Let's not beat around the bush here: Prototype is *fun*. It's like a mixture of Grand Theft Auto, Painkiller, Spiderman and Devil May Cry, except you might as well be playing a freakin' demigod -- you're called ZEUS for a reason and it definitely shows. Yet for all his godlike powers, Alex Mercer does have a fatal weakness. Yes, like many other game protagonists he falls victim to a shitty camera system.
Need to turn around quickly? You'd better be moving around like a small dog on drugs, then. Sure, Alex moves very quickly, but all too often you'll find yourself wanting to strangle him for not doing what he's supposed to. Once that guy decides he wants to parkour his way around everything even remotely in his path, there's no stopping him -- no matter how much you tell him not to.
The camera problems first made themselves known to me when I encountered Hunters inside a military base. A full sweep of my mouse to turn the camera around caused it to turn a tiny amount, a problem which led to many deaths before I finally managed to emerge victorious despite the game's best efforts to get me killed.
Even before I discovered this problem, however, I came across something else that bothered me -- the voice acting. Although it did get better later on in the game, Alex -- and especially Dana -- fell victim to what I like to call "Spliced Line Syndrome". This is where a character begins their next sentence entirely too soon after finishing their last one for it to feel natural.
Thankfully, Alex grew out of it and Dana hasn't had as many lines as he has so far -- then again, she always looked and sounded as if she was about to burst into tears during those early cutscenes so perhaps it's for the best.
Flaws aside, the game is extremely fun to play despite the often crippling camera issues. It is, for example, hilarious to simply torture the random pedestrians unlucky enough to come near you by making their lives hell. Fall damage is impossible -- at least for you -- so you can do whatever you want and get away with it. This actually leads to another problem I have with the game, though.
Kill someone in plain view and everyone goes nuts, as you might expect. But perform a jump impossible for normal humans in the middle of a military base -- or land from one of said jumps -- and nobody picks up on the possibility that you just might *not* be an ordinary human.
The Web of Intrigue is also a novel idea, allowing the main plot to evolve outside of, well, the main plot. And then you could always just dick around with the minigames for hours on end. Some of them, especially the Glide and Consume ones, are better than others -- any Combat mingame that involves Hunters invariably ends with me all but frothing at the mouth as one stunlocks me into a corner.
Sadly however, the minigames generally prove to be the most profitable source of EXP between storyline missions, which becomes a bit of a problem once the upgrades start costing amounts better reserved for the offshore bank accounts of major political figures. That said, the rate at which you gain EXP is almost as silly -- a fact that rapidly becomes apparent at the start of the game, when you suddenly become able to purchase a large chunk of the abilities initially available to you.
If nothing else, Alex certainly gives those Insurmountable Waist High Fences a damn good thrashing -- then picks them up, jumps to skyscraper level and then hurls them for miles to hopefully crush some unsuspecting pedestrian. It's well worth buying, if only for the cathartic value it offers.
Need to turn around quickly? You'd better be moving around like a small dog on drugs, then. Sure, Alex moves very quickly, but all too often you'll find yourself wanting to strangle him for not doing what he's supposed to. Once that guy decides he wants to parkour his way around everything even remotely in his path, there's no stopping him -- no matter how much you tell him not to.
The camera problems first made themselves known to me when I encountered Hunters inside a military base. A full sweep of my mouse to turn the camera around caused it to turn a tiny amount, a problem which led to many deaths before I finally managed to emerge victorious despite the game's best efforts to get me killed.
Even before I discovered this problem, however, I came across something else that bothered me -- the voice acting. Although it did get better later on in the game, Alex -- and especially Dana -- fell victim to what I like to call "Spliced Line Syndrome". This is where a character begins their next sentence entirely too soon after finishing their last one for it to feel natural.
Thankfully, Alex grew out of it and Dana hasn't had as many lines as he has so far -- then again, she always looked and sounded as if she was about to burst into tears during those early cutscenes so perhaps it's for the best.
Flaws aside, the game is extremely fun to play despite the often crippling camera issues. It is, for example, hilarious to simply torture the random pedestrians unlucky enough to come near you by making their lives hell. Fall damage is impossible -- at least for you -- so you can do whatever you want and get away with it. This actually leads to another problem I have with the game, though.
Kill someone in plain view and everyone goes nuts, as you might expect. But perform a jump impossible for normal humans in the middle of a military base -- or land from one of said jumps -- and nobody picks up on the possibility that you just might *not* be an ordinary human.
The Web of Intrigue is also a novel idea, allowing the main plot to evolve outside of, well, the main plot. And then you could always just dick around with the minigames for hours on end. Some of them, especially the Glide and Consume ones, are better than others -- any Combat mingame that involves Hunters invariably ends with me all but frothing at the mouth as one stunlocks me into a corner.
Sadly however, the minigames generally prove to be the most profitable source of EXP between storyline missions, which becomes a bit of a problem once the upgrades start costing amounts better reserved for the offshore bank accounts of major political figures. That said, the rate at which you gain EXP is almost as silly -- a fact that rapidly becomes apparent at the start of the game, when you suddenly become able to purchase a large chunk of the abilities initially available to you.
If nothing else, Alex certainly gives those Insurmountable Waist High Fences a damn good thrashing -- then picks them up, jumps to skyscraper level and then hurls them for miles to hopefully crush some unsuspecting pedestrian. It's well worth buying, if only for the cathartic value it offers.
