines. Very nicely detailed. They look great sitting on my
desk :)
- We're gearing up for E3. It's coming at a really weird time,
though, as we're deep in crunch. On a positive note, there isn't a
special E3 crunch going on like last year. This year, it's as easy as
making a special copy of the game to take along for demoing.
- We're planning on releasing regular videos of Prey, as we
count down to release. The videos will be anywhere from a minute to
three minutes long, each showing off some cool sections of gameplay.
The first one (which was released an hour ago) showcases a number of
things, including wallwalking, portals and planetoid gravity. You
definitely have to check it out.
- Hey, VoodooExtreme has had a Prey poll going on this whole week. Quick swing over there and vote!
Anyway, on to the questions:
Question:
Hi, may you can tell us what inside the collectors edition?
Thanks,
Markus Beier (Germany)
PS.: good luck - for a fast release!!!
Answer From Chris:
Hi Markus,
It just so happens we announced the contents of the collectors
edition yesterday. The quick version is that the collectors edition is
in a kick-ass metal box, comes on DVD, contains two pewter figurines
(Tommy and the Hunter) and also had an "Art of Prey" book which
contains some of the concept art from the game.
Check out http://www.3drealms.com/prey/preorder.html for more details and the longer version. :)
Question:
just wanted to ask the simple question:
Do dead bodies stay forever in the level or does they soon
disappear? Is there a Cheat Code or can i modify a file to let them
stay on ground forever?
Thank you very much!
Greetings from Germany!
Roman Masic
Answe From Chris:
This is something we experimented with for a while throughout Prey's
development. We originally wanted the bodies to stay around forever,
but realized that we would run into framerate issues (especially in
combat heavy areas where the player is assaulted by waves of enemies).
In the early parts of the game, the bodies stay around forever. In
later level (after the player has obtained the ability to SpiritWalk)
the body will dissolve after the player retrieves the creature's
lifeforce.
Amusing story about this -- a couple of years ago, a few of us were
having an impromptu design meeting over dinner. Just discussing the
game and some lingering issues that hadn't been resolved. One of them
was the body dissolving. We knew we needed it, but we wanted a rational
explanation for it.
We came up with all sorts of ideas, things like: alien tentacles
that came up from the ground and sucked the body down, little creatures
that would scurry out and consume the bodies, dark spirits that would
come out and pull the body away (much like the unfortunate end of the
bad guy Carl in the movie Ghost). But, all of those ideas had reasons
why we couldn't use them (plus, I really wanted something that could be
easily explained).
Someone suggested simply dissolving the body -- but only when the
spirit was picked up. Simple, elegant, and easily done. Forgetting that
we were in a crowded restaurant, I loudly exclaimed "Finally, a way to
get rid of the bodies!" Which of course, caused the neighboring tables
to give us some pretty freaky looks. :)
Such is the world of game development.
Question:
Dear Madam/Sir,
I have quick question regarding spirit-walking in Prey. I havent
been able to find much information on it, but can spirit-walking be
done anywhere in the game (like in Soul Reaver for example when you
shift to the spectral realm) or can it only be done in specific places?
I hope you get time to answer my question, and I look forward to
finally (!) getting to play this game. I remember reading the cover
feature of it on an old Ultra Game Players mag in 1997!
And I'm still looking forward to it.
Regards,
Patrick.
Answer From Chris:
Hi Patrick,
SpiritWalking is one of the key features of the game -- so you can
do it anywhere you want (well, after you've actually obtained the
ability to SpiritWalk, of course).
We experimented with a lot of different ideas for the SpiritWalk
mechanic, but finally ended at making it something the player can do
all the time for as long as they want. There's no time limit to
SpiritWalking, as there are some puzzles you have to solve while only
in Spirit mode. It was confusing and frustrating for testers to be
almost about to solve a puzzle when the time runs out and they are
kicked back to their body.
Because of this, it sets up an interesting mechanic, where you can
explore for quite a distance in Spirit mode I've seen some testers go
into Spirit mode before every single room of the game. They drop their
body in a safe location, and scout ahead -- trying to dispatch any
enemies they encounter using the Cherokee Bow.
This doesn't mean that you can just run thorough the whole game in
Spirit, though. The player is limited in other ways -- doors won't open
for Spirit players (because the proximity detection for opening doors
is based upon the proximity of a living entity).
Similarly, the Cherokee Bow is limited -- the Bow is only available
if the player has Spirit power (obtained from the lifeforces of fallen
enemies). Spirit power is depleted by using the Bow, or by taking
damage from enemies.
Question:
Christopher Wilson writes:
Will Prey be able to make full use of the Creative SoundBlasterX-Fi?
I mean, will it be able to utilise both the on-board RAM and EAX 5?
Answer From Chris:
Hi Christopher,
Yes, definitely. We support the X-Fi through OpenAL, so we have
pretty cool EAX support in the game. Interestingly enough, Liam Byrne
from Creative Labs is here at Human Head today, working with us on
level-specific EAX implementation issues.
Question:
Hey,
Is there going to be a pre-release demo of Prey? If so, when will it be released?
Thanks,
Meharry
Answer From Chris:
Hi Meharry,
There will definitely be a demo for Prey. The timing of it has yet
to be fully determined, as it may be shortly before the game is
released or it might be shortly after. Regardless, it will definitely
be around the time the game is released.
I've never understood the idea of releasing a demo so much later
than the game -- by that I mean like two months later. Seems that you
should get the demo out at least around the time that the game comes
out. I can understand that a lot of people might be on the fence about
a given game, and a kick-ass demo might be just the thing to convince
them to buy that game.
That said, as a developer I can understand how difficult it is to
try to create a demo at the same time that you are crunching to finish
the game in the first place.
Question:
Hi again
Thanks for answering my questions.
I got a bit old PC, like over 3 years old: 2000+ cpu, 512 mb ram and
a geforce ti 4200 128 mb ram graphic card. I've played DOOM 3 to the
end with this PC, so I'm hoping that I can play Prey on it too.
I'll admit that I did experience some lag with DOOM 3, but I managed it anyways.
So my question is: Will Prey run on my pc ?
I'm thinking about buying more ram and a better graphic card. As a
real 3D Realms fan, I don't care that much for the graphics, as long as
the game has some cool gameplay. And it sure sounds like Prey has some
fun gameplay!
Keep up the good work.
Kreg
uhm...yeah...hoping to see duke on E3 or a trailer of duke nukem forever on the Prey dvd.
Answer From Chris:
Hey Kreg,
Your PC should be able to handle the game, although parts of it are
getting outdated. If Doom 3 was a bit laggy on your system, then Prey
will be even more so. Our system requirements are higher than Doom 3's
were.
What you identified there are too good places to target: More RAM is
always a good thing, and getting a better video card will definitely
help, too.
I certainly hope you like the gameplay in Prey. We've spent a lot of
time developing it, and tuning it to be unique and fun. But, you'll
have to be the final judge of that yourself!
DNF at E3: Not this year -- 3DR wants to concentrate on hyping Prey at this point.
Question:
Hi.
I'm webmaster from czech web site about pc games and I made game section Prey. I like your game very match, becouse has someting different, then other. I have a few questions to next weekly update.
Quaestions:
- You said. We can meet creatures, who won't be always enemys and
helps us in game. How it will be make? How we can recognize on the
first meet up who is enemy and who isnt(?
- Doom 3 was disapproved to small arenas in Multipaer Maps with
small variability to play and have a fun. In Quake 4 it was be better,
but not incomplete. You promise fights in arenas with changing
gravitation and teleports. But, do you thing about Quake 3 Arena(Q3A)?
It is steel one of the best multiplayer game, and fans stay playing Q3A
although Qauke 4 more modern and have newes technical processing. Are
you shure, you will not do same mistake?
- When do you publish official hardware requirements?
- How long will game takes in hours for a play?
- When do you make new screenshots for fans? Because there are only few places of whole game which we can in screens saw.
- And last qauestion. Are you preparing some mapeditor, or modding material for community?
Thaks you for answers.
Vokr
Answer From Chris:
Hi Vokr,
Whoa...quite a few questions here. Let's see if I can answer all these decently:
- Friendly characters in the game: We haven't really been talking
about these friendly NPCs, primarily because we don't want to give away
too much of the story. Suffice it to say that you will most definitely
know which characters are friendly or not. Mainly because the friendly
characters actually help you through the game. :)
- Prey's Multiplayer: I'm a huge fan of Q3A's MP. That was damn fun
and highly polished and balanced. It still has some of my all-time
favorite MP maps. I can understand why it is still the favorite of so
many people out there.
But, we didn't try to model Prey's MP after Q3A, so you really can't
compare them. They're both DM and Team DM based, but they definitely
have a different feel to them while playing. We've taken all of the
single-player core elements and carried them over to MP: SpiritWalk,
WallWalk, Gravity Flipping, Portals, etc. All of these show up in DM,
so it really gives the game a different feel and gives us a lot of
opportunities for unique situations.
- Hardware requirements: We'll be putting this out very soon. Up
until now we've essentially said that if you can run Doom 3 or Quake 4
decently, you should be able to run Prey. Our requirements are slightly
higher than theirs. Of course, you could also get the 360 version
(which is running very smoothly -- Venom is doing a kick-ass job).
- Gameplay hours? Depends upon the player. I think the average
player will be in the 12-15 hour range. Some people who crank through
the game will get through in less than that. Other people who really
take their time will go over that.
- Screenshots: Man, we have something much cooler coming -- we're
planning to release regular gameplay videos of Prey. So many things in
the game just have to be seen in motion. A single screenshot just
doesn't convey the experience of walking around on a mini-asteroid
while sniping enemies.
- Map editor/mod stuff: Yes, absolutely. We plan to release all of
our tools with the PC version of the game. I'm very much looking
forward to seeing what people do with portals and gravity. There'll be
some pretty wild mods out there!
Question:
Hey Chris,
First time writer, long time reader (sorry had to write that hah).
Just a quick question.. when you guys first started Prey in late 2001
did you expect the end result (or near end result of course) to look
like what Prey currently looks like now? Are there things that you guys
have had to drop because current tech wouldn't allow?
If so any that you can mention?
Regards,
ADM
Answer From Chris:
Hey ADM,
Great question. The game looks better and plays better than we
originally conceived. There was a long learning curve to the tech, and
a lot of experimenting. In fact, I recently looked at a build of the
game from late 2002. It's remarkable how much it has changed (maybe
someday we'll release some screenshots from that old version for a
laugh).
As far as things that were cut along the way -- many of the ideas
cut were due to overreaching and inappropriate planning. We tried to do
too much too soon right away (the original plan called for some 40
levels or so). We quickly realized that was way too much for the scope
of this game.
One of the big things we dropped that I really wished could have
been in the game is multiplayer co-op. The original design called for
it -- and in fact, we have most of the puzzles and battles planned
around what would happen with multiple players in them. But, there were
some tech issues we ran into -- issues that would have required some
significant changes to the code. At that point, we decided to shelve
co-op in favor of putting our resources towards making stronger
single-player and competitive multiplayer experiences.
Question:
Shival Sheran Sooknanan writes:
Really excited about the game, but is there going to be a "making of" video documentary as an unlocakbale or feature??
Answer From Chris:
Great question -- but, no, there will not be a making of video
included in the game. There will be the "Art of Prey" book included in
the collectors edition, though.
Question:
Alexander writes:
Since Prey has lot's of dialogs and oneliners, will there be an
option to turn on english subtitles? To lighten the understanding of
the speech itself for non-english speaking gamers.
Answer From Chris:
Yes, there definitely will be this ability. The game doesn't
actually have foreign language voices, it's always English, but with
the option for subtitles for each language. And, of course, English
subtitles will be available.
On a similar note, one of the people who tested the game for us is
deaf, so we received some invaluable feedback from him on the subtitles
about ways to make them less confusing for someone who is deaf or who
doesn't speak English.
Question:
Adam Konrad writes:
Can you tell us a little more about the multiplayer component? How
many player models will the game contain? Is there an autodownload
(from http or game server) and punkbuster support? What about server
scripts and configuration? Do you plan to make some guide for these
things?
Answer From Chris:
This answer is actually from Rich Whitehouse, network programmer on Prey:
We have a total of 13 multiplayer models to choose from. We have
retained the autodownload functionality from Doom 3, which allows
downloading via HTTP and directly from the game server. We've also
worked with Even Balance in getting PunkBuster fully integrated, and it
will be right there and ready out-of-the-box. As for scripts and
configuration, we still have the custom map cycle script (among other
things), so all of those surprisingly robust things that were in Doom 3
will be ready for tinkering. :) Generally, Doom 3 and Quake 4 server
guides will answer all of your questions about setting up a Prey
server, but we'll certainly be making sure we get info out there on
anything that is Prey-specific.
Again, a huge thanks to everyone who wrote in with questions. I very
much enjoy reading these and talking to people interested Prey. It so
easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day issues with game development,
so it's nice to be reminded what this is all about: You, the game
player.
Next week, we'll have something new and interesting, I'm sure. Scott
Miller had a few ideas for a weekly update, so we'll see if next week
is a good time to unveil those.
Make sure you watch GameSpot tonight, too! :)
Until then, stay out of trouble....
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:17 PM
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Prey "Super Trailer" High Quality Video File Released
Following up on Friday evening's news,
we're here to bring you a high quality downloadable video file of the
new "Prey Super Trailer" by Jeron Moore. This is a 40 Meg Quicktime 7
(H.264) high quality file that Jeron sent us over the weekend.
Here's a list of places where you can get the file from, which we'll
be updating during the day as more links come in. If you're a gaming
news site and have a link for folks to download the file, please email us and we'll get you added to the list.
In addition, make sure to check out IGN.com, where they also have a story by Jeron Moore on the making of the video, which you're sure to find interesting as well.
UPDATE @ 8:45PM: Now that the file is available on Google
Video, it can be streamed via a web browser. You can click play on the
Google Video player below to watch the video direct on this website,
and then you can download the file above for a greater quality video to
keep on your computer.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 8:47 PM
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Prey "Super Trailer" Released
You've asked for more Prey footage, and we're here to deliver. Available right now on IGN.com is an exclusive brand spanking new trailer for Prey.
Weighing in at about 3 minutes 45 seconds, this new trailer contains a
lot of footage that you haven't seen before. We don't want to spoil it
all here in this announcement for you, so we'll just let you check it
out.
The video was produced and directed by Jeron Moore for 3D Realms. In
addition to the video, there is an article by Jeron entitled, "The
Making of the Prey Super Trailer" in which Jeron goes into detail on
the creation of the video, and shows some of what goes into making one
of these things. The full article is over at IGN, but here's one small clip from it you might find amusing:
"The live action footage was shot at the end of May 2005. My location of choice? Vasquez Rocks State Park
- about 45 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles. Star Trek fans, this
is the same exact location Captain James T. Kirk did battle with the Gorn captain (ST:TOS - Arena,
- 1966). I thought it appropriate we bring Tommy to this location - he
and Kirk would have either hit it off really well, or ended up kicking
each other’s asses."
This new stuff is hot, so make sure and head on over to IGN and check it out the trailer, as well as the making of article right away. We think you'll really enjoy this.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 8:00 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #15
Welcome to the fifteenth Weekly Prey Update. I apologize for being
so late today, but I think this picture pretty much sums up this week:
Script Manager Mike Flynn annoyed at having his brief sleep disturbed ....
Make sure you read to the bottom of this update for some cool Prey news later tonight!
We have a guest update from Nick Murray of Artistry Entertainment.
The band MXPX specially recorded a song for inclusion in Prey. The song
is called "The Setting Sun", and here's a brief update from Nick about
the recording session earlier this week:
Recording `The Setting Sun' with MxPx.
By Nick Murray, Producer "Bite Me! Music inspired by Prey," DirectSong.com
I, like many people have been a big fan of the popular punk rock
band MxPx for years. Quite familiar with their song "Move to Bremerton"
I was excited to spend a day with the band in their hometown -
Bremerton, Washington. But first I had to find out where in the world
Bremerton was.
On a beautiful day in Seattle, I made my way to the ferry pier and
drove my car onto one of Seattle's famous ferries. During the 60 minute
ferry ride across the Puget Sound, I saw 2 sea lions and 1 bald eagle.
This was going to be a good day!
When I arrived in Bremerton I noticed some US Navy ships. In 1891 a
German immigrant named William Bremer sold some of his land to the US
Navy and founded Bremerton. The US Navy still has a base there.
I followed my map to MxPx's studio and they were just beginning to
record the drum track for their new song "The Setting Sun." When
recording rock songs, bands will always record one part at a time
(drums, vocals, guitars, etc.) in order to get the highest quality
sound. With Yuri playing the drums, Mike recording the session, and Tom
practicing his guitar parts, I knew these guys were professionals.
After only 3 or 4 takes, Yuri nailed the drums, yet stayed the rest
of the day to support the band and help out with recording the other
band members.
Besides listening to my own free punk rock show all day, I was
impressed with their speed that they were able to fly through the
recording session. They moved from drums to rhythm guitars, to bass
guitar, to vocals, and then to lead guitar and they did it all like
clockwork, without any cutting remarks, squabbles, or wasted time.
One thing was evident, amidst their professionalism and ability to
write, play, and record a song, they were obviously friends as well.
They are a true rock band from their roots in Bremerton, Washington to
their sell out crowds in Chile, Japan, Europe, and across the globe.
Be sure to check out their new original song "The Setting Sun" only
in `Prey' and on `Prey''s compilation album "Bite Me! Music inspired by
Prey" available for download only at http://www.directsong.com.
Find out more about MxPx including their latest album and tour dates at http://www.mxpx.com
MxPx is:
Mike Herrera - Vocals, Bass Guitar
Tom Wisniewski - Guitar
Yuri Ruley - Drums
And of course, the ever-popular changelog:
- SpiritArrows can go through forcefields, spiritbridges, chaff
- Bullets now hit spirit secrets instead of going through
- made shuttle headlight smaller/faster
- deny invalid punkbuster joins with dialog box
- new shuttle crosshairs
- added auto weapon switch to mp menu
- made crosshairs not highlight consoles.
- Made the blood splats on the rifle and auto-cannon bigger.
- fixed health and spirit pulses happening when they shouldn't on client
- added more randomness to the spawn logic, since apparently
spawning from the most distant point is being counter-productive and
making people think they're spawning near their killer just because
it's repeatedly picking the same point. spawning from a random point
(still tries to pick > 128 distance though) will probably feel
better.
- fixed lowhealth sound not playing properly on the client in mp
- Fixed gasbag damage material problem.
- Fixed wallwalk traces to prevent players from falling off in some situations.
- Added code to crush movables blocking harvester passageways.
- long wait idles for rifle and crawler going in
- Finally received the last music update from Jeremy
- New Tommy dialog added in all maps
- salvage: added hound doors script support for ted
- changed fade time for music coming back from deathwalk
- salvage: added dialog for abducted in wallwalk puzzle room
- fixed talon model so he actually looks like a hawk
- talon attack code is fixed, and talon properly banks as he flies around
- slowdown when close to portals fixed
- lots and lots and lots of bugs fixed
I apologize for not getting to those Ask Prey Questions -- they will
definitely be posted next week. Things have been completely insane
around here. The good kind of insane.
Also, huge news! Later tonight, a new Prey Trailer will be released
through IGN. Watch for it to be released around 8 PM CST. More info
will be posted soon on the 3D Realms site. You won't want to miss that.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:31 PM
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Prey Pre-Order Info & Pewter Figures
Pre-order plans for Prey will be announced soon. There will be a
collector's edition (both PC and 360) as well as the standard versions.
Until then, here's a sneak peek at three pewter figures we will be
including with the game (details coming soon).
The figures were done by "Reaper Miniatures", and what you see here are the early prototype Greens that are used to make the actual pewter figures.
We have three video files for you; all are Quicktime video, and on
all of them you can grab the picture and rotate the figures' view 360
degrees. If you wish to download the files, you can do so with the
following links. Both require the use of the Quicktime video player
from Apple.
Download Links: [ Tommy | Hunter | Mutate ]
Keep your eyes peeled here for pre-order information soon. We will
provide information on how and where to pre-order the game, plus
information on how to get the various figures.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:41 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #14
Hey all -- welcome to the fourteenth edition of the Prey Weekly Web Update.
This week is a bit different in that I've enlisted the help of other
Human Heads. I asked several people to write up a typical day for them
to post in this update. Well maybe not entirely a typical day, I
suppose, since the company is deep in crunch mode. But a day in their
lives nonetheless.
The responses were all interesting, some of them rather hilarious
stream of consciousness type of ramblings. I hope you find this to be a
fascinating insight into the minds of people in crunch mode who
apparently are slowly going insane. :-)
I should warn you that there are a couple of minor spoilers in here,
but nothing that will ruin the game -- just some references to some
level names and characters we haven't really discussed before.
Tim Gerritsen, Business Director
My days are a blur at this point as I'm juggling lots of constantly
moving balls all at once. After seven years in the same office park,
we're moving to a brand new office space across town. It's a old
railroad roundhouse that was renovated for office use. It's a really
unique office space and much better suited to our style of development
than our current space. There's even a huge caboose in the front foyer
since the builder left that in place when they renovated the building.
The space is being custom fitted for our use so there's a million
things to keep track of and make decisions on. It's like building a
house, only worse since you'll have dozens of people working there when
you're done. In addition, I've been managing the 360 efforts on our
end, and we're putting the latest 360 build through its paces. I'm very
happy to report that the 360 build is looking fantastic at this point.
The frame rate is looking great, and the controls are being honed down
to a fine pitch. The Venom guys are doing a great job on their end and
I think people are going to have a hard time deciding which version to
buy. Of course they could just buy both! :) Then there's juggling all
the last minute details on the PC side, and that's just my three most
important tasks right now.
Eli Quinn, Artist
Wednesday 4/12: The art tasks are slowing down so we've been trying
out new software such as ZBrush 2. It utilizes a unique sort of
terminology that's difficult to wrap your head around at first but it's
very interesting once you get into it. The art team is also playtesting
various sections of the game, as well as participating in deathmatch
brawls. Of particular note was our deathmatch today where we had to
test for a bug using the wrench weapon on an asteroid, so we were just
sprinting around like fools and bashing each other's brains out with
the wrench. Fun stuff. Occasionally people would whip out their guns
again and wreak some havoc, until finally programmer Rich Whitehouse
had to page the testers and remind us that this test was "WRENCHES
ONLY, ON THE ASTEROID."
Brian Shubat, Animator
Don't really have time for this, due to our crunching deadline, and
Leath Furniture having an inopportune moment to auction of the
remainder of their "going out of business" crap at low low prices has
taken it's toll. I'm finishing with all the rest of the maddening
details on Grandfather's LotaD dialogs and finessing and fixing Talon.
Also in progress is finishing off the hider bombing sequence in
FeedingA, I think it's the single most longest sustained animation that
is playing in the game. I've slept here two nights in a row on the
floor already, brought in a bed roll and blankets. I woke up this
morning but my leg didn't, it was the strangest "fell asleep" feeling
I've ever had in an extremity before. It didn't tingle and it turned on
and off like a switch, at first it was paralyzed, then it functioned,
then when I stood up from my chair it gave out totally laying me out on
the floor. I laughed it off and made coffee. Oh, shit! it was garbage
day today! And did I forget to feed the cats?! I'm not even sure I know
where they are.
Jeff DeWitt, Lead Animator
Now that all the Motion Capture clean up is done we're finally able
to get back to the fun stuff.the stuff that adds personality to the
game. This week I've worked with Jimmy on the Hunters (tweaking speeds,
adding knock backs and pains), worked with Brian on some rifle anims
(adding more personality to the weapons), implemented new models and
fixed anim bugs on both creatures and weapons.tweak tweak tweak. We're
getting closer and closer.which seems a bit surreal.
More on the Studios side - Ben G hurt his back again this week -
poor guy. Crunch mode is hard enough without having to work through
something like that. He's doing better, but as active and energetic as
he normally is; to see him walking around like and old man was kinda
funny (in a sick way I guess). Ed L is under the gun. That guy has
really been a champ on this project.tons of behind the scene's stuff.
Let's see, what else. Ryan R cut his own hair the other day. People
people.please.leave the hair cutting to a stylist.we're not in college
anymore! J (I hope he doesn't read this.he's twice my size and he's
been known to knock animators on their cans.just ask Shubat). AND
speaking of Shubat!!! He's becoming an auction addict.seriously
folks.he's developing a problem. Leath furniture (just down the road)
is going out of business and they had the final day of their sale on
Monday.since then every night they've been auctioning off the rest of
the stuff in the store and Brian has been front and center. All I hear
all day long is, YOU SHOULD SEE THE DEALS!?!? He's a crazy little man.
There have been more and more "schinc door" jokes circulating the
office lately.OH.and Rich W had the "page of the year" the other day.
He's running a lot of multiplayer tests and yesterday he had a bunch of
guys testing "wrench only battles". So he does a company wide page and
says, "Could all of you testing multiplayer go to the center sphere
room and beat each other with wrenches only please". We all laughed out
loud and I thought to myself. who's got a better job than me?
Chris seems to be holding up pretty well too.which is impressive.
That guy is pulled in 10 different directions a day.no way I could do
his job. Scott and George want this thing.but Take Two wants this OTHER
thing.and then he's got all of us in the studio asking, "Well what are
we doing? Huh? Huh? What about this? And this?!?!" Yea, if Chris has a
full head of hair at 35 I'll be impressed. But all in all we're
wrapping up.lists are getting shorter and shorter. We still have a
handful of things that we want to tighten up but really.the game is
very close to finished. That's it.oh, congratulations to the Badger's
Men AND Women for wining National Titles in Hockey this year. Beauty eh!
Mike Flynn, Script Manager
I overslept today due to late night crunching. I got in late,
checked my e-mail and grabbed some food and coffee. I ate my food and
updated everything to the latest version of the game while checking the
latest news and going over my tasks for the day. I got most of my
direct tasks done over the weekend so all that is left is the pickier
more difficult stuff. Before getting into those, I entered some new
internal bugs and tasks into our wiki for myself and the other
scripters. There are only a few and they are thankfully minor; this
week is crazy enough with crunch mode.
Coffee. Need more coffee. Hopefully I won't get screwed with the pot
having only a half a cup left and have to make more. Ah, the coffee
gods smile upon me with a freshly brewed pot. I cue up some Captain
Beefheart, Arcade Fire, and Daft Punk, hit random and get to work. Man,
Neighborhood #1 is a great track. The day goes well into the next
morning, with many bugs found and fixed, dialog added, and various game
play tweaks implemented, tested, reimplemented, and tested again. In
between map builds, which are needed for a conclusive test of most
changed or added elements, I geek out on netside attractions or check
my task list to see what needs to be done next. Sometimes building a
map will take 15 minutes. If a BSP isn't needed, the turnaround time is
more like 15 seconds. Amidst the more mechanical and repetitive tasks
are the many gems that make it all worth while : each sweated over
detail and change being instantly playable in a real time engine and
finally finishing up scenes that are composed of dozens of people's
work and input.
Nick Taylor, Animator
This week I am working on the main characters third person / multi
player animations. This is a challenge unto itself as they must look
good when the player is standing still as well as when he is running,
strafing, etc... At the same time I am working on the lower body
movement animations so that all of these approximately 220 upper and
lower body animations all work well together.
Rich Whitehouse, Programmer
"Started the day at 8:45am when my alarm went off. Hit the snooze
button. Woke up again at 8:53 upon the next alarm trigger, then hit
snooze again. Somehow managed to hit snooze while in a sleep state
until 10, at which point I finally got up. I stumbled through several
accumulating piles of trash at my bed side, checked my e-mail on my
desktop machine, browsed around for a while, then took a shower. I got
to work at 11am. Upon arrival, I began re-evaluating some optimizations
on a render volume tree function, and after observing through
disassembly that the compiler was using stack-relative offsets to
access some memory already, I proceeded with planned changes. This
worked out happily. After that, I worked on some clipping performance
issues on our giant sphere deathmatch map, and then began working
closely with our in-house QA tester to coordinate some internet
multiplayer testing, and work out issues with our Master Server. I then
went home, and played Prey until 2am while noting new bugs and issues.
This concludes the glorious day in the life of Rich Whitehouse."
Well that was certainly different, wasn't it?
If you enjoyed this, let me know -- post something to the 3DR
forums. If people liked it, we'll see about doing more of these for
future updates. I'm sure I could coerce more people from HH into
writing up a day in their lives on this project.
Speaking of future updates. The deadline for the next round of the
Ask Prey questions was today. So, I'll be tackling them next week for
next Friday's update. We've received some pretty damn good questions,
so it should make for an interesting update.
Until then, stay frosty.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:00 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #13
Hello again -- welcome to the thirteenth installment of the Weekly Prey Update.
This week, we have the usual weekly status, an update on in-game
dialog, some talk about the 360 version, and something a bit special:
pictures of the Human Head visit to Art Bell's house to record his
voice for the game.
We're in full-on crunch mode here at Human Head Studios. Many people
are burning the midnight oil as they work to finish their tasks before
our next major deadline.
I read the last few Weekly Updates, and it seems that my mantra
lately has been "bug fixing and tweaking". Well, this week is no
different -- there's been a ton of bug fixes and a lot of tweaks.
We're pretty much over the feature hump, as all of the major
features we wanted are now implemented. From here to end, it will
mainly be bug fixing, tweaking, and any remaining minor features as
needed.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that Michael Greyeyes was here recording
new lines for Tommy. This week most of those lines have been processed
and are being added to the game. Probably half of the new lines are now
in the game with the rest planned to be implemented next week.
Today we're recording a few new lines for the epilogue of the game
-- and probably getting a few more screams out of the voice actors. Can
never have enough screams in a game.
Of course, this time we'll inform our neighbors of the voice recording session so they don't call the cops.
Speaking of voice recording: Several months ago, Ed Lima (Audio
Director at Human Head) and Tim Gerritsen (Business Development Manager
at Human Head) flew out to Las Vegas to meet with Art Bell to record specific dialog for Prey.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Art Bell, he's the infamous host of "Coast to Coast".
"Coast to Coast" is a radio show where people call in with tales of the
fantastic -- they cover things ranging from Bigfoot to werewolves to
alien invasions. The show is regularly hosted by George Noory, but Art
Bell still occasionally hosts on weekends.
Now how does this fit in with Prey? Well, when designing the game we
realized we needed some way for Tommy to connect with Earth even though
he's trapped on an alien ship orbiting many miles above the planet.
What better way to get information about Earth than to have Tommy come
across places where the aliens are intercepting Earth's transmissions?
When we discussed this idea, someone mentioned how awesome it would
be to have those transmissions actually be Art Bell broadcasts. We
contacted Art's people and he thought the idea was great and agreed to
provide his voice for Prey.
After a few months of playing phone tag to set things up, we finally
nailed down a date to record the lines. Ed and Tim visited Art at his
home -- where he actually broadcasts his show. Since Art already had
high quality recording equipment set-up in his studio, they literally
recorded the Prey lines by having Tim call into Art's studio from a
separate phone.
Art was a total professional. Without even looking at the script in
advance, he nailed the whole thing in almost literally one take. There
were only two times that he stopped to re-record a few lines. The whole
process took about 45 minutes.
In the end, the new lines turned out great -- they convey at some
information of what is happening back on Earth. Some of them even
manage to inject a bit of humor into the game.
Art Bell and Ed Lima
Art Bell and Tim Gerritsen
A number of people here (and at 3DR) have been testing the Xbox360
version of Prey -- we both have several test kits throughout the
office, so people can play when they have time. Ted Halsted, lead level
designer on Prey, has been going through the 360 version looking for
any really slow areas. I watched him play through a particularly
complex level, and the 360 appeared to be handling it just fine.
Time for the weekly changelog:
- Portaling is considerably smoother. It's pretty much impossible to detect when you go through a portal now.
- Fixed some bugs with the functionality to retain the ammo type in dropped leechguns in MP.
- Fixed Prey window sometimes getting resized when using the menu options to go to driver pages and possibly other things.
- Now checking Creative driver version, and disabling on old versions so that we don't cause bluescreens.
- Tracked down and fixed a crash bug in AI navigation
- Cleaned up some client prediction misses with the acid sprayer.
- Globalizing remainder of Tommy's v/o.
- Extracting additional Tommy pickup v/o
- Selecting more licensed music to round out in-game jukebox song selection
- Writing/prepping epilogue dialog for recording
- auto detection revamp texture quality setting and removed global video quality setting.
- Changed proxdoors so they no longer snap shut when a monster dies inside one.
- Fixed IK while crouching in players in multiplayer.
- Some save / load fixes.
- Added code to prevent Harvesters from getting stuck in passageways.
- Fixed a rare crash bug related to reactions that would show up on save.
- Fixed Gasbag death time.
- made shuttles show crosshair even when no tractor target.
- plaque under "Game Saved." messages
- made normal projectiles hit spirit secrets
- made spirit arrows pass through chaff
- Misc art tweaks
- Finalizing cinematic animation cleanup
- Fixed a bug with the Spiritwalk overlay not working well with other overlays
- Bug fix so Talon properly lands on moving targets
- System in place for Tommy making comments to Talon
- Removed redundant ammo types from the levels
Well, that's it for this week --
We decided to extend the Ask Prey submission time by another week.
The original deadline was today, but if you still have any questions or
anything you'd like to see covered in these weekly updates, feel free
to email them to [email protected].
Until next time, stay out of trouble.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:31 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #12
Wow... Friday already. And time for the Weekly Prey Update. Let's get right to it...
The animators are working hard on cleaning up the motion capture
data, and tweaking the cinematic animations to blend together smoothly.
It's been a hell of a lot of work, and they're doing a great job.
Well, I use the term cinematic loosely -- as Prey doesn't actually
have any cutscenes. The game is always from Tommy's point of view, and
the story unfolds around the player as they progress through the game.
So, I use the term cinematic animation to apply to any animation for
a specific NPC. An example of this would be if a character has to point
in a certain direction, or run over and kneel by another character.
That type of stuff.
As mentioned in a previous update, we recorded around 250 new lines
for Tommy. A good chunk of those were re-recording old lines to either
fit the story better, or because we were unhappy with the previous
takes, as opposed to totally "new" dialogue.
And of those 250 lines, we recorded multiple takes of each.
Depending upon the line, there were anywhere from two to six takes of
each. Ed, our audio director, will go through and choose the best take
of each and add them into the game.
However, the level designers were ready now to start adding in the
dialog. To multitask, we set up temporary sound shaders for each of
Tommy's lines, which the designers can then incorporate immediately.
The end result is that there are a lot of default beeps throughout
the game now -- but in less than a week, all of Tommy's new lines
should be in the game.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the game feels like with all this additional dialog.
We've also been incorporating all the latest music from Jeremy
Soule. There's still about a quarter of the music yet to come, but they
are cranking away on it, and we should be getting it very soon.
If all goes as planned, we should have all music implemented in the game by next week as well.
Talking to 3DR, we discussed reviving the Ask Prey email address, and answer questions again in an up-coming Weekly Update.
I still have all of the unanswered questions from last time, so I'll
look through them again. However, if you have any other questions, or
anything you'd like to see discussed in these updates (that hasn't been
discussed before), feel free to email us: [email protected] (Make sure to remove the NPSPAM. before sending)
Please have your questions in by next Friday, April 6th. We will answer as many as possible in a future Weekly Update.
The changelog for this week is pretty sizable, as we didn't send a new build to 3DR last week. Here it is:
- New music system implemented for fading and crossfading
- Grenade throw button - bind a key to _impulse25, should default to G
- New directional damage indicator
- tips for zooming in on the HUD
- low-health (< 25%) HUD effect
- Fixed problem with harvester gibs being nonsolid in some cases.
- Reduced grace period for ragdolls to resolve being stuck in solid.
- Fixed problem with wrench showing up in roadhouse mirror.
- All levels end with a portal fade now
- Door system:
* Unlocked doors are light blue
* Locked doors are red and play a locked sound when you approach
* Doors that never open are dark and play a locked sound when you approach
- GUI pass throughout the level, new guis added
- Tommy Voices in progress--putting in placeholders; sound not yet ready
- SpiritWalk symbols being added throughout the levels
- All leech nodes now have a screen tip
- Adjustments of items/characters/geometry to accommodate level fades
- All music we have so far implemented (volumes need tweaking)
- FTA crouch portals can be walked around now.
- three fodders are now in the lighting training hallway
- new exit from FTA to FTB
- Item cabinet moved away from the forcefield
- The door with the raving guy banging on it is now locked
- First pod puzzle no longer has a pod right near the gak
- Vomiter removed from first wallwalk area
- Multiple Hunters now after the player wallwalks after the hologram
- Moved the autosave in the mutilated human room, so you don't fall into it.
- Art Bell gui moved to a new place
- New Tri-flip combat room w/portal crates
- Optimizations in several rooms and corridors
- Hunters on vent in breakaway room
- New airlock with keypad GUI
- Portal Crate in Catwalk Hunter Combat room
- combat chains increased in several levels
- Added in additional security mounted guns.
- Dimmed the lights in the BonusCloset area to give more broken/emergency feel.
- Added in Thin-Thing (tm)
- Lighting adjustments in Big Asteroid room to allow for smoother enemy lighting
- Additional deathwalk map added
And that wraps up another Weekly Prey Update. Next week will be a
bit of a detour from the usual updates. And, the week after that, will
be the next Ask Prey questions. So, if you have any questions, make
sure you email them to [email protected].
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:47 PM
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Inside Prey with Computer Games Magazine
As
you can see by the image to your right, Computer Games Magazine has a
cover article on Prey. This is the May 2006 edition of the magazine,
and is now hitting subscribers' mailboxes, and should be on stands now.
Computer Games Magazine author Tom Chick has written a piece
entitled "Ghost World" about Prey. He has a somewhat lengthy subtitle
for the article which does a nice job of summing up the game. That is..
"Aliens and Natives
Organic & Steel
Upside Down, Inside Out, and Dead-Alive
The Many Paradoxes of Prey".
In all, it's an eight page spread including several screenshots not
released before. It's got gobs of information on the game. Here's a few
choice quotes: - "The first thing you see when Prey starts is
a view of someone talking to you about what a loser you are. Wait -
that's you, looking at yourself in the mirror. It's a sort of teaser
for the way Human Head plays with perspective throughout the game."
- "The aliens suck up bits of the bar, while the jukebox plays
Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper". You can bet the jukebox
will be back - 3D Realms didn't license music from Ted Nugent, Judas
Priest, & Heart for nothing."
- "Human Head has taken this concept (portals) to some brain
twisting lengths. In addition to glowing dimensional portals floating
in midair, there are boxes that tip over to reveal new rooms inside."
- "We want to avoid that shelf moment, when the game goes back on the shelf and you leave it there."
- "Combat should be filler between memorable bits. No one remembers a game as 'So I turned the corner and fought these guys'."
There's plenty of other goodness for you to check out. Some you've
heard about, some you have not, including a few screenshots never seen
before. If you're not a subscriber to Computer Games Magazine, then
you'll definitely want to head to your local newsstand and grab a copy
of the May 2006 edition of Computer Games Magazine today!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:53 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #11
Hey all; welcome to the eleventh edition of the Prey Weekly Web
Update. As usual, this week has been rather busy here at Human Head.
We've been splitting out time between implementing new feature requests
from 3DR and fixing bugs.
At this point, though, many of the feature requests are fairly
simple tweaks, things like adding in screen tips in sniper mode so you
know how to zoom in and out, changing the HUD damage feedback system to
something more intuitive, etc.
Check the changelog at the end of this update for even more info on what's happening with the game.
Typically (at least on nearly all the projects I've worked on),
there comes a point where staff members start wrapping up their normal
duties and transition over to game testing. We're nearly at this stage
with the art staff. Oh, there's still a number of art tasks remaining
and things will still crop up as we're headed towards gold, but many of
the artists have been transitioning over to bug-finding.
Rather than have them try to play through the entire game over and
over, we've split the maps up into groups and are having each artist
concentrate on a group of maps for a short period of time. We'll then
rotate them into different groups of maps to keep putting new eyes on
each set of maps.
Next week, we're planning a more hardcore test of deathmatch. We
have been regularly testing deathmatch both for bugs and balance, of
course, but next week we want to get into it hardcore. There are a
couple of bugs that QA is able to reproduce that we have yet to see
in-house. Next week's hardcore test should flush out those issues.
2K has sent a tester on-site to work with the team directly for the
next few weeks. So far, he's been working out well, and has been diving
in and showing us bugs that we've had difficulty reproducing, as well
as helping out with regression testing bugs after we've fixed them.
In case you aren't aware of how the process of QA works, here's a quick outline:
- QA reports a bug, and enters it into a centralized database
- We look at the bug, and determine if it really is a bug, or if
there is a mix-up. If it's not a bug, we mark it the very obvious: "Not
a Bug"
- We then determine if we will be able to fix the bug.
Occasionally a bug cannot be fixed due to engine limitations and so
forth. We mark it "Will Not Fix"
- We then try to reproduce the bug. If we are unable to
reproduce it, or don't have enough information to recreate the bug, we
mark it "Need More Info", and wait until we hear back from QA with the
additional information
- Finally we fix the bug. And mark it "Fixed."
- Even though we fixed it, it's not closed out and considered
final until QA has retested the bug. They retest it, and either mark it
"Fix Verified", or if they still can reproduce the bug, then they mark
it "Fix Denied"
- If the bug is kicked back to us, then we swear repeatedly and the process starts over.
We received more music from Jeremy Soule last week, and are
expecting more music from him early next week. We're close to having
all music for the game in our hands for implementation. All told, we
should have close to 2 hours of music in Prey.
A few Human Heads attended GDC this week, shmoozing with other
developers and attending talks. As mentioned last week, our very own Ed
Lima is giving a talk today (the 24th) on sound in the Doom 3 engine
and on many of the enhancements that have been added both by us and by
Creative Labs.
Yes, Ed will be showing some sound stuff in-engine. Don't expect a
huge Prey demonstration, though -- it's tailored towards the sound, so
he's just showing off a couple of rooms as he's demoing the sound
enhancements. But, we did choose two pretty cool rooms. :-) One of them
has one of my favorite portal effects.
Speaking of GDC. Every year, when I realize that GDC is upon us, I
always start thinking about E3, since it's a bit less than two months
away. We've already started discussing what we'll be showing of Prey at
E3.
No final plans as of yet, so I can't mention anything in this update -- but we will be showing off Prey in some form at E3.
Okay, arguably the most popular feature of the weekly updates: the
changelog. As we've been working on a number of things near the end of
the game, quite a few spoilers had to be removed this week:
- hunters have new projectile effects so the projectile stands out better
- XXXXXXXXXX at the start of the map has a new texture on it
- Tons of tweaks in the Harvester maps, in terms of creature placement and bug fixes
- New combat room added to Salvage: a cool room involving multiple portals and many enemies
- New animation for Tommy's intro
- Preparation for a door color unification pass across all levels
- New damage HUD, giving better directional feedback during combat
- Lots of great AI tweaks and fixes to the Hunters
- Animation work on various cinematics and to XXXXXXXXX-X scene
- Removal of a poster in the Roadhouse that contained unlicensed images
- New graphic effect on the health spore: much cheaper, and pretty much looks the same
- New GUIs throughout the levels, providing more information about the ship and the inhabitants
- New creature placements, providing more locations for wallwalk combat
- HUD tips for sniper zoom
As always, thanks much for reading our Prey update. We have some
pretty exciting Prey related things happening over the next few weeks
-- can't talk about them just yet, but just keep your eyes peeled!
Until next week....
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
And for no good reason at all, Joe Siegler insisted upon another picture of Crystle Lightning. ;)
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:26 PM
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Prey Q&A with Tim Gerritsen
In addition to today's latest editon of the Prey Weekly Update
series, we also have a short interview with Tim Gerritsen of Human
Head. He talks about the overall game concept, multiplayer features,
weapons, downloadable content plans and more. Here's a few morsels:
"Absolutely we'll have downloadable content (on Xbox Live).
The extent of it really depends on how the game does, but we have plans
to support the game with new characters, maps, skins and more. If the
game does well, we definitely want to add new multiplayer modes."
"We're releasing the sdk and editor (Preditor) for Prey PC and will
be actively supporting the mod community. However, to really make mod
materials, you'd need a full keyboard and mouse set up, so the majority
of the mods are developed for PC."
"There will be a demo on PC and 360, though dates have not yet been
confirmed. We've not announced our next game yet, but the reaction to
Prey had led to some very unique opportunities for us. We would love to
see Xbox Live Tournaments for Prey and support them in general. I'd
like to have a nice spectator lounge, though, with cocktails. :)"
Tim tells more in the full interview, available here over at totally360.com. Check it out!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:48 AM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #10
Hello again and welcome to this week's edition of the Prey weekly update!
First off a huge thanks to Peter Johnson at Venom for taking the
time out of his schedule to write the great update last week on the
Xbox360 version of Prey.
Wow, so what's been going on here? It's been a crazy busy week:
In terms of production, we've been focusing on:
- bug fixes from 3DR and Take 2 QA
- map optimizations: Over the past couple of weeks, there's been
some pretty large optimizations done to the maps. Visually they are
essentially the same -- most of the optimizations have been ensuring
that entities in other rooms cease thinking as necessary, additional
corridors or doors added as needed for vis purposes, removing redundant
geometry where found, etc.
- feature tweaks: a number of game feature tweaks as requested
by 3DR to polish the experience. For example, things like tweaks to how
some of the weapons function, a screen effect when you are very low on
health, some AI tweaks, etc.
- level tweaks: similar to the feature tweaks above, the level
designers have been adding in sections as needed to expand the gameplay
in levels, and also moving elements around so they are properly
introduced and utilized.
- animation tweaks: The animators have been crunching hardcore
to clean up the motion capture data. A lot of work has gone into
cleaning up the motion capture data. The data had a lot of hitching,
and issues when blending between different animations. So far the
animators work has fixed things up pretty well -- only downside is that
it's very time-consuming for them. Once the cinematic animations are
complete, the animators have a good-sized list of things to tweak
throughout the rest of the game, from weapon animations to creature
animations.
A new contract animator has joined us to help finish Prey. Eric
Weiss has a background in both film and computer game animation, having
worked on such movies as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Godzilla,
and most recently, Superman Returns.
On Prey, he's been focusing first on learning the animation pipeline
from Maya into Prey, and has been doing work on one of our boss
creatures. Very cool having him aboard and helping make the animation
rock.
Check out his IMDb page here.
Michael Greyeyes, the voice of Tommy, was here at Human Head on
Monday and Tuesday recording new lines for the game, and re-recording
some older lines. It was a busy couple of days, but we managed to
record around 250 lines. Will we use all of those? Probably not -- our
goal is that Tommy comment mainly about critical things. While it's
very cool to hear his voice as you're playing, you obviously wouldn't
want to hear him comment every 5 feet - you'd likely be saying "Shut up
Tommy!" :)
As always, Michael was ever the professional who clearly enjoys his
job. He nailed most of the lines in only a few takes, and had fun
joking around a bit and ad-libbing a few lines.
Ed Lima, Audio Director at Human Head, along with some folks from
Creative Labs will be giving a presentation at the Game Developers
Conference next week on audio in Doom 3 engine games. Ed will be
discussing some of the audio features added to the game to not only
make things sound more realistic, but also features added to make the
game more enjoyable. An example of this is voice ducking technology
which lowers surrounding sounds when an NPC is talking, so their voice
stands out above ambient sounds.
If you are at GDC, make sure you stop by and check out the
presentation by Ed and Creative Labs. Additionally, Ed's talk at GDC
will be next Friday the 24th at noon EST, so if you happen to be there,
check it out to hear Ed's insight into Prey.
From the "No TV and no beer make Homer go something-something" department:
Of course, during all this hardcore crunching, we still have to take
the time to blow off some steam. Now that the Guitar Hero craze seems
to have all but died down here at the office, it's been replaced by
some new sounds: The clang of swords and howls as heads are lopped off.
A few of the guys here have taking up playing Rune Deathmatch again.
Brings back such memories to hear those sounds once again echo through
our offices.
We received some great feedback on the changelog from two weeks ago,
so here's this last week's changelog as sent to 3DR. Warning, some
spoilers might be in here -- but any major spoilers have been removed:
- Leech node hints now give you an icon of the gun itself
- Glowing blood sprays are visible when sniping an enemy
- SpindleB: Turbine Room has gotten major optimizations
- "Thin thing" portal trick added to Salvage (still requires some cleanup).
- Pretty large optimization pass across most of the maps. Still more optimization to be done.
- Key default changes:
- Lighter defaults to F key
- SpiritWalk defaults to MMB and E
- Crouch defaults to C and SHIFT
- Leech gun is now on key #4
- Leech gun auto switches when out of ammo
- Hunters can lean around corners to attack now. They
occasionally decide to do the lean attack during normal attacks, too,
to mix things up.
- tweaks to hud tip system
- added tips when entering a shuttle
- made spectators show up on scoreboards
- allowed spectators to go through forcefields
- added "Resume Game" to out-of-game menu
- put player portraits on scoreboard
- added gametime played to loadgame screen
- added "ready" tip to MP hud
- made shuttle not thrust until transitioned in
- tweaks to the motion capture animations for Grandfather and Jen.
- added music volume control
- tweaks to help screen
- new negative feedback sound when shooting teammates in team dm, got rid of colored flash on teammates as well
- New recorded lines for Tommy yelling at Grandfather as he is XXXXX XX XXX.
- More save/load fixes
- Playtime now displayed for savegames
- Made vacuum robot explosion do radius damage
- Spirit bridge updates throughout the levels
- Ambience passes to newly added areas, thin thing, XXXXX XXXXXXXXX, etc.
- Low health screen effect added
Thanks as usual for reading, and make sure to check in again next week.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:39 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #9
Welcome to the latest edition of the Prey Weekly Update series. A
few weeks ago you were told you'd get an update from Venom games in the
UK on the Xbox 360 version of Prey. That's what we're bringing you
today. This week's update is not from Chris at Human Head, but it's by
Peter Johnson at Venom Games in the UK.
Chris will return next week with the next Prey Weekly Update.
There's plenty to read in Peter's update, so let's get right to it....
We started work in earnest on bringing Prey to the 360 in late June
2005, although we had been looking at the code a little before that to
ready ourselves and plan our attack. It was amusing to see on some
gaming forums that some posters seemed to think that the announcement
about it last month meant that we had just started work on it, this is
far from the case.
As our aim was to keep everything as faithful to the PC original as
possible, we knew it would be mainly a coding job, with relatively
little work needed on the art side. It broke down into a number of
tasks - converting the engine itself to get it running on the 360
platform, and the areas where we needed to make changes to better suit
the platform - such as the control system, the front end and the
integration of Xbox Live.
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Peter Johnson of Venom Games
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THE ENGINE
As I am sure regular readers of Chris’ column will know,
“Prey†is based on an enhanced version of the Doom3 engine. It was
initially suggested to us that we would use the conversion of this
engine that was being done over at Raven to bring “Quake 4†to the
360, but after waiting nearly 3 months for sight of that code, and it
being apparent when we saw it that those guys were very much still in
the process of development, shall we say, at the time- we felt that we
had little choice but to do it ourselves rather than spend the next six
months simply merging their code with Human Head’s without any
forward progression ourselves. Taking this approach meant it was then
much more likely that we would be in a position to resolve any problems
we encountered.
In the last week of June 2005 Kevin Franklin, our lead coder here,
and Ben Cosh rolled up their sleeves and started to convert the Prey
code base from scratch. Their first move was to get the engine running
on the PC in Direct X rather than Open GL, and then port that code
across onto 360. The approach of hitting the PC first had the advantage
that the turnaround time for compilation and execution could be much
shorter than it currently was on 360 at the time. The guys did a great
job- getting it running on 360, albeit at a low framerates, in around 8
or 9 weeks. There were still plenty of effects and graphical tricks to
add at this point, but already it had the distinctive look of
“Prey†and now we could let the rest of the programming team loose
on it.
Prey really stretches the Doom3 engine, sometimes in ways it
wasn’t designed for. It aims to create a convincingly organic-looking
alien world full of curves and natural shapes from an engine designed
around box-shaped rooms, and features many additional shaders and
special effects that take the visuals far beyond the original Doom3
engine. This extra load meant the coding team had to work hard on
optimising the code, removing bottlenecks and spreading the load across
the three cores at the heart of the 360 to hit our target of a constant
30fps framerate. We have also had one coder, Mick, working for the best
part of 6 months using the 360 performance analysis tools to identify
the slower areas of code and rewrite, or in many cases replace routines
with low-level machine code to squeeze the best from the machine.
I feel confident in saying that we are now graphically pixel-perfect with the PC version.
MULTIPLAYER
After the departure of our network programmer in the last week of
November 2005, we had a difficult choice to make - whether to take his
code and complete it, fixing any bugs we found and hoping we could
patch around any problems we uncovered, or throw it all away and start
again. This was a difficult call, as time was running short for an area
of the game which is always known to be a challenging one to implement.
We took the option we all felt was right, which was the braver/more
foolish one of replacing it all. Steve Sharp, the coder we tasked with
it has done a great job in a short time in a coding area he was
previously unfamiliar with, and we now have all of the Live support in
place and working well. The recent addition of speech to the online
game over the past few weeks has also added greatly to the player
experience.
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Screenshot showing controller layout
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CONTROL SYSTEM
Over to Mark Sample, normally our game designer/ producer here, for a little on the controller code.
Our task for Xbox 360 was to make sure the game played right with
the console controller. This is harder than most think as many gamers
take the highly responsive keyboard and mouse feel of the home PC for
granted and we knew from the outset that we wanted to be as faithful as
possible to the way the game plays on PC rather than changing the
experience for the gamer.
Assigning the action buttons to the pad was easy, however the fun
started with getting the feel of the player movement and looking around
right with the sticks. Using a vast array of tweakable values we set
about tuning the turn-rate and acceleration. From the get-go we knew it
was vitally important that the player felt completely in control at all
times. They need to have enough low-down sensitivity to make small
delicate moves, as well as fast response for sweeping, super-quick
180’s – as you never know who might pop up behind you =). After
much testing and tuning, the stick controls now feel robust and
razor-sharp; we’re really pleased with the results and think the
gamer will be ready in no time to take out a hunter or two with what we
have delivered.
Our QA team in LA recently suggested that the game could also
benefit from a facility for user-assignable weapon switching on the
D-pad, and we added this into the game. We designed a method which
allows the player to assign and re-assign weapons to those buttons
quickly at any time as they play, as simply as programming stations in
on a car radio. It works great, and we confidently expect to see other
games following suit soon.
FRONT END
Over to Phil Nixon, the artist redesigning the front end for 360.
“We had to replace the existing front end to allow for input
via gamepad rather than mouse-driven “point and click†of the PC,
and the idea behind the user interface we chose to adopt for 360 was to
try and get as far away as possible from the established look of PC
FPS’s.
I like the idea that the user interface should relate to the
theme of the game itself as much as possible. I'll try and explain a
little better what I'm on about...Tommy is aided throughout the game by
Talon, his hawk, and we thought it would be cool to use this idea as a
concept for the user interface. We focused on a super close-up of the
eye, making the pupil dilate and contract in response to flashing
lights around it (representing gunfire, or perhaps a smashed up
computer). Occasionally the eye looks around too, adding movement in
the background. The deeper you get into the interface, the deeper you
zoom into Talon’s eye.
Stylistically, as far as the menu graphics, framing graphics and
fonts are concerned, I tried to draw cues from the GUIs and designs
that are featured in the game, again trying hard to ensure that our
front end matched the 'look' that Human Head already had in place.
Overall it works well, and I like to think it ties the game elements
together a little better than some titles out there manage to do.â€
XBOX LIVE ACHIEVEMENTS
Achievements are becoming a big thing within the Xbox 360 community,
with websites springing up to cover the topic and gamers competing for
bragging rights based on which achievements they have unlocked in the
games they are playing, so we wanted to make sure we included a very
full implementation of achievements in Prey. Over to Bruce Brodie who
helped design this part of the game.
“The achievements have been a lot of fun to create! Currently
there are 33 achievements in “Prey†which will be worth a total of
1000 points to a player’s Gamer Score. These achievements are spread
out between single and multiplayer modes. Major achievements such as
game completion and death match kills are all present and correct,
level-specific awards have also been included for players that attempt
the game on the “Wicked†difficulty – we want people to explore
the world of Prey and really master it in order to unlock some of the
harder achievements – be warned, some of the multiplayer ones will
take a lot of skill to unlock!
There are also a number of secret achievements that players will
have to look harder to find, which will be worth a good haul of points
when discovered.
Our artists have created some great icons for the achievements,
and they are looking good (I hate it when a game uses the same icon for
everything). The final number of points to be awarded for each is still
in discussion and tends to change depending on how evil the designer is
feeling that day.
Here are some of the achievements that we have created, one from
the single player, one from multiplayer and a secret achievement that
we will leave to you to discover for yourself!
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Young Blood
Unlock this achievement by killing 25 rival players on Xbox Live in a deathmatch game. |
Scrap Yard Master
This achievement is won by completing the Salvage levels on wicked difficulty! |
Grease Monkey
Can you guess what this achievement is for? Discuss it in our forums! |
And finally...
THANKS
Doing “Prey†has necessitated putting progress on our other,
unannounced, next-gen title on hold for over 6 months, and I’d like
to acknowledge the patience of our art team assigned to that project
for soldering on with their work on it whilst almost all of our
programming resources were diverted to bringing “Prey†to 360.
Thanks Guys!
Peter Johnson - Studio Head
Venom Games - Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:01 PM
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Prey is "Worth Playing"
Another day, another Prey preview. This time we have one from the
gaming site "Worth Playing". This one talks about the usual suspects,
single player, the Cherokee influence on the title, Wallwalking, all
the cool stuff you've been reading about. Check out what Worth Playing
has to say about Prey:
"Prey strives to deliver the rise of a hero through the conduit of a fantastic voyage aboard a ship that's a living entity."
"Beginning with the engine and environment, Prey pulls some
smooth moves and some fast tricks to create the user experience.
Conceiving the environment as a living ship allows Prey to have a very
organic look, which not only allows for a different appearance, but
also enables a great deal more creativity in the design, threats,
assets, and functions throughout the game."
"The Spirit Walk is truly something to behold. Tommy takes
ethereal form, just like Talon, leaving his body behind to venture
forth only with a Spirit Bow as a weapon."
"Taking Wall Walking into multiplayer action is where the sweet
spot of Prey truly lies. One level we got our hands on was like being
in the midst of an M.C. Escher drawing, with almost all of the walls
turned on."
"The day of a 3D compartmentalized structure is attacked by Prey,
as gamers will be forced to grasp both space and gravity in an
environment where "top" and "bottom" will be difficult, if not
impossible, to identify."
Make sure and check out the full preview over at worthplaying.com today!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:40 AM
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The Art of Prey
If you're a subscriber to the Official Xbox Magazine,
then you have a treat headed towards your mailbox. The newest issue of
that magazine is hitting subscribers' mailboxes now (the April 2006
issue), and there are two Prey segments on the disc.
The first is a photo gallery called "The Art of Prey". This is a
screenshot collection which has about 30 shots which are a mix of
screenshots as well as concept art. In addition to that is a video
feature on Prey. It's a a video interview with Chris Rhinehart of Human
Head in which he talks about Prey. The interview is also intermixed
with plenty of game footage, too!
Here's what the magazine has to say about the interview...
Take a look at the gravity bending upcming Xbox 360
shooter Prey in a special video feature where we take you inside
developer Human Head's studio in frosty Madison, Wisconsin. The game is
much hotter than the weather!
If you're not a subscriber to the magazine, then you should head out
to your local newsstand and pick up a copy of the April 2006 edition of
the Official Xbox Magazine to get plenty of Prey 360 goodness!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:50 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #8
Hey all -- welcome to the latest Prey Weekly Update. Originally,
Peter Johnson from Venom was going to update this week on the status
and progress of the Xbox 360 version, but due to their crunch his
update will have to wait until a future update (possibly next week).
Like Venom, we're in crunch here at Human Head as the game is in
late beta. We're getting tons of feedback from 3D Realms, Take2 QA, and
other beta testers. Every day the game improves pretty noticeably.
I'm going to update with little snippets of thoughts on various
things that have happened around here. Like I said, we're incredibly
busy, so there's way more than this happening, but here are just a few:
Last week I was in Dallas visiting 3D Realms. Tom Chick from CGM
flew in for the first single-player hands-on demo of the game. We
showed him the first two hours of Prey, and then jumped around and
showed him a few cool areas later in the game.
The game pretty much shows itself off now. In the past, it was 80%
talking and 20% showing -- as we discussed the story and what we
planned to do in certain sections. But now, those numbers have flipped.
Most of the demo was just seeing the game and experiencing the story --
the 20% was us talking about what we had yet to fix and tweak, and
talking about the history of the game and its development.
Recently I speed-ran through the entire game, taking stock of the following items:
- Action/Puzzles: Any long stretches of the game without any action or puzzles? (not many!)
- Tommy comments: Making notes of additional comments needed and which current comments could use reworking.
- Combat frequency: Is there not enough combat in areas, or too much? Do certain creatures show up too much?
- Death frequency: Did I die too many times in a given area before I was able to get through?
- Animation tweaks: Which animations could use reworking
- Sound tweaks: Any sounds that could use tweaking, or any places where the volume mix is off.
- General bugs: Just anything that seems wrong or is broken.
Michael Greyeyes (the voice of Tommy) will be visiting us in a
couple of weeks to record new lines and re-record some previous lines
that didn't work well, or had to change due to story tweaks. I'm
compiling a (pretty large) list of comments culled from suggestions
here and from suggestions from 3D Realms. I doubt we'll have the
in-game Tommy say everything from that list, but we're going to record
all these lines just in case.
More voice recording fun:
We brought in a local actress/singer named CJ Schellback to provide
additional female voices and screams for the game. She did a fantastic
job, with some excellent screams of pain and yelling such things as
"Help me!", "Where am I?!", "What's going on?!"
Our recording booth is apparently not entirely soundproof as her
AMAZINGLY LOUD screams of pain heard by one of the offices directly
below us.
After several minutes of her screams -- someone from the office
finally came up stairs and asked "Is someone being raped up here?"
Seriously. They didn't ask if someone was hurt or needed help. They go straight to raped.
In the future, we'll be sure to inform our neighbors of our voice recording sessions.
We're reworking the final sequence of the game. The previous version
was a bit abrupt and didn't properly convey the story in the way we
wanted to wrap things up -- the new version is longer, better explains
things, and is damn swanky-looking, too.
Can't mention more of this, though -- as it would be spoilers. I
will say, however, that the end sequence has the coolest Earth model
I've seen in a game yet!
Music: We're incorporating the latest Jeremy Soule music into the
game. Very nice stuff. It's amazing how the mood of an area changes
radically when music is added. There's still quite a bit more music
from him coming soon -- all in all, Prey will have about 2 hours of
music from Jeremy.
We're also looking at getting more bands for the jukebox (which is
in the Roadhouse near the start of the game, and also makes an
appearance a few times on the alien ship). We already have some major
label stuff in the jukebox and Ed is looking at some more indie-bands
as well. Also, music related and interesting: Killer music from
development materializes.
Later today, we're having a multiplayer stress test here at Human
Head. We have weekly multiplayer tests to check for bugs and generally
playtest the levels. Typically it ranges from 4-6 people playing
(whomever is free at the moment to test). Today, we're focusing on all
8 players in the game, and are looking for bugs and any places in the
maps where the flow chugs down.
Each week, 3D Realms receives a new build from us. Typically, I
include a changelog of some of the more interesting things that changed
(based up their feedback of what they wanted changed/fixed). George
mentioned that it would be a cool thing to include in this update. So
here it is:
- New weapon selection menu
- Multiple quick save slots
- New wrench alt-fire raise animation
- DeathWraiths now have a probability of 50% blue, 50% red
- Many more mutilated humans working on stuff and shuffling around throughout the game
- You have three seconds of invincibility when you return from death walk
- New initial load screen
- Beer bottles no longer float in Roadhouse
- Jenny properly holds and throws the sponge now
- JukeBox should always have a mouse cursor
- Roadhouse: Timing is different on the dialog now, so you can
play with the games all you want, going back down by the bar will
continue the dialog scripting
- Drunks have fight animations -- still need stagger around animations, though.
- FTC: New Hider sighting -- dialog is temp, though
- Art Bell radio sequences now start and end with music snippets. Recognize it? :-)
- Hunters are toned down slightly -- bigger pauses between their shots. Maybe toned down too much right now, though?
- Spirit Arrows are much more dangerous now. Also, more spirit
power is given from enemies. This seems to be creating a positive
feedback loop that we don't necessarily want, though.
- Leech Gun: The tips are in, but we are going to add a picture of the leech gun itself to make it more clear.
- Swipe animations are in for using things (especially in Roadhouse). Anims will be tweaked further.
- Many more leech nodes added throughout the game. Pass isn't final, though...will still be more added.
- You can shoot the robot vacuums (done especially for George)
- Laser beam eye stalks can not longer be shot. You have to avoid the beams, trigger them, or spiritwalk through them now.
- LOTA D: In progress, but new set-up for Grandfather. Play it to see where he's located now.
- Cilia are triggered by spiritwalking players (so you can't walk through them)
- Jetpacks rockets are slower
- Four-legged Harvesters have been debuffed slightly
- Head shots from the sniper rifle decapitate the mutilated humans
- Poker/blackjack rules fixes in Roadhouse
- Lots and lots of bugfixes
Well, that's all for this week. Next week (hopefully, if he can tear
himself away from crunch time), Peter from Venom will update on the 360
version and anything he feels like talking about with that. In the
meantime, stay out of trouble.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:40 PM
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Three new Prey Magazine Previews
Today we bring you some more Prey previews, this time coming from
three print magazines that are available now. They're PC Gamer (Apr
2006), The Official Xbox Magazine (Mar 2006), & X360 Magazine (Apr
2006). All three of them really love the game, here's a bit of what
they all had to say:
X360 Magazine:
"Literally, a gut wrenching experience"
"Prey surprised, shocked, and greatly excited us with its
complexity, inventiveness, and sheer gorgeousness - this is a truly
next-generation game."
"Prey merges elements from different FPS sub-generes to create an involving experience that is often quite disturbing."
"Prey certainly impressed us. Ten years of development has meant
that the teams at 3D Realms & Human Head have had more than enough
time to cram every last good idea into the game and make them all work
together cohesively."
In addition to their preview, they have a prediction of the Top 10
games on the Xbox 360 for the year 2006. X360 Magazine lists Prey
fourth on that list, behind Halo 3, and in front of Gears of War.
Official Xbox Magazine:
"It's the weaponry and the whacked-out room puzzles that got our shooter-loving blood pumping."
"All of the weapons in Prey are acquired on the ship, lending a definite air of alien wierdness to each one."
"But hands down, the enemy that wins the "Most Likely to Give you
Nightmares" award are the Wraiths, a race of spectral beings that float
around and possess beings. In one of the most distrubing scenes we've
ever seen in a videogame, a Wraith files into the body of a little girl
then then, possessed by evil, gleefully trips her brother to shreds."
"The game already looks very polished; the engaging mix of sci-fi
and Native American themes intrigues us, not to mention all the cool
gravity tricks where are available in multiplay, too."
PC Gamer:
"Invest in Milk of Magnesia - this shooter's not for the faint of stomach."
"Looks like 3D Realms has a real winner on their hands!"
"Both effects (portals & gravity shifts) are pretty disorienting, but extremely cool."
"Kudos to Human Head - I haven't had a multiplayer shooter experience this impressive in ages!"
You'll want to check all of these previews - they're not online, you have to go check out the magazines at your local newsstand!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:15 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #7
Welcome to this edition of the Weekly Prey Update. This week, we're
focusing on some of the questions we've received recently from you in
our "Ask Prey" question a few weeks ago.
We received some really great ones -- far too many to be able to
answer all of them in this one update. I'll save the other questions
and try to answer many of them in a future Prey Update.
Without further ado, here are the questions and answers:
Travis asks:
Prey's caught my eye for a lot of its original and
forward-thinking ideas. But there's a couple in particular that I'd
like to hear more about. I hear that the game has a self-adjusting
difficulty level. This worries me, because it supposes that there is a
set degree of challenge that all gamers enjoy. Some less skilled
players may want to play the game at a higher level because they enjoy
a better fight, and some experienced gamers might just want a cakewalk
on the first time through. Will there be a way to "bias" to difficulty
adjustment to skew it higher or lower?
Also, I was wondering how the game is being balanced to preserve
challenge with the Deathwalking element? Will enemies heal or respawn
while the player is deathwalking so that when he returns he still has a
real fight?"
The Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) system has several different
layers to it, the main one of which is based around combat. As you
fight the various enemies the DDA system constantly monitors your
progress: how quickly you kill each enemy, how much damage each enemy
inflicted upon you before you killed it, and if the enemy managed to
kill you. After the battle is over, the game uses that information to
calculate how skilled you are against that particular enemy and slowly
adjusts that enemy’s difficulty.
The DDA system also has the ability to do "spot fixes" where it
detects if you are dying repeatedly in a given section. In that case,
the system will slightly adjust the game to help nudge you past the
section. Again, just a slight adjustment. The key to the whole system
is to never make any dramatic adjustments, as that would be obvious to
the player and break the immersion of the game.
You will be able to turn the DDA system off if you so desire.
DeathWalk: Enemies do not heal or respawn, but we are building in
systems so that the player has a few seconds to get their bearings
before the battle resumes -- for example, enemies are more likely to
ignore you until you attack again after you resurrect.
Hayden asks:
"Of all the features of your game, the spirit walking
interests me the most. How does it work? Is it an automatic trigger or
manual trigger? Does it time out? Do you need some form of item to
support it? If it's a manual trigger, how to you keep it from
overpowering the gameplay? It seems overuse of that feature could make
the gameplay too easy, making the game rather boring."
Once the player has obtained the ability to SpiritWalk (you cannot
do this from the start of the game), they can SpiritWalk at any time,
whenever they want.
We decided to not restrict the player from SpiritWalking, because so
many puzzles rely upon leaving your body behind and venturing ahead in
Spirit form to unlock areas or transport your body.
However, to balance this, you do not always have the ability to
attack when in Spirit form. Only if you have enough Spirit Power can
you use the Cherokee bow to attack enemies. Without that power you can
still SpiritWalk, but you cannot attack.
We are pretty generous with Spirit Power, though as it turns out
that it’s really fun and useful to leave your body behind and kill
enemies with the Bow. And, it all depends upon how you want to play the
game. Some of our internal testers like to leave their body and use the
Bow often, whereas others prefer killing enemies with the more
conventional weaponry.
Super_CK writes:
"I'm really looking forward to Prey, it's gonna be one of
the best FPS' to come out in awhile. One thing that really has me
curious though is the music. Most FPS games aren't really known for
great music, but with Prey, it seems like there's a great opportunity
to really have some good stuff going, considering the story and the
main character. It kinda seems like the kind of score Jerry Goldsmith
might write, if Prey were a big sci-fi action movie. Anyway, who's
doing the music for the game? I really hope y'all got someone good."
We have about two hours worth of level music composed by Jeremy
Soule and his brother Julian Soule, which is used both for ambient
environmental music, as well as specific music (for boss battles and
level stingers).
In addition, we have licensed various popular tunes for the bar
scene in the game. I mean, what better way to get the feel of a
roadhouse bar than having Judas Priest or Ted Nugent blaring out of the
jukebox?
Spooger writes:
"I've read that Human Head is trying to make Prey as
emotionally-charged as possible. Without giving away much story, what
exactly is Human Head doing to ensure that Prey establishes itself as
more than just a shoot-'em-up in terms of the story, character
development, and how those elements will be presented."
Great question. As you mention, I can't say much without giving away
too much of the story -- especially about the emotional moments. But,
in terms of character development, very early in the game we deal with
the theme of Tommy rejecting his heritage as he's talking to his
grandfather and his girlfriend.
In terms of fleshing out the character of Tommy -- in true 3DR
fashion the main character talks throughout the game. However, he's not
just spouting out one-liners (Tommy does, however, have a number of
amusing comments). Tommy's dialog is intended to reflect how a real
person would react if put into this horrible situation.
Also, dude, you need a new handle. :)
Kreg asks these three questions:
"Will Duke Nukem get a special appearance in Prey ?
Will there be puzzles in Prey ?
Will there be space war (dog fight) in Prey ?"
1) Probably not. There are some fun secrets in the game, though.
2) Yes, definitely. The gameplay mechanics of SpiritWalking,
WallWalking, Gravity Flipping and Portals all lend themselves to making
some really mind-bending puzzles. We'll definitely be releasing more
videos showing some of these puzzles in more detail.
3) Oh yes. The main vehicle in the game is a flying shuttlecraft
(it's shown briefly in the E3 video). In that ship, you engage in space
battles against flying enemy creatures as well as enemies piloting
other shuttlecrafts.
Lionel asks:
"I was wondering what kind of (new) tools/features are included with prey for the mod community?"
We will be releasing all of the primary built-in tools for the game.
We've made a number of minor changes to the Doom3 level editor (now
dubbed Preditor). But, overall, if you're familiar with Doom3 level
editing, you'll have no problem making Prey levels. Although, it will
take a bit of a paradigm shift to think about ways to structure your
levels around gravity flipping, wallwalking and portals.
Jouni had this great question:
"I'd love to know how much of the original 3D Realms design
can we actually see in the final game? I mean, are some monsters /
weapons / settings based on the original designs, or was the entire
game "re-imagined" (as Hollywood likes to say it)? And if so; Was it
hard to improve something as solid and innovative as 3DR's original
Prey concept?"
Not much. When Human Head started on Prey, we worked from the core
concept of a Native American reluctant hero who is abducted by aliens,
and must fight his way back home. This was the core element that 3DR
required carry across from the original design (well this, and of
course portal technology).
While working with Scott and George, these elements were the ones
they required. A few times we started to stray from these core
elements, but they ensured that we stayed on track.
Everything else in the game, we were given free reign to design as
we wanted. So, all the creatures, weapons, and other gameplay elements
(such as wallwalking and gravity flipping) were designed here at Human
Head. Of course, 3DR gave feedback and suggested enhancements to all
these gameplay elements as we they were designed and implemented.
Kevin asks:
"How many vehicles will be in the game? Will vehicles be featured in any of the multiplayer maps?"
The primary vehicle in the game is the Shuttle, which is a one-man
hovercraft which has a rapid projectile attack and short-range tractor
beam as a secondary ability. The Shuttle is featured heavily in several
maps, as the player pilots across enormous outdoor spaces in the game,
fighting flying creatures and using the tractor beam to clear away
obstacles.
The Shuttle is also available in multiplayer -- two of the DM maps are based around Shuttle combat.
Daniel asks:
"I was wondering what the difference will be between the PC
and Xbox 360 versions of Prey. The best example I can think of was in
Doom 3, the levels were "shortened" but you wouldn't know it without a
side by side comparison. Quake 4 had something similar, but nothing
really that noticable."
The content between the two are identical. No drastic changes were
needed for the levels to get them to run on the 360. When 360
development was just starting, we did split several of the levels in
half for memory reasons, but that was done to the PC version as well.
That said, we aren't opposed to making changes to the levels if
necessary. Ideally, though, we'd simply do those changes to both
versions to keep them identical (and to reduce the headaches of
maintaining multiple versions of content).
Doom 3 was on the original Xbox, so I can see why those levels were
shortened and altered. If Prey had to fix on the original Xbox, we
would have had to do some pretty radical changes to the levels to get
them to fix and to run at a decent framerate.
Well, that wraps it up for these questions. Again a huge thanks to everyone who wrote in with such great questions.
Next week's update should be damn cool as we talk more about Prey on
the Xbox 360, with an update by the Studio Head of Venom Games, Peter
Johnson.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:00 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #6
Prey is the first product in which Human Head has used motion
capture. In the past, we've always hand-animated our characters for a
few different reasons - we know the time and effort it takes to animate
a given character, we know what the results will look like, and because
we needed the ability to easily tweak the animations. In Rune, the
attack animations required a lot of tuning and tweaking throughout
development. Now, in Prey - we decided during development to try using
motion capture on our human characters, Tommy, Jen, Tommy's
Grandfather, and various human NPCs that Tommy encounters on the Sphere.
Since we had never done motion capture before, honestly, we flew a
bit blind at first. We first developed a comprehensive list of all
animations in the game that would benefit from motion capture, this
included such things as:
- Player animations (carrying each weapon, running, crouching, etc)
- Human NPC animations (idles, walks, runs, attacks, etc)
- Humanoid Creature animations (idles, attacks, runs, pains, etc)
- Experimental animations - ones that we felt might be better to
hand animate, but wanted to try motion capture to see how that would
work (a character floating inside of a tank is an example)
- All cinematic animations of characters walking from a specific point to a point, body language and gestures, etc.
Jeff DeWitt, Lead Animator on Prey, developed this comprehensive list from the creature AI list and from the script.
A small group of us then sat down and went over this list, expanding
it as necessary by discussing what was needed, and even acting out
parts of the script to get a better feel for what we would need.
Finally, with list in hand, Jeff and I headed down to Red Eye Studios, in Chicago for the actual mocap session.
Here's a shot of the
overall mocap studio. We're reviewing a previous animation at this
point, so Geno (the actor who plays all the male character roles) is
standing in the center waiting for direction. You'll notice that his
suit contains a lot of reflective balls, each of these are recorded by
the motion capture system to translate his body position into animation
data.
The motion capture only lasted two days - the first day consisted of
all of the female motion capture, and a few scenes where we needed
multiple actors interacting with each other.
Grace McPhillips performed the role of all the female characters in
the game - she did a great job despite the abuse she took (at one
point, we hoisted her up in the air - for the floating in tank section
I mentioned before) and then motion captured her while she was dropped
to the ground. Yes, there was a mat there to protect her.
The next day, Geno Kett showed up to perform the male character
roles. Like Grace, he did a great job acting out what we wanted and he
took his abuse really well. One of the more interesting parts was
getting the runs for multiplayer - in MP the player actually runs at an
unrealistically high rate (the MP is designed for fun action, not 100%
realism). We marked out the run speed on the floor in chalk and did
take after take until Geno got as close as possible to the speed we
wanted.
Speaking of chalk: We learned a pretty valuable lesson (one that
other people who have done mocap before will say sounds like common
sense): plan out your animations around foot placement and make sure
you chalk the foot placement right away. A few times we would be a few
animations into a sequence and realize that the foot placement had
moved - and then would have to go back and reshoot the previous
animations again to guarantee that the actor’s feet had not moved.
Here Geno is acting out the role of a scared human trapped on
the Sphere cowering for his life. Jeff DeWitt of Human Head stands in the background directing him.
If we use motion capture again, we’ll definitely plan things a bit
more around foot placement, so that we record a series of animations in
a row before the actor has to move their feet.
For cinematic purposes, we brought along the entire dialog to play
for the motion capture actors. In directing these sequences, we
explained the situation, and the general mood of the scene. Then, we
played the audio of the dialog a few times so they were comfortable
with it, then they simply acted along with the dialog. Typically it
took a few takes but eventually we hit upon something that worked.
In the end, the motion capture has been a mixed issue - some
sequences worked out really great when motion captured and definitely
saved some time. Other sequences turned out okay and are currently
undergoing in-house tweaking to get rid of some motion capture
artifacts. A few animations probably shouldn’t have been motion
captured in the first place, so they’ve been thrown out and replaced
with hand animation.
Will we use motion capture in the future? Yes, we will - but, like
most aspects of development, it’s a tool that can be used in certain
places for certain things. Now having a better knowledge of the overall
system and the planning required for it, we certainly will be more
efficient next time.
Next week on the weekly update, we’ll be answering some of the
questions that were emailed over this past week on Prey. And in a
couple of weeks, we’ll have a special update focusing on the Xbox 360
version, written by the studio head of Venom Games. Venom are
responsible for the 360 version of Prey. Should be great stuff!
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
At one point the motion
capture system's hard drive was full. So we had a few minutes while
they cleared out some space. I talked Jeff into Max Payne'ing onto one
of the stunt mats. Six jumps (and a bruised shoulder) later, we snapped
this fine shot.
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:53 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #5
Hello again. Welcome back to the Prey Weekly Development Update.
Last week, we talked about the voice recording in the game. This
week, it's back to the usual status update - with something at the end
of this update talking about the plans for next week. In the immortal
words of Mills Lane: Let's get it on...
First big thing to update on is the huge number of Prey previews
hitting the net. These are all the results of the press tour from a few
weeks ago, both when I was in Los Angeles/San Francisco and when Tim
Gerritsen was touring through Europe. Joe from 3DR has set up a great page linking all the previews (as well as other Prey news).
Check them out - the response has been very positive, and each
preview has different skews on the game. Some talk more on the
single-player experience, while others focus on multiplayer or 360.
And, if you haven’t seen the newly released single player and
multiplayer videos -- well, dammit, go check them out. Here’s a link. They're also in the videos section of the Official Prey Site.
Speaking of Europe: Prey’s lead programmer, Paul MacArthur, spent
some time last week in England visiting Venom. Venom, you may recall,
is working on the Xbox 360 version of Prey. Paul was out there to meet
with them face-to-face to discuss a host of issues, ranging from recent
bugs to optimizations.
Meanwhile, back in Madison, Wisconsin. We’ve been receiving a
large amount of feedback from 3DR on the game - listing bugs, tweaks,
and game balance issues. In addition, 2K Games' QA department has been
steadily adding bugs to the database.
Overall, it’s been business as usual around here. Everyone is
cranking on the game, fixing bugs, optimizing code and levels, and
tweaking things based upon 3DR’s feedback.
A number of new portal puzzles have been added to Prey, especially
at the beginning. We felt that the portal usage could get even more
intense earlier in the game, so we’ve been adding in even more
puzzles and mind-warping portal coolness. I’d go more into the
puzzles themselves, but I honestly don’t want to spoil these.
We’ve also been focusing on the combat in the game. The combat is
definitely fun as it currently is, but we’re working with 3DR to
tweak it to be super-fun. We aren’t doing anything radical to the
monsters - the main things that we’re doing to beef them up is based
around feedback and around sustained intensity.
AI Feedback relates to the information the player receives during combat: - Pain noises from the creatures
- AI chatter: The creatures yelling taunts at the player and issuing commands to each other
- Louder and more dramatic damage noises (sticky thuds when
striking something with the wrench, or a great sizzle when hitting
something with the Acid Sprayer)
- More visible and satisfying effects such as blood spurts and weapon damage effects
- More visible pain animations on the creatures
Sustained intensity in a fight relates to keeping the battle going
for a longer period of time. Now there are a few ways this can be done,
but for simplicity think of it like this: CreatureLifeTime *
CreatureCount. You could fight one creature that lives a long time
during the battle, or four creatures that live only 25% of the time of
that one creature.
Which battle do you think would be more fun? Both can be fun, but in
my opinion, the second one - you get the reward of killing four
creatures instead of the one. Of course, the issue is way more complex
as this doesn’t address the number you are fighting at once (is it
all four at once or do they chain in one at a time? Or do they chain in
two-by-two?), nor does it address how you fight those creatures. A
single boss with multiple attacks and stages is a vastly different
battle from a hoard of melee grunt creatures even though both may take
the same amount of time.
Bottom line of sustained intensity, though: We’re adding in more creatures for you to kill.
Getting a fresh perspective from 3DR has been extremely helpful.
They’ve pointed out some areas of improvement, such as the portals
and combat mentioned above. I would imagine that Max Payne 1 & 2
went through very similar phases near the end of their development, too.
So, we’re still in the cycle of bug fix, optimize, and tweak. Speaking of which, I need to get back to this.
That about wraps up this week’s edition of the update. Next week,
I have something planned similar to the voice recording update from
last week.
And, what I’d like to do in the future is answer questions that
people might have about the game. How about we do this: If you have a
question, email it to 3D Realms here: [email protected]
(don't forget to remove the nospam and fix the email address before
sending). We will read through them and pick the top few questions and
will answer them in an upcoming update. Let’s pick a deadline, too.
Say, one week from today. Have your questions emailed in by February
17th and we’ll go through and answer a number of them.
Until then, stay warm. It snowed last night here in Madison (not too
terribly - been a mild winter this year). Still, it’s cold enough
outside. I suppose that’s a good thing, though. It keeps us inside,
working on Prey. :)
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Studios
Nick Taylor, one of the animators on Prey, works on Tommy's pose while holding the Hunter Rifle.
Here Shane Gurno, Human Head co-founder and modeler, taking a break from working on a model in Prey.
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:07 PM
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Pretty Please, More Prey Previews!
Another day, another batch of Prey previews. Today we're bringing
you some more previews, bringing the total batch we've posted in the
last 3 days to 15, and that doesn't even include the series from last
week by 1up. Anyway, today's batch includes Voodoo Extreme, Games
Radar, Totally 360, Next Generation, and a series followup by 1up. I'm
sure you don't want to hear me jabber on with more bad puns or phrases
with the letter "P" in them, so we'll just get to the picked pack of
plentiful Prey previews.... ;)
1) Games Radar Preview
Prey is stuffed with crazy ideas, from the living world you're in to the supernatural powers of your characters.
Our time romping through the game's astonishing sci-fi environments reveals a shooter of considerable promise.
The levels themselves are striking in their organic, pulsing nature
- the ship is not only alive but sentient, paying you more attention as
you progress.
The modified Doom III engine, the best thing around at Prey's 2001
inception but since surpassed, does not hold Prey back. It looks
astonishing.
2) Totally 360 Preview
The first thing that struck us was when you get your hands
on Prey's single player and multiprey is that they are both pretty
amazing! You must experience Prey in full to really appreciate and get
a real understanding of the sophisticated game play mechanics that are
put to use.
Prey's Multiprey introduces you to dynamic and well thought-out
multiplayer experience encapsulating multiplayer fun as gamers around
the world will really experience what it's like to hang from ceilings
stalking your opponents as they run around anxiously on the ground
below you.
During the presentation we played a number of gravity defying levels
and we noticed in Prey's Multiprey it will be near-enough impossible to
camp, great news for gamers anxious to really engage in Multiplayer
battles online.
To give you an idea of what you’ll be facing in Prey in the months
to come let us make the following example: What do you get if you blend
a highly modified Doom 3 Engine, with the remarkable Unreal Engine 2?
Something pretty close to Prey… The wait is going to be well worth
it, of course when it’s done…
3) Voodoo Extreme Preview
You can never completely die. Even if you opt to be a total
lazy bastard during the Death Walk, you'll pop back into the real world
with enough health to get by. Enemies will typically move away from
your body or turn their back on you after killing you to give you a
little breathing room when you return.
The Leech gun is the BFG9000 of Prey. You get it, use it, things die in fun and exciting ways.
The developers were very adamant about their removal of reloading.
Partly because it's one less key to bind, and partly because it
streamlines the game a little more.
The developers wanted to focus on the single player aspect of the
game, so instead of stretching themselves thin on too many crappy
gameplay types for multi player, they stuck to the basics. You like
deathmatch? Good. Team deathmatch? Better. Capture the Flag, Assault,
etc? Too bad.
Prey looks like it could be a big hit when it's released sometime mid year for both PC and Xbox 360.
4) Next Generation Q&A with Chris Rhinehart
Q: Do you think the pretty screenshots may lead some gamers to think this game is all looks?
A: Actually, when we first put up screenshots, we had a lot of
people commenting that it looked like Doom 3. I don't know why that has
a bad connotation, because I thought Doom 3 was a fantastic-looking
game. When we brought out the E3 video, we wanted to show all the sorts
of gameplay that showed what makes us different, that we have all this
unique stuff and are really pushing things. Of course, there is some
concern, because it is a really crowded market. But, the main thing
that we knew we had was 3D Realms' muscle.
Q: What about the Revolution? Would Human Head be interested in developing for that system?
A: I'm not going to rule that out. It is pretty interesting. I'm
really, really curious to see what they do when they unveil it and
actually start showing off a lot more games and let people get hands-on
with it. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out, especially with
the weird little first-person-shooter controller gizmo that they have.
Q: What's up with the Cherokee in space storyline?
A: The story is one of those things that really evolved throughout
the game's design. From the original version of Prey to the Human Head
version, really the only main thing that came across in terms of story
are the fact that the main character is Native American who is abducted
by aliens and wants to rescue his girlfriend.
5) 1up's Prey Post Portem
This one isn't really a Prey Preview, it's a followup to the series
1up ran last week. Garnet Lee from 1up.com sent me this link and said,
"It's our Production Artist's blog and she goes through the evolution
of the Prey cover and all the prototypes we worked up.". Check this one
out too, if you didn't see it, you definitely want to check out Prey's Week of Prey Coverage.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:30 AM
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Plenty More Prey Previews
Yes, the floodgates have most definitely opened. In addition to the
7 Prey previews we posted last night, this morning brings three more of
them. You'll want to check them out, too. This time the previews are
from Boomtown, Total Videogames, and Yahoo! Gaming.
Check 'em out:
1) Boomtown
The weapons on offer are biological in nature rather than
simply being mechanical. For example little starfish like crawlers are
explosive, pull off their legs and throw them like grenades. Or leave a
few legs on them and they become sticky bombs.
Prey starts well, we watch through Tommy’s eyes as he, his
girlfriend and grandfather are transported through the alien spaceship
on a monorail conveyer. It’s reminiscent of the train ride at the
beginning of Half-Life, albeit this time we’ve much more gore.
Now onto the multiplayer and I can report that it’s really good fun.
So far Prey is looking like it's going to be a solid first-person shooter with a few novel twists.
2) Total Videogames
Prey is shaping up to offer a first-person-shooter experience quite unlike any other.
Additionally Tommy can also make use of Spirit mode, which promises
to be the game's biggest innovation along with Wall-Walking when it
comes to puzzles and level designs.
Prey continues to distance itself from other first-person-shooters
when it comes to health pick-up's; instead of the traditional first-aid
kit or the increasingly popular wait and heal system, Prey features
certain spots on the ground which replenish health when Tommy is near.
The crucial difference comes from the fact that the enemy can make use
of these as well, and as such there's a new dynamic on the action
whereby you'll want to make sure the enemy don't steal health away from
you and make the encounter much more difficult.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is just how much they've thought about
level designs, a skill seemingly forgot in some modern
first-person-shooters.
3) Yahoo! Videogames
Prey takes the traditional multiplayer deathmatch and turns it on its ear.
By putting the walls and ceilings into play, the developers can take
a standard-sized deathmatch map and make it feel a lot larger.
Perhaps the craziest [multiplayer] level we played featured the
spherical gravity at work. This level takes place on a huge spheroid
divided up by rooms and hallways. If you could run in a straight line,
you would eventually return to where you began, so it's essentially a
small planetoid.
Prey should also sound pretty good (at least, to older gamers)
thanks to a soundtrack filled with Blue Oyster Cult, Judas Priest, and
Heart.
The production values are first-rate and the multiplayer is fast and
furious. This is definitely the game to keep an eye on if you're a
shooter fan.
More previews as they come in...
Posted by Joe Siegler at 7:47 AM
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Plenty of Prey Previews Popping up
Well, it appears that some floodgates have opened in regards to Prey
previews today coming from the press tour a couple of weeks ago. Last
week we had the excellent 5 day series from 1up.com, and now we have
half a dozen more Prey Previews available online.
We've got previews from Shacknews, two previews from IGN, as
well as the sites Kotaku, Computer & Video Games, EuroGamer, &
and Hexus. Make sure to check 'em all out. Let's get right to them,
with some quotes from each.
1) Shacknews' Preview:
To some extent, Prey's protagonist was born out of a desire
to create a strong contrast to Duke Nukem, the archetypal gung-ho
buck-stops-here video game character. Tommy Tawodi is indeed an
archetypal antihero. This really wouldn't be Prey without crazy interspatial portals,
the technology featured prominently in the original E3 videos. It's
possible not only to see yourself in the interconnected portals (from
varying angles) but to follow yourself, and even shoot yourself through
the portals as well.
In a particularly inspired turn, the team actually hired Coast to
Coast radio host and nationally known UFO theorist Art Bell. At various
points throughout the game, Bell and his notoriously fanatical call in
guests can be heard discussing the invasion.
The Escher-esque architectural design, the arbitrary gravity, and
the spirit walking mechanics are very unique and seem well implemented.
If the whole game delivers the constantly changing experience that's
been promised, Prey should be one hell of a ride.
2) IGN's PC Preview:
Far from wanting to be humanity's greatest hero, Tommy just
wants to find his lady and hightail it back to the planet one way or
another. So begins the violent tale of young Tommy, an angry young man
with a mission and a wrench.
We've seen this game before, but only in video form. What was shown
at E3 last year was very impressive, especially since we weren't
expecting anything so grand. Seeing it again only confirmed the fact
that this game should be something special.
The Sphere is a disgusting place. It's alive and the game is played
out inside of it. Therefore, you can probably imagine all of the slimy
wet runny textures spread across the levels. Doors are like nasty
sphincters (in fact, Chris called them sphincdoors), pimple like mounds
on the ground vomit up juices and waste, health looks like misty spores
out of smaller pimples, and some of the Sphere's creatures serve as
anti-bodies towards potentially harmful invaders like Tommy.
Multiplayer is just plain wacky. Levels are specifically designed to
take advantage of Prey's uniqueness. It's a bit disorienting at first.
The act of simply getting from place to place can be an adventure on
its own before getting a handle on which direction is up.
Prey is looking very good at this point. If the whole game is as jam
packed full of odd little goodies as the demo was, first-person shooter
fans are in for a treat.
3) IGN's Xbox 360 Preview:
As some of you might already know, the story of Prey
centers around Tommy, a Cherokee garage mechanic who loves his
girlfriend Jen. Unfortunately for both of them, something about their
town really pisses off some aliens, so Tommy and Jen get beamed to
their bizarre craft.
Human Head showed off little bits and pieces of the single-player
campaign on a PC, and it's obvious that they're making use of their
"living ship" concept. Enemies often sprout right out of the floor,
you'll find some doors ("sphincdoors") bear an uncomfortable
resemblance to a certain portion of the body, and many of the floors
and walls will actually bleed when shot.
What's really cool is that the portals are not visible from behind.
So if you walk around to the other side of the temporal door, it will
seem as though nothing is there. You can even walk through the back of
it to no effect, yet when you turn around it's still there.
We played several DM matches across three maps. Human Head is
expecting to have between eight to 10 maps in the game, and those we
got to try out seemed like an excellent variety of the game's unique
environmental elements.
To prepare for its release, you might want to start getting used to
the idea of checking the ceiling every time you enter a room.
4) Kotaku's Preview:
We told you last week that 22 first-person shooters would
be released this year. By any measure, that’s a lot of games for one
genre. Any developer brave enough to compete in this field better have
a novel premise. Judging by one hour of play time, I think Prey has
enough going for it to stand out in the crowded field.
As the game progresses, the hero, Tommy, gets more in touch with
his ancestory and spirituality. By doing so, he gets help from the
spirit of his grandfather who gives him crucial clues.
It’s been a long time since playing a shooter made me nauseous,
but having your perspective constantly flip 90, 180, or 360 degrees
really messes up your sense of balance (those of you who bought a
big-screen HDTV along with the Xbox 360 better keep barf bags handy).
I also have to give props to the game designers for avoiding FPS
cliches. When you die, you don’t just restart as if nothing happened.
You enter a spirit world where you have to fight to get your spirit
back into your body. It’s a neat concept. And I didn’t see any
crates or exploding barrels, at least not in the demo.
5) Computer & Videogames' Preview:
A cursory glance in the direction of Prey would probably
have you, understandably, dismissing the game as just another
first-person shooter - after all, it's not like there's a drought of
them on PC at the moment. However, five minutes with the game will
change all that.
After your abrupt removal from the Earth, you're introduced to
Prey's Dyson Sphere, which proves to be more of a dynamic, organic
entity than your conventional spaceship - a frankly ingenious concept
which offers up all manner of possibilities for the development team,
in terms of unique gameplay features and puzzles.
As any FPS veteran knows however, a shooter's only as good as its guns and, thankfully, this is where Prey really excels.
Some of the coolest things we sampled: a flyable space shuttle
section complete with lasers and tractor beam, low-gravity asteroid
gunfights, an insanely interactive public toilet (complete with
intergalactic condom dispenser), playable arcade machines and a jukebox
featuring fully-licensed music. All of which are merely impressive
embellishments on an already extremely solid and well-rounded shooter.
Combine Prey's excellent multiplayer features with its impressive
looking single-player game and you've got yourself the ingredients for
one of the biggest games of the year.
6) Eurogamer's Preview:
We're initally intrigued by the title screen, which reveals there are two difficulty settings: "Normal" and "Wicked".
Like all the cut-scenes in the game, the opening FMV is presented
from Tommy's perspective - so you see through his eyes as he watches
his loved ones being hauled around.
But much more interesting are the weapons which, like the ship,
combine plain old technology with all sorts of organic weirdness. Take
the Leech Gun, for example, which has four different fire modes. By
attaching it to the various "leech nodes" you'll find dotted around,
you can suck power out of the ship and charge it up.
These elements (portals) really come into play in multiplayer mode,
as we found out when we got to go head-to-head in a deathmatch (the
only other MP mode is team deathmatch; there's no point trying to
capture silly old flags when the laws of gravity can change at any
moment).
Who would have thought that a game about a garage mechanic trapped
on a spaceship with only a dead Grandad and a talking hawk for company
could turn out to be so intriguing?
7) Hexus Gaming's Preview:
Walking us through the as yet unfinished opening level, the
first thing that strikes you about Prey is not the graphics (after all,
these will be dependant on your machine to some extent) but the huge
amount of interactivity built into the game. Simply put, everything can
be fiddled with.
The thought put into the level design and mechanics of the game
becomes apparent with the spirit walking when you see some of the later
levels. Not only are there barriers such as force fields that can be
crossed, but there are also bridges and gangways that just aren’t
there in the real world.
This whole ‘alternate reality’ thing that Human Head have
developed lends a superbly original puzzle element to Prey which, from
what we’ve seen, lifts it way above a bog standard FPS.
Prey is shaping up to be something rather cool and refreshingly
different. The storyline, though a little clichéd to start with soon
pans out into something far more involving than the ‘loner saves the
world’ stuff we’re used to and from what we’ve seen, Prey is
going to have been well worth the wait.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:10 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #4
Welcome back, everyone. This week is going to be another divergence
from the usual updates. Instead of talking about specifics this week at
Human Head, I'm going to talk about something that happened a few
months ago - namely, the voice recording sessions.
After spending a few months listening to audition tapes for the
various characters in the game, we nailed down the final list of actors
in Prey.
Of course, many of the characters interact with each other in-game,
so we wanted to record them at the same time. Luckily, their schedules
coincided so we were able to fly all the actors out to the recording
studio during the same week.
That studio we chose was one that 2K Games had used in the past -
Rick Fox Studios in Cincinnati. So, last year Ed Lima (Human Head's
Sound Director) and I flew out to Cincinnati to meet with the actors
and go through the process of the initial sound recording session.
There are several pictures in this article, and you can click on any of
them for a larger image.
Rick Fox Sound Studios
Recording went very smoothly - all the actors were total
professionals and usually nailed their lines after only a few takes. In
fact, we were ahead of schedule the entire trip.
The process went like this: The actors were given the script to read
through the day before. Then, at the actual session, they were given
shooting scripts (which is variation of the full script, which contains
each line, numbered and broken down by scene). Before recording each
scene, Ed and I explained the situation and the character's motivation
as well as the general reaction we'd like out of them (anger, fear,
sorrow, etc). We'd then have the actors run through their lines three
times. If we were happy with them, we would move on. Otherwise, we'd
explain the changes we want and the process starts over again until we
were happy.
Of course, the real test for the voice acting is actually getting it
in game - if the recordings don't work out, then that calls for a
pick-up session where we fly the actors out again (typically for a day
or two) to re-record the lines and any new lines we may need.
The first evening there we met with Michael Greyeyes,
who plays our hero Tommy. Over dinner we discussed the game with him
(since due to secrecy, we only gave the actors small amounts of
character information during their auditions) and explained how the
week would play out. Since he's the main character, we'll need him to
be there the whole week to interact with all the other characters.
The next actor to arrive was Crystle Lightning
- who plays Jen in the game. We wanted her and Tommy in right away so
we had plenty of time to record their lines both apart and together.
When she first showed up, we had her record some of her lines in which
no other actors were needed - general comments, pain sounds, screams,
etc.
In hindsight, we should have recorded her screams last, as we became
worried she might blow out her voice right away. But, she has a damn
good voice and was careful not to overdo it with the screams.
Next, John William Galt
showed up to record the voice of Grandfather. You may remember John as
the voice of Lo Wang in Shadow Warrior, plus he was the original voice
of Grandfather in the E3 Prey video from 1998. We searched around for
other voices for Grandfather, but honestly, none were as expressive and
unique as John's rendition of Grandfather.
John
William Galt posing with me (with Rick the sound engineer in the
background). My shirt, of course, refers to convertible cars.
Wav File: [ Grandfather admonishing the player. ]
Over the next couple of days, things went pretty fast, as we quickly
recorded the other characters in the game (which tie in heavily into
the narrative, so I'm not going to reveal them just yet). But those
characters were played by Tyne Turner, Eleni Valasis, and Lee Ernst
(who you may remember as the voice of both Odin and Loki in Rune). They
all did an amazing job as they nailed their lines.
Ed instructing Michael on the next scene
At the end of the week, the recording session was over. We had all
the lines we needed to do a first-pass implementation in the game (up
until that point we had speech synthesized robot voices and various
voices of people around the office in the game!). But, before going
home had to explore the fine city of Cincinnati. We wandered into a
nearby bar and relaxed with a few drinks and played some pool.
Crystle Lightning posing while we played pool
Until next time - stay out of trouble.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Software
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:56 AM
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Final day of 1up's Prey Coverage
Today is Friday, and 1up has posted the fifth and final entry in their Week of Prey Coverage. This one is entitled "Come Out and Play",
and focuses on the multiplayer aspects of the game. Yesterday's article
was about the single player side of things, so it makes sense that
today's article would be about multiplayer. Let's get to a bit of what
they had to say:
it feels like the designers have hit on a good balance of
manic disorientation and playability. You can imagine that their first
inclination might have been to see just how insane a level you could
create. From playing in these three levels it seems pretty clear that
going that route would have just created an infuriating mess. But to
help soothe any concerns that they held back, the last word that will
come to your mind in describing them is restrained.
With live opponents, Prey quickly becomes one of the most seriously
intense games of cat-and-mouse around. In a way, multiplayer may live
up to the title of "Prey" better than single-player.
That could be the most fitting vindication for the return of Prey a
decade after its inception -- rediscovering the simple pleasure of a
good online frag fest.
In addition, there's a little side article in this about the Xbox
360 version of Prey and how it will be released at the same time as the
PC version. Venom Games in the UK are handling the 360 port, and a
little of the work that is going into the 360 version is covered here
as well. As has been the case with the other days in the series, there
has been a video with the article. This one (shockingly :)) is about
multiplayer, and shows some multiplayer Prey being played. You'll
definitely want to check that out.
This is the final day of this series, and as such, there is a little extra article called "Parting Shots",
which talks about (in their words) "two dudes reminiscing about what
once was, and what could be". It's Dan Harnett and James Mielke talking
about Prey's past and future, as well as a bit about Duke Nukem Forever.
This was an absolutely wonderful series covering all aspects of Prey
from top to bottom, and if you haven't been keeping up with all of it,
you should go back and start reading all of it from the top. You can
reach the main page of this article at 1up's site here: http://prey.1up.com. Thanks to 1up for giving the fans such a good week.
We expect to see more Prey goodness appearing online soon from other gaming news sites, too. ;)
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:38 AM
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Day 4 of 1up's Prey Coverage
Today is Thursday, time to bring you the next installment in 1up's Week of Prey coverage. Today's article is entitled "Better Man",
and it focuses on the single player aspect of Prey. There's plenty of
detail as to how the story is intertwined with the action, how various
parts of the game are introduced to you, and just tons of detail. Let's
get to the quotes:
From what was on display here, there is every reason to hope that its one-two punch of design and story will deliver a knockout.
[Tim] Gerritsen says it was important not to, "throw it in your face
all the time that he's Cherokee. That would cheapen the experience;
that would cheapen the character." It also allows Tommy to be more of a
real person than simply an icon in a game.
Before you get too concerned that this devolves into a standard,
sappy love story or some sort of preachy, philosophical thing, don't
be. "This is still a first-person shooter," Gerritsen makes sure to
emphasize, "All of that is completely secondary to the fact that this
is an action first-person shooter."
One of the most interesting weapons is a leech gun that draws power
from nodes around the ship. Depending on the node, you get different
projectiles/effects. For instance, a bright white node turned out to be
a freeze power-up whereas a bright red one provided a rapid-fire
machine gun.
In addition to the really meaty single player stuff, there's also a
secondary video interview with Chris Rhinehart in which he talks about
single player gameplay. You'll definitely want to check all of this out
over at http://prey.1up.com.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:58 PM
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Day 3 of 1up's Prey Coverage
It's Wednesday, the third day of the week, which means that it's time for Day 3 of 1up's week of Prey coverage.
Today's article is entitled "Use Your Illusion".
The focus of this article is on various aspects of the game's
technology. Based on the Doom 3 engine, Prey makes several improvements
over Doom 3's tech, some of which are detailed in the article. There's
a lot said about the famed "Portal Technology" in Prey, even going back
to giving some props to the late original Prey programmer, William
Scarboro; showing how the concept is now vs its original incarnation.
Here's some tidbits from the full article for you to check out:
"Our target minimum spec machine at the moment is a 2GHz
P4, 384MB RAM, and a DirectX 9 graphics card, and the game will scale
to trade off quality for [playability on] lower-end systems quite well.
For the extremely high resolution and quality settings, however, you'll
need the usual monster." (To said monster-owning crowd, yes, Prey will
proudly support dual-core setups and more.)
"It's [Prey's Tech] allowed us to use compressed normal maps even
at high settings that look as good as the uncompressed normal maps,"
says McArthur. "Because of this, our medium-quality settings will look
like Doom 3's high-quality textures, and our high-quality normal maps
can have twice the resolution. It's been a huge gain for us."
Couple gravity with juggling orientations and you get another of
Prey's curious gameplay variants: wall walking. "Wall walking is the
ability to walk on marked surfaces within the game regardless of their
orientation," explains McArthur. "We use curved surfaces to great
extent, allowing you to travel in directions that would normally
require an elevator or ladder, as well as spaces you'd simply be moving
through in another game.
You'll want to check this out not only for the article on the game's
tech, but for the fact that there are some new screenshots as well. You
can check those out over here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:39 PM
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Day 2 of 1up's Prey Coverage
Today is Day 2 of 1up.com's Week of Prey Coverage and they've published their latest piece. Today's piece is entitled "Say it Ain't So". This is an interview with 3D Realms' George Broussard talking about Prey.
The interview is wide ranging running from the early days of the
project in 1995, through the change in development teams, up until now,
how the tech has evolved, and lots of Prey specific questions. The
interview also talks about a few things that aren't Prey specific such
as what happened to the shareware game concept of distribution. Of
course, since it's an interview with George, there's a few tidbits in
there about Duke Nukem Forever, as well. Here's a few samples from the
interview:
1UP: So I can start off: Just kind of take us back to 95
and just kind of tell us what was it like at Apogee/3D Realms back
then. What was going on?
GB: Well, in 95 we were still working on Duke Nukem 3D, and so it
was pretty hectic, just trying to get that game finished and basically
trying to move from being a shareware developer doing smaller games to
doing more large-scale games to try to get into the retail space. And
then obviously, Duke went out and did really, really well in 96, and we
were all really happy with the results from that. We started looking at
wanting to expand a little bit and start another team, and that's kind
of how we started building the Prey team.
1UP: So when you see what Human Head's doing with it now, does it
really capture what you guys envisioned back then [in 1995]? What it's
like comparing today's portals to 10 years ago's portals?
GB: It's pretty close; it's fundamentally the same stuff. We're all
surprised that no one else really took that direction, because they're
not really technically that hard to do. I know they got a lot of press
from being like a whiz-bang cool thing back then, but technically, they
just weren't too difficult to do, and there are some neat gameplay
things you can do with it. But really, Human Head is pretty much just
carrying on the torch and doing almost exactly what we were doing back
then, and then expanding it into other areas with wall-walking and
spirit walk and those kind of new things.
1UP: What kind of - so tell me about, like, what kind of feelings
were you guys having when it actually started to come together, you're
like: "Wow, we're going to bring Prey back"?
GB: It was a pretty fun time. We also were really close with the id
guys through our past relationships, and that let us get the Doom 3
engine really, really early. I think we got it just a couple or three
weeks after Raven did.
This interview also has an audio file of George, so you can listen
to the interview and hear George speak it in addition to reading it on
the page. All of this goodness is available on the 1up site here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:54 PM
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The Future is Now: 5 Days of Prey Coverage
Prey coverage is starting to kick into high gear now, and with it comes this excellent series from Gaming news site 1Up.
They will be having a Prey update daily this week, starting on January
30th and running through February 3rd. Each day will feature a
different topic; the list of topics they're covering are: - Monday: Backtracking through a decade of development.
- Tuesday: Straight from our George Broussard interview.
- Wednesday: Portal tech in the Doom 3 engine.
- Thursday: In-depth with the story of a reluctant hero.
- Friday: Exclusive hands-on with multiplayer Prey.
Today, the series kicks off with Part I, entitled Fell on Black Days: Backtracking through a decade of development.
This first part deals with the history of the project, going all the
way back to its earliest incarnation in 1995. It talks a lot about the
start of the project, both with Tom Hall & Paul Schuytema's time as
project leads, and the brief attempt at the project when Corinne Yu was
here, leading up the the shelving of the project for a long time before
Human Head came into the picture.
Additionally, each day they're including some sort of media to go
with the day's article. The media with today's article is the Prey
trailer from back in 1997. You're definitely going to want to keep an
eye out on this series all week, you can do so at http://prey.1up.com.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:27 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #3
Hi and welcome to the third entry in the Prey Weekly Update series.
This entry will be a little different than the ones that preceeded it.
This will detail some of my experiences on the press trip for Prey this
past week via a couple of journal entries I made during the week - it
got pretty hectic there, so there isn't a report every day, but I think
most everything got covered. Enjoy!
Jan 23rd, 11 PM
Well, I arrived in Los Angeles this morning to a very welcome
climate change. It's damn cold in Wisconsin (although, it has been an
unseasonably warm winter. Still, it was like 20 degrees when I left). A
lot of driving today. LA is too damn huge. I'd assume lots more driving
tomorrow, too.
Today was a fairly busy day of demoing. The first few demos are
always the most chaotic as it takes a couple of demos to get into the
groove. I usually elicit enough feedback from the first few demos to
shape the demos for the rest of the trip.
Today was also the first time that someone not working on the game
(or testing for us) has played the multiplayer. Very cool to see
people’s reactions to the gameplay in MultiPrey. They picked up the
mechanics of the game very quickly - I had expected them to take longer
to understand wallwalk and gravity flipping, but they were running
around the levels like champs within just a few minutes.
Jan 24th, 11:30 PM
Another long day today. Didn’t have as many demos today (although
I looked at the schedule and the next two days are going to be
action-packed when I get to San Francisco).
Two demos this morning, which went very smoothly. The game pretty
much shows it self off now. The levels are so packed full of stuff that
it’s really easy to simply walk through the game and point out all
the features that set Prey apart.
I was a guest on Attack of the Show today. While I haven’t yet
seen the footage of the episode, it felt like it went well. We showed
some live footage of the game being played as well as some footage of
multiplayer in action. If I had to complain, I would only say that the
segment went really fast - I wish I had more time to talk about the
game!
Overall, a good experience. Big thanks to everyone involved in the show. I look forward to seeing the footage of the episode.
Flew into San Francisco today. This part of the tour is slightly
different in that the journalists will be visiting us in our hotel
suite. So, tomorrow morning we need to set up the machines and get
everything ready.
Jan 27th, 7 AM
Set-up yesterday morning took a bit longer than we expected as we
ran into some issues with a couple of the machines. Unfortunate, but
that meant that we had fewer systems for the multiplayer demo than
previously expected.
The demo consisted of three parts: We showed a portion of the
single-player game, showed a short bit of the 360 version in action,
and then a hand-on demo of Prey multiplayer deathmatch.
Nearly all the features in singleplayer (wallwalking, gravity
flipping, spiritwalking, the vehicle, etc) show up in multiplayer. When
designing the maps, we ran into issues where the levels became really
dense and chaotic due to all of these gameplay elements. Eventually, we
decided to selectively emphasis elements in each map. So, for instance,
we have maps that focus on wallwalking and other maps that focus on
flying around in vehicles.
We showed the journalists three of the multiplayer maps, each based
around different Prey gameplay: wallwalking, gravity flipping, and
spherical gravity (where the combat takes place on giant spheres). Lots
of swearing and smack-talk around the table. Again, very interesting to
see how quickly they picked up on the design of the maps and the
mechanics of the gameplay.
Overall it was a great time, and we managed to pack in a lot of demos in a short period of time.
Now, I’m looking forward to going home and getting back to work!
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Software
Level Designer Dave Halsted hard at work with the Preditor.
Sound Lead Ed Lima working on the copious amounts of audio for the game.
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:58 AM
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Prey to be on G4's Attack of the Show
As was mentioned in last Friday's Prey Weekly Update,
Chris Rhinehart will be on G4's "Attack of the Show" with Prey. Well,
as promised, we have some scheduling information for that. According to
the G4 website, the episode will air tomorrow, January 24th at 7PMET/PT
here in the US. Here's some info from G4's website on this specific episode (which also gives some repeat episode times as well).
Filmmaker Cory Welles, director of The Story of the
Original Cannonball Run, drives in, and Chris Rhinehart from Human Head
Studios swings by to demo the game Prey on the PC. Plus, Chris Gore's
got DVDuesday, Wil O'Neal's bringd the Homeboy Network, and don't
forget It Came from eBay!
Make sure and tune in to catch Chris on the show. We do not have
specific information as to what time he will be on, but make sure and
check it out to see some new Prey goodness.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:10 PM
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Prey Weekly Development Update #2
Welcome to the second edition of the Prey Weekly Development Update.
Last week, we talked about the history of the game. This week we're
talking about some cool stuff going on with the game and here at Human
Head. Lots to discuss, so let's get to it:
Head Trips: Prey Press Tour
Next week, a whirlwind press tour is planned for Prey. It's divided
into two phases: American press and European Press. I'm headed to Los
Angeles and San Francisco next week for the American press, and Tim
Gerritsen is flying to Europe for the (surprise) European side of
things. Both print and online press will be there - too many to list
here (plus I wouldn't want to miss anyone and have them punch me in the
neck when they see me in person).
The press will have the chance to see about 30 minutes of single-player
action. For this demo, we're focusing on the earlier portions of the
game - letting them see how the game ramps up in combat, puzzles, and
the player's abilities.
After the single-player portion, we're going to play some MultiPrey
deathmatch to give them a feel for that side of the game. We've picked
out three maps for them to play - one that focuses on wallwalking, one
that focuses on gravity flipping, and one that is all about spherical
gravity (fighting on small planetoids). I'm looking forward to their
reactions as those elements can be confusing at first, but most of our
in-house testers have picked them up quickly.
The multiplayer has really come together - the weapons feel very
balanced and nearly all the gameplay from the single player is
available in multiplayer: spiritwalking, gravity flip, vehicles, and so
forth. The only major gameplay element not in multiplayer is DeathWalk
- and that was removed because it was more fun to simply respawn
quickly so you can exact revenge upon the chump who killed you.
Also, I'm going to be a guest on Attack of the Show (airing on G4) next
week. We'll be discussing Prey and will also probably show off some
brief clips of the single player in action. Watch for it!
Deep Inside the Human Head:
This has been an especially busy week here at Human Head. Here's a brief peek into each department's recent tasks:
Programming: The programmers have been cranking on bug fixing,
optimization, and working with things such as the installer and
localization files (which are essentially a large file containing all
the text in the game which is then translated into other languages).
Also, AMD was here helping out with game optimization for a few days this week. Big thanks to them for their help.
Here is this week's NASTY BUG OF THE WEEK*: Occasionally
while playtesting multiplayer, the whole game would grind down to a
halt for a few seconds before going back to normal. Crack programmer
Rich Whitehouse tracked this down to an issue where one of our weapons
(the three-legged crawler grenade) was causing some serious issues when
it was thrown onto a switch that controls the direction of gravity.
* note that nasty bug of the week is not actually a weekly feature.
Level Designers and Level Scripters: The level designers and the
scripters have also been very busy fixing bugs and tweaking parts of
the levels. The tweaks range from simple lighting/texture tweaks to
larger script tasks such as an ammo respawn system for boss battles.
The level designers were also charged with the task of taking
single-player screenshots for the press tour next week. Screenshots are
a difficult beast, because it's very tough to convey how cool the
environment and creatures feel in motion just from a single static
shot. As such, the designers spend hours in the game taking tons of
shots - of which maybe 2 or 3 are up to the quality we want. Even
though it seems like it should be simple, it's actually a very
difficult job (and probably the bane of their existence).
Sound: The sound department has been working on last minute
sound integrations and tweaks. Sound in games is similar to sound in
movies; many sounds simply can't be done until really late in the
project. Now that things such as animations and scripted sequences are
getting finalized, the sound designers can go through and tweak
everything without fear of having to redo work if the puzzle changes.
We've also received music from Jeremy Soule and we're integrating it
into the game. We may show some progress of this sometime soon as it's
very interesting to see how music changes the feel of the game and
really brings out the mood in certain sequences.
Artists: The artists are still transitioning from art creation
to playtesting. There's still a good chunk of art being finalized and
tweaked. Despite that, many of the artists are spending their time
playing through the game, looking for bugs, and giving feedback on the
game balance.
Animation: The animators are reviewing all of the motion capture
data we received from Red Eye, and are implementing it into the game
and critiquing it and sending back the files we want updated.
So, to summarize: Tweak, polish, bug fix, repeat until When it's Done.
Well, that's it for now. Next week I'll be updating from the road (as
I'll still be in San Francisco). I'll definitely be talking about my
experiences on the press tour, maybe talking a bit more about the music
in Prey, and a few other interesting things we haven't mentioned here
yet.
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Software
Here is scripter Mike Flynn showing level designer Jason O'Connell a bug with one of the maps.
Click the screenshot to watch Prey in action on the videos page!
Additionally, if you are a gaming news website, and wish to be updated directly with notification of these updates, please email us with a link to your website and a request to be added, and we'll email you with the next update.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:11 PM
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Prey Weekly Update #1
Welcome to the first installment of the Prey Weekly Update! We'll be
updating this every week with juicy information about Prey and about
the development behind the game. We'll be talking about anything
interesting that's happened over the past week -- whether it is some
new cool feature we've put into the game, or a milestone that has been
reached. We're also planning some cool special features, talking about
some cool highlights during the game's development. Hey, and you might
even hear some interesting news about DNF from me, but probably not. :)
First, a brief history of the game since Human Head has been working
on it. For a full history of Prey, check out Lon Matero's excellent
Prey history page here.
Human Head started working on Prey in May 2001. We had recently
finished Rune and were looking for our next project. George and Scott
from 3D Realms enjoyed Rune quite a bit, and wanted to work with us on
something. Prey seemed like an interesting project to resurrect.
3DR was interested in maintaining a few key elements from the
original Prey design, specifically the main character (although he
underwent a name change) and some elements of the plot. They gave us
the freedom to rework the weapons, creatures, and levels. So our
initial tasks were working with 3DR on the story and brainstorming the
various features of the game.
For years, we worked on implementing our design. We went through a
lot of visual iterations on creatures and levels, reworking things and
throwing things out until we achieved a look and level of quality that
we were happy with.
The design underwent many changes as well - mostly being streamlined
into simpler systems. For example, originally Tommy had seven different
spirit powers that he would gain through the game. We were concerned
that the powers wouldn't be fully used, so we simplified the design to
a single power: SpiritWalk. Eliminating the other powers allowed us to
concentrate more heavily on SpiritWalk, and also simplified the control
of the game (since a single button is needed for SpiritWalk instead of
an inventory system for multiple powers).
Fast forward to May of 2005. E3. Our first public unveiling of the
game. PC Gamer released an exclusive story announcing Prey. The rumors
flying around were finally validated.
At E3, we showed off a 12-minute video highlighting the new gameplay
we implemented in Prey. Gearing up for E3 was quite an ordeal. We knew
which areas we wanted to show and roughly how to show them. It was an
incredible crunch getting things ready for the first public showing --
so many things needed visual and audio polish. The programmers were
crunching to get the demo playback robust and optimized.
The demo worked by recording our control input, which was then used
during a real-time playback of the game. As such, we had to have
perfect recordings -- Mike Flynn and I spent hours upon hours recording
sequences of the game. One of the sequences was recorded over 200 times
before we finally got the one we wanted. It was worth it -- response
from the E3 video was overwhelmingly positive.
Expect to see much more press and previews on Prey over the next few
months, as we finally start to unveil more details about the game,
including information on MultiPrey, and information about the Xbox 360
version.
So just what the hell has been going on lately at Human Head? Prey
is completely playable from start to finish. The team has been
crunching on bug fixing and optimization. The testers have been finding
tons of little bugs here and there -- ranging from clipping issues to
creatures not behaving correctly, to an incorrect piece of art. Those
bugs are typical for this stage in the project and we're diving in to
fix these problems.
We have a major press event coming up at the end of this month. I'll
be flying out to L.A. and San Francisco to demo the game for several
different magazines (both print and online). Some of them will probably
even get some hands-on time with the game. Tim Gerritsen (Human Head
Biz Guy and internal Prey Producer) is flying out to Europe to cover
the press there. More information about whom we'll be seeing will be
released in the next couple of weeks.
Despite this crunch, we found the time to wander out into the snowy
wasteland here in Wisconsin a few weeks ago to snap this Prey team
photo. Ladies, some of these guys are single, if you find any of these
guys overly handsome just drop me a line and I'll set you up with them.
And, here are a few of the topics I'll be covering over the next few weeks in this weekly update series:
- Voice Recording: Several months ago we recorded all the
voice acting in the game. I'll be talking about the process of voice
acting, how it went for Prey and put up a bunch of behind-the-scenes
pictures of the session, and maybe even put up a few audio samples of
the session.
- Motion Capture: Prey uses motion capture for many of
the humans in the game, but not the monsters (If anyone knows how to
motion-capture a giant four-legged half-alien monster, please let me
know). This was the first time that Human Head had used motion capture
in our projects, so I'll talk about that process, and a few of the
things that went right and wrong.
- Focus Testing: I'll take you behind the scenes on how we do our internal focus testing for both single and multiplayer.
Anyway. My Prey to-do list is still huge, so I need to get back to it. Until next week....
Chris Rhinehart - Prey Project Lead
Human Head Software
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:00 PM
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Prey 360 Video on Xbox Magazine Disc
Back in mid november we brought you the news (here and here)
of the appearance of the Prey for the Xbox 360 teaser trailer. That
video has been available online for awhile now, but if you were one of
the folks who missed it for one reason or another, you have a new
medium to check it out in.
Hitting subscribers shelves now is the February 2006 issue of "The Official Xbox Magazine".
Each month this magazine comes with a disc that contains playable
demos, videos, and more for various Xbox games. Now that the 360 is out
this disc is dual purposed, it contains Xbox 1 & Xbox 360 content.
The February 2006 edition of the disc (which calls the video
"gorgeous") has the trailer video for Prey 360 on it. If you already
subscribe to this magazine, then you'll want to check it out when it
hits your mailbox. If you don't subscribe, and you want to check it
out, it should be on newsstands as well.
Or you can visit this link at Fileshack to downlad a copy for yourself.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:30 PM
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Prey grinds those Gears
Prey is better than Gears of War? That's what IGN seems to think in their "2006 Predictions". IGN is referring of course to CliffyB's "Gears of War" due later this year for the Xbox 360, saying "Prey will steal Gears of War's glory in the end." Here's what IGN has to say about Prey in this article:
We've all seen the Gears of War coverage so far. It's
almost impossible not to have, considering it has been shown at almost
every major Microsoft event in the last year. In it, you guide Marcus
Fenix across the planet Sera as he battles ferocious Locust swarms.
While the game has proven to be visually stunning so far, we're not
really sure about its gameplay mechanics. It's been frequently
described as "stop and pop" gameplay, but what that precisely means or
how it will prove unique is unclear. Basically each level seems to
proceed with players advancing to a hostile area and taking cover
behind cars and ruined structure while occasionally popping out and
unleashing a few bullets. Does that really sound revolutionary?
While you're thinking about that, consider Human Head Studios and
3D Realms' Prey, a first person shooter with a few very interesting
features. Prey lets you control Tommy, a Cherokee who's had his
girlfriend stolen by a mysterious alien force. From what we've seen so
far, the game takes place aboard the alien craft with a distinct
biomechanical flavor. Much like in Gears of War, you'll face off
against freakish alien creatures. Unlike Gears of War, you'll have a
variety of unique ways to dispatch them. In many of the game's
environments you'll have to grapple with changes in gravity, as well as
an entire Spirit dimension you can enter to perform stealth kills and
access otherwise blocked areas. Though it's a first-person shooter,
Prey is far from mindless, and may in fact prove to be more
entertaining and more innovative than Gears of War hopes to be.
That's pretty high praise, as Gears of War has been getting some
good press. Head over to the IGN site to check out their entire 2006 predictions article today where they talk about other game possibilities such as Grand Theft Auto 4, Knights of the Old Republic 3, and more.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:09 PM
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Prey to use PunkBuster Software
Today we're announcing that we've contracted with Even Balance to
include PunkBuster software into Prey. Here's a short press release
from the Even Balance website..
2K Games has contracted with Even Balance, Inc. to
integrate PunkBuster Anti-Cheat software into the highly anticipated
PREY, currently being developed by Human Head Studios and executive
produced by 3D Realms. PunkBuster Anti-Cheat features will be available
"out-of-the-box" with the retail release of the game.
PunkBuster is an anti-cheat software package which has many kinds of
features. Here's some of the features of the software as shown on Even Balance's info page:
- Real-time scanning of memory by PB Client on players' computers searching for known hacks/cheats
- Throttled two-tiered background auto-update system using
multiple Internet Master Servers to provide end-user security ensuring
that no false or corrupted updates can be installed on players'
computers
- Frequent status reports (highly encrypted) are sent to the PB
Server by all players and the PB Server raises a violation when
necessary which causes the offending player to be removed from the game
and all other players are informed of the violation
- PB Admins can also manually remove players from the game for a specified number of minutes or permanently ban if desired
- PB Servers can optionally be configured to randomly check player settings looking for known exploits of the game engine
- PB Admins can request actual screenshot samples from specific
players and/or can configure the PB Server to randomly grab screenshot
samples from players during gameplay
- An optional "bad name" facility is provided so that PB Admins
can prevent players from using offensive player names containing
unwanted profanity or racial slurs
- Search functions are provided for PB Admins who wish to search
player's keybindings and scripts for anything that may be known to
exploit the game
- The PunkBusterâ„¢ Player Power facility can be configured to
allow players to self-administer game servers when the Server
Administrator is not present entirely without the need for passwords
- PB Servers have an optional built-in mini http web server
interface that allows the game server to be remotely administered via a
web browser from anywhere over the Internet
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:10 PM
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Prey 360 Preview
We were just made aware of another Prey preview available online.
This one is for the Xbox 360 version of Prey, and it's at the Game Daily website. Their review has a lot of nice things to say about the game, here's a couple of them:
- It's the approach that'll grab a lot of gamers, and its presentation and features should very well keep them.
- Humanhead Studios is making sure that the AI is at the top of its game when it comes to out-thinking and out-maneuvering you
- It looks rather impressive, with detailed characters that seem
to breathe all their own and stunning graphic detail throughout the
levels.
- Prey is looking to be a nice surprise for the 2006 Xbox 360 line-up.
If you're looking forward to Prey (or even if you're not), go check out the full preview today and read some of what awaits you.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:30 PM
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Xbox 360 Prey Trailer out Monday
As most of you know, the Microsoft Xbox 360 console is being
released in the United States on Tuesday. As has been previously
announced, Prey will be released on that console (as well as on the
PC). While the release date is still "When it's done", we do have
something to look forward to that's a bit more concrete than "When it's
done". :)
This coming Monday, the TV network G4 will be airing a 3.6 hour
special about the release of the Xbox 360. They will be having live
coverage from several locations around the US with several of their
personalities such as Adam Sessler, Morgan Webb, Sarah Lane, and our
old friend Geoff Keighley, as well as many others.
As part of their coverage, they will be having the world exclusive
first look at Prey for the Xbox 360 in the form of an all new trailer.
Here's some text from G4 about the event:
It's an epic event: The launch of Xbox 360, Microsoft's
next-generation video game system. G4 celebrates this milestone like no
other network can with "Countdown to Xbox 360," a groundbreaking 3.6
hours of wall-to-wall coverage with live, up-to-the minute reports from
Xbox 360 launch events across the country. Premiering Monday, November
21 at 9:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM PT, this unprecedented night of programming,
hosted by G4's Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb, also delivers the ultimate
buyer's guide with an in-depth look at the making of the 360 as well as
reviews, tips and tricks for the first Xbox 360 games.
We're told that the Prey trailer is supposed to air between 10:45
and 11:15 PM Eastern / 7:45 and 8:15 PM Pacific. However, since this is
a live special we can't guarantee a specific time, so you might want to
tune into the whole program to make sure to catch it.
Click on the logo below to head to the G4 site for further
information on this program, and make sure and look for the latest
footage from Prey then!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:27 PM
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Play Prey
We
just today got final confirmation of an appearance of Prey on another
game magazine. This one is Play Magazine, and is their December 2005
issue, which is due to hit subscribers' mailboxes this week, and
newsstands the week after. They have much to say in this eight page
cover spread, including more info about the game, some never before
seen screenshots, concept art, and lots of other Prey goodness.
Here's a few quotes from the article.
"Prey's not just a first person shooter where you put the
typical generic solider into a role, give him a gun and have him blast
everything there is. There is progression to you as the character and
you get to deeply play that part."
Regarding online maps, "You have to be aware of what's going on all
around you," says Chris Rhinehart (project lead). "A guy could be
running above you, could be right next to you on the wall, or you could
be on the ceiling and drop in. We have some that focus more on
spherical gravity stuff."
Dying doesn't really exist in Prey. "We're kind of sick of the whole
save-crawl mentality. We just wanted to get rid of the whole dying
thing. It totally takes you out of the immersion of the game."
The game is absolutely incredible to look at, packed with all kinds
of scintillating effects, moody shadows, detailed shading, and giant
chunks of all sorts of fascinating anachronistic technology.
The peek I've gotten so far would make any first person shooter fan wide-eyed with anticipation.
You're definitely going to want to check this one out when it hits
newsstands in the next week or so. Hit your newsstand and look for the
December 2005 issue of Play magazine!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:31 PM
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I want my PreyTV!
Prey previews are turning up all over the place. Today's preview
comes from MTV.com of all places, which tells you to "Start Preyin".
Prey is currently the featured game in their "Peep Show" preview section, which leads off with this text:
Native American mysticism meets alien-abduction horror in
Prey, the best looking first-person shooter to grace your Xbox 360
screen since, well, ever. Slip on the moccasins of Cherokee auto
mechanic, Tommy, board an oozing, pulsing alien mothership, and give
the evil scum a taste of the same medicine your brethren served Custer.
Their preview includes an exclusive trailer to the MTV site, as well
as three other Prey videos. There's also some screenshots and concept
art, as well as some text about the game.
Head on over to the MTV.com games site
and check it out. It's currently the featured game on their Peep Show
Section, if you read this after the story has been posted for a few
days, you might need to manually select the game, look in the lower
right hand corner of the screen for their "All Peep Shows" directory.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:49 PM
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New Prey Preview at Gamespot
This morning brings us a very cool preview of Prey over at Gamespot.
In their three page preview, they cover a lot of the game, from the
various powers that lead character Tommy can achieve, to the world the
game is played in, to how things seen in the E3 2005 video tie into the
overall game. It's a very detailed preview, and definitely worth your
time to read, even if you've checked out all the other Prey previews
that have been posted online.
Here's some bits from the preview...
You'll also encounter alien technology that creates gravity fields on
walls and ceilings, so you can expect to be running sideways and upside
down while fighting off hostile alien life-forms so that you can rescue
the girl and get back home (or whatever is left of home).
Considering that the game is being developed with production
assistance from Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms, you may not be surprised
to hear that it will have fully interactive environments.
You'll find yourself in situations that recall artist M.C. Escher's
infamous painting Relativity (a study in geometry that depicts people
walking up and down stairways on the walls and ceilings of a house),
just with more upside-down aliens shooting at you.
Tommy will need just about every tool at his disposal to make his
way through the ship safely, since he'll be up against a great variety
of alien enemies, and not just possessed 8-year-olds, but also
gun-toting grunts, cowardly soldier aliens that carry energy shields,
and even huge, humanoid monstrosities that cause the ground to shake
with a single step.
Prey's single-player game should offer innovative gameplay, a
comprehensive story and characters, and cutting-edge Doom III engine
graphics.
Gamespot also has five new screenshots scattered throughout the
pages of the preview. But one of the bigger bonuses here is a video
interview with both Tim Gerritsen & Chris Rhinehart of Human Head
where they talk about Prey directly - so you can hear it straight from
the developer's mouths!
This is an extremely good preview, and definitely worth your time. You can check it out over at Gamespot here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:15 AM
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New Prey Stuff Available
We've got links for you to some new Prey materials.
First up, 2K Games has released three new Prey Screenshots, check 'em out here.
Second is an interview with Chris Rhinehart (project lead on Prey)
over at 'Next Generation'. Chris talks about things as the legacy of
the early development of the title back in the mid-late 90's, as well
as current design elements. He also talks about current development
tools, and some specific issues relating to how Tommy interacts with
the environment. Check out the full interview here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:55 AM
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New Prey Preview Available
This afternoon brings us the news of a new Prey preview that's
available now. If you check out the September 2005 issue of Computer
Gaming World, they have a big 4 page spread on Prey. There's plenty of
goodness in this article, including tidbits from our own Scott Miller
& George Broussard, as well as from Chris Rhinehart & Tim
Gerritson of HumanHead.
There's plenty of text to read about the game, there's some
screenshots as well as conceptual art, and a breaktown of the gameplay
when you die in the game (the Spirit Realm). There's a description of
some action in the game which gives you some insight into the bar scene
at the start of the recent E3 Prey floor video. There's even some
quotes from CGW about their preview of Prey back in the June 1997 issue
of their magazine. :) But the focus here is the gameplay, how it
looks... awww, let's just get to the quotes..
"The jaded cynic inside has ben quieted." -- CGW
"The script certainly shows lots of promise for what lies ahead, but
there are a number of innovations that are equally, if not more,
important to Prey." -- CGW
"I think we've mostly achieved our goal of making a tragic love
story within the FP genre, one that players will care about. This was
not a part of the original design for Prey." -- Scott Miller
"Evertyhing has a very biomechanical feel. Items are grated onto
each other -- organic membranes serve as "sphinc-doors", and alien
monsters sprout firearms" -- CGW
You're going to want to go to your newsstands to check out this
preview, as it isn't online. You want the September 2005 issue of
Computer Gaming World, the cover of which can be shown here.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:58 PM
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Prey Wins Awards!
The reception to the Prey footage that's been making the rounds
recently has been fantastic. Folks are loving it! But that's not all -
people who are handing out E3 awards have been loving Prey, too. We've
got two awards Prey has won from the recent E3 show.
First is Game Revolutions' "Best Comeback" award. GR had this to say about Prey..
"Prey somehow managed to escape its vaporware destiny
thanks to the crew at Human Head studios, who managed to bring it back
to life and dress it in all kinds of new, groovy effects. Frankly, it
was the coolest first-person shooter at the show."
Second we have the "Best Shooter" award from Games Domain. Here's what GD had to say about Prey..
Back (quite literally) from the dead, this 3D Realms
shooter was cancelled in the '90s. What we saw at E3, though, was most
definitely a game of 2005. Or possibly 2006. Shooters with realistic
physics are ten a penny these days, but Prey deliberately twists and
subverts the law of gravity to produce environments that aren't like
anything else we've ever seen.
If you haven't already done so, check out the Official Prey video
footage released last Friday to catch your glimpse of this award
winning title!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:28 PM
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Official Prey Video Now Available!
The past week or so has brought plenty of Prey coverage, and one
thing people have asked for is an official release of the video that
was shown at E3. Well, today we're here to bring you that. Available
now for your download is the 11.5 minute video that was shown at the
2005 E3 show. It's available in a couple of formats. First is the
traditional downloadable file. This 184Mb video download is available
from these places right now.
* Fileshack
* Fileplanet
* 3D Gamers
* Filefront
* Worth Downloading
Are you tired of waiting in line at some download sites for your
file? Then you might want to check this option out - you can also get
the video from Game xStream. This system which was recently announced
as being the official online distribution system for Prey also has the
video available for you to watch in a streaming format, and no waiting
in line. :) If you sign up now, you'll get the files for free. You'll definitely want to check that out if you haven't done so already.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:00 PM
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Prey Video Footage Available
While Human Head or 3D Realms has not released official Prey video,
there is some out there for you guys to check out over at preyhq.com.
First is a copy of the Fileshack HD Prey video, which clocks in at 1:21.
Second, and is the video you definitely don't want to miss is their
"Shaky Cam" version of Prey. This one is about eleven minutes long, and
contains much Prey goodness, including lots of gameplay footage.
You definitely want to check 'em both out over at preyhq.com right now if you haven't already done so.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:45 AM
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More Prey E3 Coverage
We have another Prey E3 preview this afternoon. Today's comes from
Games Radar, who say "sitting in a confined space with sweating men has
never been so pleasurable.." Here's some of what they said about the
actual game.. :)
The game is Prey, and watching the trailer is a genuinely
mind-blowing experience - it looks unbelievably potent both in terms of
technical ability and tantalising game play mechanics.
It's hard to describe just how staggering Prey looks, so we're not
even going to bother trying - just believe us when we say that it's so
far out if this world that it's cosmic.
Prey looks absolutely awesome.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:08 PM
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More Prey E3 Coverage
More folks have seen the Prey demo running at E3, and have chimed in with some comments. This afternoon's batch comes from:
Shacknews: In their review, Shacknews says that Prey
"..appears poised to be an impressive and successful PC and Xbox 360
title." Here's some more of what they had to say:
Those worried about the loss of Portal Technology need to
fear not. During the demo, a door-shaped structure rose from out of the
floor. It showed a completely another room with a huge beast walking
past. Jumping through it, you drop in front of the goliath and are
quickly under fire. The entire transition was seamless and incredibly
slick.
The demo also showed what happens when killed in combat. The
character's body becomes suspended in a sort of spirit world in a
setting very similar to that of World of Warcraft when dead; the
environment is dark and foggy with other threatening spirits running
about. While in this world, killing creatures with the bow and arrow
rejuvenates your corpse and after a few kills, you're back in the think
of the action.
Gamespy: Gamespy had this to say about Prey in their review..
"Prey seems to have the potential to distinguish itself from the crowd
of other shooters." Here's some more...
The portals also served as gateways to various parts of the
game world, with creatures able to run back and forth between them,
with gravity and perspective sometimes switching drastically from one
side to another.
The highlight of the gravity tech demo was a tiny spherical
planetoid floating inside a massive chamber. The player ran around the
surface of the planetoid, the curved surface of which defined the
ground.
IGN Impressions: IGN had a glowing review of the E3 demo they saw. Here's a bunch of what they said...
The biggest surprise of the day, which might be the only
real surprise considering how this show is going so far, is that Prey
was a whole lot cooler than I had anticipated. It makes awesome use of
the DOOM 3 engine and creates some truly unique environments.
The demo was really just full of moments that made me say "wow"
Perhaps the moment where Tommy walked past a portal in space only to
see a gigantic creature on the other side, entered and angered the
beast only to have it freak out and shoot two high powered machine guns
at him also deserves some recognition. Not only was the monster pretty
freaking big and detailed, but it also seemed to have some pretty
decent AI, dodging and attacking the entire time. AI in general seemed
more complex than DOOM 3 as well.
Finally we have this image. It's part of a gigantic banner that's
hanging in the lobby of the show (aka the LA Convention Center). Anyone
wanting to enter E3 will see this, and if you click on this small
thumbnail, you'll see a larger image. This same poster was also
featured on the Tuesday night edition of G4TV's E3 coverage.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:03 PM
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Prey E3 Coverage
The annual sensory overload that is E3 is in full swing. There's
some good Prey news coming out of Los Angeles, so let's get right to it.
Hi-Res Screenshots: Voodoo Extreme@IGN has some hi-res
screenshots available. Some appeared in the PC Gamer article, some
haven't. Either way, there's some screenshot goodness over there at VE.
Check it out.
Concept Art: If concept art is your thing, then you definitely want to check out this link over at IGN. They have some tasty concept sketches and art for you, as well as some more screenshots!
E3 Live Videocast: Gamespot has some good info on Prey, as well as Remedy's new title, Alan Wake in their E3 coverage. Check it out - it's the 11AM Wednesday videocast.
Gamespot E3 Review: Gamespot also has a really good review of
the game after having seen the Prey demo at the ATI booth. Here's a few
samples from the full review, which has plenty of detail on the game.
The weapons are just part of Prey's unusual design. What's
really wild about the game is how it uses direction, gravity, and
portals to surprise you, disorient you, and impress you.
Some other really crazy levels featured sensors that could be shot to cause the level to literally turn upside down.
We came away from the Prey demo quite impressed with what was shown.
We'll have more as we get it.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 8:40 PM
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Prey Q&A
The reaction to the Prey announcement in late April has been really
good! Of course, when you announce something, the first thing people
want is more information, so we're here to let you know about some.
Over at Gamespot is a Prey article that is part of their E3 coverage.
They talk three guys behind the scenes of Prey. They are our own Scott
Miller, and Chris Rhinehart (project lead), and Timothy Gerritsen (CEO)
of Human Head. They talk about a number of topics. Some of them include
why Prey was revived, why 3D Realms chose to work with Human Head on
the title, what some of the game character elements are, and of course,
"portals" (amongst other topics). Here's a sample:
GS: What can you tell us about the plans for Prey's
multiplayer, if any? Could you discuss what modes, or any other unique
features, are planned for multiplayer?
TG and CR: The focus of the game is on the single-player
experience. However, we've included a multiplayer component that
focuses on showcasing the environmental and gameplay features
introduced in the single-player game. We'll be introducing these
features and how they are used in multiplayer as we get closer to
release.
GS: And hopefully this next question isn't too presumptuous. But why was Human Head Studios chosen as the developer for Prey?
SM: George [Broussard] and I met the Human Head crew when we were
both making games for Gathering of Developers in the late '90s. We were
impressed by their game Rune, and we developed a friendship with
several of their key people. The second coming of Prey actually began
at the very tail end of Gathering's existence, just after Human Head
had wrapped up Rune and was looking for a new project. George and I
were convinced they were the best team for this project because of
their own creative capabilities.
If you're interested in Prey, it's a good interview, so head over to Gamespot and check it out! As an added bonus, there's a couple of screenshots in the article, too. :)
Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:02 AM
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Prey Announced
Rumors and teaser sites have been up for awhile, but today 2K Games published a press release for the game; here's a few quotes from the full press release:
"The initial concept for Prey had been incubating for a while,
waiting for the right opportunity to come along," said George
Broussard, President of 3D Realms. "We jumped at the chance to create
this game with a talented developer like Human Head Studios and
next-generation technology like the Doom 3 engine." Scott Miller, CEO
of 3D Realms, added, "Prey is special for many reasons, including
several new and original gameplay features and a tightly integrated
story that packs an emotional punch, unlike other first person
shooters."
"Our collaboration with 3D Realms has been enormously rewarding,"
added Timothy Gerritsen, CEO of Human Head Studios. With their help,
Prey is sure to breathe new life into the first person shooter genre
with a compelling story, innovative gameplay mechanics and dazzling
imagery, which is powered by our significantly enhanced version of id
Software's original Doom 3 engine."
There's a new area set aside for Prey talk on our forums, you can visit that area here and chat about the game with 3D Realms & Human Head
staff. We'll have more details on the game later, but if you want to
learn about the game, make sure and head to your newsstands and check
out the June 2005 copy of PC Gamer magazine!
Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:20 PM
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