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Human Head Studios Developing Prey
It has been officially announced that Madison, Wisconsin based developer Human Head studios is currently working on the Prey title. Prey, formerly a 3D Realms title, is now on track and will be shown off at this year's E3. From the article: "However, while he did make Prey's comeback official, Broussard did not reveal all his cards. He did not answer posts asking if the game would use the Doom 3 engine, as Morris claimed. Nor did he say when the game would come out. 'Each game will ship when it's ready.'"
Now DNF has a brother in limbo.
Someone please tell that fat fuck Broussard to quit wolfing down pizzas and do his fucking job.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
He did not answer posts asking if the game would use the Doom 3 engine
Obviously it will use the Duke Nukem Forever engine.
Considering that the initial release date was christmas '96, this is a pretty massive dust off. No doubt we'll see it before Duke Nukem Forever.
Here is an interesting history of the title.
No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
Did anybody get flashbacks of The Ring when looking at the teaser page?
Oops. Gotta go. My phone's ringing...
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
The game initially started probably about July or so in 1995, but this was the very early R&D stages. We were deciding what to do for an engine and whether we could use the Build engine (Duke 3D), or another engine Ken Silverman was doing at the time that was true 3D. We decided to roll the dice and write our own engine at that point, so the team started digging into writing their first 3D engine.
Huh? Not only did they ignore a stable engine, not only did they ignore an unstable engine, not only did they decide to write a new one from scratch, but they did it with coders lacking the relevent experience?
By March 1996 we had a character on the screen moving around, elementary net play with frag bar, items to pick up, and things were looking good.
So let me get this straight: The time period July 1995 - March 1996 was completely wasted on building a new game engine? That's nine months.
So William went back and rewrote the engine again, this time specifically for hardware (3Dfx first). At the same time he was re-writing "Preditor", our in-house editor for Prey.
No wonder Duke Nukem Forever is stuck in limbo if these clowns have anything to do with it.
I seem to recall reading about this game a long, long time ago in some game magazine. It talked about how the 3D engine allowed for immpossible things in 3D space just like with Duke Nukem 3D's Build engine. For example, you could create a building with a doorway that opened up to a room that was larger than the building itself(among other things). I could be wrong though, this was like 7+ years ago when I read this.
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
I seem to remember that one of the big things was going to be the Portal system, wherein servers could be linked together, each with their own set of "rules", including gravity. So you could be chasing someone across servers, across different "worlds". Is this still the plan, or is it just another Third Person Shooter?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Somehow the terms "Prey" and "Human Head" don't sit right with me. I don't want my noggin to become a meal for a anyone.
The big deal was that portal technology mentioned.
"By using portals instead of traditional environment layouts, the team can create a much less predictable gameplay dynamic, including such fanciful notions as portals that lead back into the same room... (gamers) are ready for the more abstract environments promised by the Prey technology - what would have been too confusing a year ago can now be accepted." - quote from Next Generation, November 1997
So... this is no longer a big deal - the concept of portals has been around at least since Unreal.
On a side note, does anyone think the idea of a Native American hero fighting aliens seem way too 90s to fly as a game basis anymore? I mean, back then we were happy with stuff to shoot at, but c'mon - unless your name is Sam we expect a story.
Anyone else think prey.com looks like an ARG? one of the banners points to the source code which contains a long binary string...
--- If we knew half the things we shouldn't we'd stop wishing we knew it all
... before it gets taken off:
http://www.hot.ee/trackit/PreyDNF.pdf
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They need to let Myst die. The magic of the first game has long gone, and now they're just churning out the games in EA-fashion, casting quality to the wind.
Converted from the metatag in the page. I think this is in line with the orignal story of the main character, Talon Brave being a Native American. From the source:
KMFDM did the soundtrack for this game back in 1996/7. As it didn't/hasn't seen release I hope the work put in will still be used. They kick so much ass, and IMHO their musical style withstands the forces of time, at least for ten years ;-).
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From "The History of Prey"
http://atlas.secs.oakland.edu/~lcmatero/pr
"Soundtrack
A big surprise in the area of music occurred in Nov 1997. It was announced that KMFDM was to compose the music for the game, and they did deliver:
In my last update, I told you that we were expecting some new KMFDM material. Well, it came (4 theme tracks), and boy, does it rock! The whole team, in shifts, filed into my office, we closed the door, cranked up my stereo and let it rip. By the end of the CDR, our jaws were hanging open-this is some of the best stuff I've ever heard from KMFDM (that's what Sascha promised us, and it looks like they're delivering).
While it'll be some time before you can hear their tunes (though those of you "lucky" enough to brave the mayhem of E3 will get a short aural peek), I thought I'd fill you in a bit on how they're working on the music.
Our approach is simple-build the body of music out of a small collection of recognizable themes. KMFDM and I have been working together on designing the various Prey themes. Of course, there will be the main game theme, plus themes to represent each of the species of the Trocara (as well as the Keepers), and some other themes to represent other key characters in the game.
I put together some emotional descriptions of the various themes (like, how are you supposed to feel when you hear the Keeper's theme, for example), plus relevant backstories. From there, the band has been working on different approaches-one great idea that Sascha and Tim had was to attribute a certain beat speed to each of the Trocaran species. The latest CDR that they sent has rough versions of four themes, and it was cool to close our eyes and listen-we could really visualize the Trocaran species through their music.
We then put together our comments and thoughts on the themes to sent back to them for revision. Right now, they've gathered together (some members of the band live overseas) in Seattle for a month of studio work, laying down tracks for us and for their next album."
Here's hoping...