Prototype was seen by many, as the 360's answer for inFAMOUS. With both released the similarities can be compared and the differences can certaintly be noticable.
Prototype is a sandbox super-hero game but thats all that it has in common with inFAMOUS.
The game nails of lot of OMGWTF moments perfectly and for the first few hours you'll find yourself being consumed yourself with the pad being firmly super-glued to your hands. Soon enough however, the gorey smokescreen subsides to reveal a surprisingly frustrating title that only delves deeper into lazyness as the game progress'.
Story-2/5
The story starts off interesting and will stay that way for a short while, until it actually decides to let you in on all the plot-twists. The mystery had alot going for it, alot of questions were raised and when they were eventually answered, you'd probably feel better off not knowing and leaving it upto your own fan-fiction theories.
As Alex Mercer, you wake up on a morgue, disoriented and confused, you make your way outside and leap over a fence with incredible ease. Alex quickly discovers the roots of his powers and consumes and charges his way to his sisters apartment. With his sister Dana's help, he will be able to uncover who did what to him and how this is all connected to Idaho from 1969.
The story is enough to keep you playing through certaintly, but espeically nearing the end it almost feels rushed and rather strung together. The twists that are accustomed to a story-driven title like this one are also found out pretty easily before it even begins to start throwing you hints at the face.
Character development is limited. Alex himself is only out for revenge and thats all their is to him. You'll learn more about him but not enough to really care. He can turn his hand into a giant blade and thats all you really need to remember about him.
Graphics/Sound-2/5
As everyone expected, this game is by no means matching most titles of 2008 let alone 2009. The opening cutscene for example, with a quick close up to Alex's teeth it looks more like hes got a gum shield lodged in there. The opening CG cutscene however is impressive with plenty of slick gore to squeal over and Alex's transformations look mighty impressive in that quality.
Much like they do in the actual gameplay infact, while the city is bland and blotchy, the pedestrians awrkward and with faces that look like they were drawn on with pencil, Alex himself is looking pretty decent. Specially concerning his shapeshifting and consuming powers, that has him filled with the gooey black/red mess all over. Its pretty sweet just to see his fists double in mass to reveal themselves as giant blocks of rock and for a pedestrian to slowly morpth into Alex amidst said gooey red/black stuff.
A game like this is almost ripe with explosions too, explosions that also look like they were copy and pasted from san andreas with just a quick burst of orange powder followed by a black brick of whatever was destroyed.
Fortunatly the sound fairs better. The voice acting for example does a good enough job of keeping in with the games situations. Alex himself may sound a little off at times, but his sister for what you get to hear is likable enough as is the head milita Commander, who while impressivly cliche' is still fun to watch and listen as he rants about calling everyone son. The sound effects are certaintly the highlight of the whole deal with Alex's consumptions having a really icky sound which is certaintly appropiate. Guns sound realistic and the chops, slams and slices of Alex's weapons sound as deadly as you'd expect. His standard melee attacks though make his fists sound like their made of rubber though.
Gameplay-3/5
The gameplay as advertised through the countless trailers, is as frantically insane as you'd expect. Alex is one of the most powerful fictional gaming characters created and you'll find out why through playing Prototype. Hurling cars at helicopters, jumping 100 feet in the air to land back with a crunchy crater surrounding you. Picking up missile launchers while disguised as a marine to fight off the horde of infected. Hijacking tanks just because you can.
Theres plenty of variety concerning how the game is played. Alex's powers are plentiful, though theres a large amount that are borderline useless or unsatisfying to use or more commonly both. Never has a game before it had such an unimposing curb stomp...
Whats there after cutting out the crap though is still leaving you with a few fun tactics to play through the game.
Admittedly however, once the Blade weapon becomes unlocked, it seems to make the rest seem rather obsolete.
Consuming not only helps to heal you and also equip you with a disguise, it can also help further the story. Throughout the city and also in some story missions, there is the Web of Intrigue. Which is a series of memories that ties together whats been going on and even more infact, helping you learn about some of the antagonists and the 1969 Idaho incident. Its always satisfying to glide around the City to have the WoI icon flash on the radar and the way its all presented through quick flash memories is stylish and maybe even reason to watch them all again once they've been collected.
Abit of large scale destruction is also on offer might I add.
With the two factions, the infected and the Military, having most of the city acting as their terrirtory, theres plenty of bases they have set up speaking for the military and also ''Hives'' for the infected, which are mutilated buildings that act as...well as hive unsurprisingly, creating new infected and help spreading the virus.
The hives can be destroyed to temporarily cease the amount of infected patrollin the area, as can the Military bases but the bases can also be infilitrated.
Which leads to the stealth aspect of gameplay.
Its hardly as evident as the rampaging gore, but its noticable and sometimes downright neccesary at times that you'll make use of it.
Involving the consumption of people, it allows you to literally become ''anyone''. Any pedestrian you like the look of coat hes got on, can be your new skin. Military units are where most of its importance is at.
Consuming a military unit can of course, mask you as a fellow militia. Which in turn can help you infilitrate Marine bases and then consume specific individuals to help further your weapon, tank maneuvering and heli flying skills. Theres also more often than not another WoI hidden inside so theres alot of incentive to go Sam Fisher on the military.
Whats ridiculous however, is within your disguise theres obviously a suspicion meter, but unless your spotted actually throwing a car 50 yards away the Marines will think nothing of it. They can spot you running up buildings and jumping off to land scratchless....there'll be a marine who'll utter a line stating for someone to check it out but thats as far as it goes.
There will eventually be detectors that can see through your disguise but without them, the Marines are totally blind...or at least mentally retarded.
Of couse besides the main game there exists plenty of side missions. Theres a few enjoyable ones, such as faction wars where your sided with one and have to annihilate the other, but a side mission that simply has you glide over trying to land as close to your goal as possible feels pretty pointless, if not for the added evolution points (check EXP).
Collectibles are also available in the appearance as 200 blue orbs and 50 purple ''hint'' orbs but it basically means theres 250 collectibles but 50 of them will leave you with a severe taste of patronising in your mouth when letting you in the little secret on how to...jump.
Another note of the gameplay is the difficulty. While playing as an almost God-like entity you'd think maybe it would be a total cakewalk throughout. It acts that way when they throw a dozen Marines at you but once the tanks, choppers nad infected hunters start to appear, the difficulty will rise faster than you'd expect.
Once they do arrive it'll gain itself the odd retry required, but its not till getting to around 3/4 of the story that it becomes ridiculous with you constantly being flanked by helicopters shooting 50 rockets at a time. Alex may be an offensive powerhouse but far as his defences go, hes surprisingly nimble...well in consideration to his attack power, taking 10 rockets to the face still makes him a tough cookie.
A sometimes hectic targeting system, that will target the most dangerous hostile even with a slightly less hostile charging right at you, can also add a few extra spoon fulls of unwanted insanity, but overall its a good thing that the main missions are so enjoyable and varied that you might not mind going through them 10 times.
Replay Value-3/5
The lastibility of the game is pretty solid, with the main story missions taking around 10 hours or so if you decide to pile drive through the entire story. The WoI and incredible amount of side missions can easily double that time too. Multiple difficulties are present if anyone is truelly willing to test their patience by going through the final few missions on hard mode and theres the option to play through the beginning with all powers you've purchase from the outset.
So overall its a neat little package of content, shame not all of it is really worth the time and effort.
So on an ending note, its a total success in making you feel ultra-powerful and with plenty at your disposal with making Manhattan suffer. The story is epicly dissapointing and the gameplay's difficulty can shift all over the place, but on plenty of occasions it can be addictingly fun and is easily a game that I can imagine destruction-junkies foaming at the mouth over.
3/5
