The Prey Review

The Prey is a 3D infinite runner with a first-person point of view. Players are literally running away from a pack of wolves in a never-ending forest. This is definitely not the only infinite runner I’ve played, but it is the first one with a first-person perspective. It’s a novel idea that augments a well-established genre, but the game lacks depth. The Prey is a casual game that is fun but grows repetitive after a short time.

The gameplay in The Prey is what one would expect and the controls are intuitive. The app only has one game mode, in which players just keep running. The Prey is just $0.99 so I don’t expect there to be hours and hours of content, but anyone considering purchasing it should just be aware of this. The game does integrate with game center, so there is slightly more than just the game play.

Avoiding trees while running isn’t as simple as it sounds. The trees seem to go through spurts of being dense and hazardous, and many trees have low hanging branches or perturbing stumps that have to be jumped over by tapping. Moving side to side is done by tilting and the controls are very smooth. The game comes to an abrupt end when the player runs into a tree.

Although the 3D graphics in The Prey aren’t great, the bareness and roughness to the artwork fit in well with the dreary and ominous theme of the game. I also appreciated that the trees don’t all look the same. The trees vary in height, width, and appearance so the level always looks different.

As the level progresses the speed increases making it more difficult to dodge the trees. Sometime if I just barely touched a tree the wolves wouldn’t catch me, and usually I had to run straight on into a tree in order to fail.

All in all, The Prey has satisfying game play that gets repetitive very quickly. For $0.99, it’s not a bad deal, but don’t expect it to provide hours and hours of gameplay.