by Crimson

Prototype was released on the Ps3, Xbox 360, and the PC June 9th, 2009 in North America. It is an action adventure sandbox game developed by Radical Entertainment. It is an original IP and does not have any prequels and sequels as of now.

The game takes place in New York City, where a virus is attacking and infecting people. The military are willing to do whatever it takes to stop the virus from spreading, and they don’t mind hurting a few thousand innocent people along the way. The story doesn’t open up much at the beginning of the game, but through the use of unique cut scenes and plot development you begin to figure out what is going on in New York City and what happened to Alex Mercer that led to him becoming a superhuman.

Generic cut scenes are shown throughout the game. At the beginning of missions or at the end a cut scene might play to fill you in on what’s going on. However something unique about this game is the ability to absorb people on the Web of Intrigue. This is basically a huge spider web of memories where various people know information on what led to your being this way. By absorbing their being, a short scene of pictures and dialog flash by giving you even more insight into this deadly virus that is consuming New York City.

Alex has the ability to shape shift into mostly anything he pleases. He can absorb military men’s genetic code which then gives him access to their memories, experiences, and physical appearance. With an easy two button combo, you can make Alex take on any appearance you want and get by any security guarding your way. Along with being able to shape shift into other human beings, Alex can also turn into specialized versions of himself by literally making his fist into giant blades that cut down any foe in his path. Or even make him have a shield for hands and arms. And early on you get the ability to make your hands powerful rocks that can smash through giant tanks and barriers.

All of this may sound exciting, if done right it could have been one amazing game. However, Radical Entertainment fell kind of short and decided to throw as many enemies as they could into one city, and make Alex virtually unstoppable by smashing through dozens of enemies at a time. Taking on tanks, helicopters, and the works Alex pretty much can’t be beaten. Now I have died a couple times already, but that doesn’t forgive the reason that everywhere you turn you are getting shot at, and there really isn’t any cover system except for on top of buildings. By creating the biggest explosions, and wreaking the most havoc, you are able to take on hundreds of military and infected at once, single handedly.

One thing that this game has going for it, and one thing that really impresses me the most is the use of different powers that are available to Alex. The game gives you a really good opportunity to play as you please, by offering you a variety of upgradable powers that seem limitless. If you are going for the swift and quick route, you may choose to pull out the six foot long blade arm and deliver some fast, deadly blows. Or if you prefer to play on the defensive, you are able to turn your hand into a giant shield and bash through enemies that way. Each power is unique in its own way, and this is something that really impresses me with this game. Every power is able to be upgraded a couple of times and this makes them even more unique in every way. One power that you have at your disposal is the ability to wield dual claws with each hand. At first this power seems pretty basic as you hash and slash through the enemies, but as you upgrade it you can find out that you can slam your claws into the ground and make a giant spike appear on a locked on enemy.

The upgrading doesn’t just stop here either. You are also able to upgrade your speed, jumping, gliding, etc. with the experience points you earn. You can increase your running speed, your jumping distance, your gliding length, basically everything that needs upgrade can be with this game.

Some upgrades available to you are the choice to purchase devastator attacks which is Alex’s most powerful form of attacking. Once purchased you can use the new power to destroy large amounts on enemies all in a single blow. One specific devastator attack that I’m pretty fond of is his ability to send dozens of razor sharp tentacles from his body and absorb a lot of enemies nearby. There are a few of these within the game, and they are all different and extremely powerful!

Experience points are earned by defeating enemies, destroying vehicles, or completing missions. With most sandbox titles this game has the main quest missions along with the side challenges. The side challenges are pretty generic and don’t really have much to do with the game. Basically most of them are “complete this obstacle in the specified time” or “destroy X amount of enemies in 30 seconds” and they can be somewhat addicting to perfect. Each side mission allows you to earn a bronze, silver, gold or no medal during each task. If you complete a time trial, for instance, in the allotted time you will be awarded a medal for your work. It’s a pretty simple concept, but I think it works. I’ve grown addicting to doing these meaningless trials, just to get the best score/time. I’ve already set my goal to get all Silver medals, because the Gold ones are way too out of my reach.

I basically need to shave off 5-10 seconds out of my time in order to achieve the best medal. This brings me to my next point that if you are able to complete the ultimate task of besting all the missions with a Gold medal, you can then unlock the chance to do Platinum medal missions which are only for the most daredevil players out there. I can’t even imagine how insanely hard these would be to beat, and how quick you would have to complete the time trials in order to finish these. One semi-big complaint that I have with the side challenges is that you aren’t able to restart the challenge in the middle of it. There has been many times when I have accidently missed a roof or over jumped, and I know that I have no chance of finishing the challenge within the specified time, but I have to complete it anyway because it doesn’t let me restart from a menu or anything. However, after failing a mission a screen pops up that asks you if you would like to restart the trial, which is pretty convenient.

The main story missions are pretty fun for the most part. Infiltrating bases, taking down hoards of enemies at their base, or destroying tons of infected super beasts has never been so much fun. Some missions have you sneaking up to a certain military officer, absorbing his power, and then walking right into the enemies’ base unnoticed. This is awesome to do because one of my favorite things to do in games is to hide in plain site. Alex has the ability to transform himself into any person he pleases, be it an unknowing civilian that has no specific purpose. Or a military officer who, once acquired, gives you the ability to fly choppers around New York City. All of the different ways to complete a task are thrilling and a fun way to play a game.

Enemies in this game are more or less the same throughout. There are different types or “factions” of enemies that appear, but the enemies within each faction are more or less the same. The US military possess battle tanks, armored personnel carriers and attack helicopters. In addition the military are armed with various weapons such as assault rifles, grenade launchers and missile launchers. The Marines set up fortified areas within New York, deploying turrets, guards and barricades on the streets.

The infected come in different forms based on how long they have been carrying the virus. The least infected people are usually showing zombie like symptoms. They are pretty easy for Alex to defeat and don’t pose much of a threat. On the other hand, larger, more powerful forms of the virus include the Hunter creatures, which are massive and extremely strong.

The missions are spread out on the map at a fairly far distance, and it takes quite a while to get from mission to mission. It’s usually easiest to glide from the rooftops, but even this can take up to several minutes to get across the map. Once you upgrade your powers to be faster, it does cut down the time from mission to mission just a little, but I think they should have broken the accessible areas in New York City up a bit, instead of laying down the whole city for you to run back and forth from.

With most adventure sandbox games, there is always a fair share of collectibles. In Prototype, those collectibles are scattered throughout New York City in various places. Giant blue orbs are floating on top of buildings, or behind trees that you can collect to earn a bit of experience. There is no real purpose to getting these, because they don’t add to your powers or health, other than the fact that there is a trophy/achievement for collecting them all. Along with the blue floating orbs, are orange floating orbs. These are Hint Orbs that, when collected, give you a hint on different ways to play the game. From what I have seen so far, all the hints are pretty generic, and you most likely already know how to do them without having collected them. There really isn’t an addicting quality to collecting in this game, and I don’t see myself spending hours scrounging the city for the last few orbs.

The game play of Prototype is fairly simple to get used to. Switching from power to power is a quick button combination, which allows you to easily switch from power mid battle. There is even a convenient shortcut menu that allows you to switch to powers even easier. However, something that isn’t great about this game is the physics and the way you travel around buildings.

Buildings can be climbed easily by just sprinting up the side. Now I understand that Alex is some sort of superhuman, but c’mon. I mean how many times can you run up the side of a building before it gets tedious. And the buildings are really huge! So it takes a few seconds to run up the side of them, but it never gets shaken up and you are constantly running up buildings so you can find a vantage point to glide from.

I wasn’t going to compare this to inFamous, but it’s just too hard not to. In inFamous, climbing buildings looks really realistic. Cole grabs onto windows or various things sticking out of the side and makes his way to the top of the building. In Prototype, I climbed up a building, and he grabs on to thin air!! Some might correct me by saying that he’s “sticking” to the building like Spiderman and climbing up that way, but I think it’s just plain ridiculous for a next gen game. I see where he is climbing up, but even if there isn’t anything to grab onto on the building he’ll still make his way up easily. It’s as if the developers just took a simple tool and outlined each building, instead of taking the time to go into the details and make it realistic.

Another time that I noticed was when I climbed up and over a fence. Instead of Alex’s hands grabbing the fence and hoisting himself over the top, he grabbed the air above him, and pushed himself over. He seriously reached his hands up and over his head, and did the hoisting motion when there was nothing there lifted over the fence. I usually wouldn’t take notice to simple stuff like this, but after seeing it happen over a dozen times, it’s starting to really annoy me and make me feel like the company didn’t take the time to polish the game in a way that I would have liked it.

The graphics are literally a piece of shit. The opening cinematic made me have hope for what the graphics would look like, after hearing some not so good things. However, that’s pretty much the only nice thing about it. When running around New York City or bashing up enemies, the graphics look of that of a last generation game. I could have easily been playing this on my Playstation 2 and seen the same result. I just don’t understand why with as much hype as this game had, and the amount of attention it had gathered, why it didn’t properly finish the game with up to date graphics and polish.

All in all, this game is just an alright gaming experience. I will definitely say check this out, because the wide range of powers and upgrades keep this game going. If not for the poor graphics and awful physics I would definitely give this game a thumbs up. However, these complaints are just too hard to ignore and are far more in your face than they should be. The game gives you a wide range of powers and makes you feel like a real bad ass as some points in the game. Taking on loads of enemies as a single super human can be fun at some points, but doing it over and over again can lessen the excitement for me, as a gamer. I’ve got to give the game credit where it’s due though, because if not for inFamous spoiling me with its gaming goodness, this game would have been a lot more appealing to me than it is now. However, when competing with similar game genres and releasing them at the same time, you’ve got to pull out all the cards, and that is where Prototype fell flat on its face. I’m going to go ahead and give this game a thumbs down purchase at $60, but I encourage all of you to go ahead and rent it or get it from gamefly or something. Or even wait for a price cut, because the game is worth it at a cheaper price like $20 or $30 bucks.

So unless you were super stoked for this game and have nothing else to play over the summer, I would suggest just holding still on this title, and playing it some other time when your backlog is finished, and you have a little extra money to spend.