my first review: prototype

Recommended Videos

cp2u

New member
Jul 28, 2009
88
0
0
Hello, everyone! Welcome to what may be the first negative prototype review you have ever read. that's right, NEGATIVE! while the rest of the world slowly fell in love with Alex Mercer and his crazy arms, I found myself giving up on this game after around 10 hours of play. Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

Let's start with the storyline, shall we? Alex Mercer, our protagonist/antagonist wakes up in a morgue, with no memory, and a disfigured body (BTW did anyone ever play play planescape: torment? you'll see my issue). He walks out into the streets, saves his sister, and vows to kill everyone who wrongs him. Interstingly enough, it seems that being on the street he drives down in a stolen tank is considered "wronging him". this is one of my many problems with the storyline. Mercer is cast as man on a mission for revenge, but is so inconsistent in this mission. As I played through this game, I killed hundreds of civilians who did nothing wrong, and at times, I found myself in a side mission where I had to save the soldiers who so wronged me. why? is Alex Mercer so indecisive that he helps his enemy just because he's not too sure that the common soldier is to blame? no, that can't be because he kills them and says it is out of revenge all the time. Oh, did I mention that 90% of the game is him telling his story to a soldier on a rooftop? but enough about the story, let's rip apart, or "lacerate", the so-called variety of special moves, shall we?

For the first few hours of gameplay, I was amazed. Here was a game with seemingly endless ways to kill, maim, destroy, and lacerate(that word means rip out someone's guts, and has nothing to do with milk). Soon enough, the seemingly endless highway of new and exciting ways to kill people came to and abrupt halt due to a solid brick wall of realisation. I realised that despite the great variety of arms Mercer has at his disposal, he still uses them for punching. Sure, you can punch with fast arms, or strong arms, or whiplike arms, but it's still a punch. If I bash you on the head with a rock or a log, it will still hurt. When you distill the crazy arms down to their purest form, you can still only kill people by shooting them, hitting them, or eating them. Yes, you can change forms to look like them, but in the end, you will have to shoot, hit, or eat them after all. also, the freerunning mechanics are basically just hold the right trigger, and point the joystick up until you get somewhere. Sure you can slit your wrists and ankles and glide, but when you can just run up the wall of the building you would have glided to, it doesn't matter except to save your self a couple of seconds.

Now then, I'm not saying that this is a bad game,just a game I didn't like. If you want to go out and spend your cash on this game, go ahead. But if you think any of the things i say are true, then save your money, buy 'Boom Blox: Bash Party', and spend endless hours creating intricate ways to abuse small animals. Yay, animal abuse! Boo PETA!

(P.S. please tell me about any and all problems with my review, except that "prototype rocks and Colinpiscool is a moron.")
 

Avatar Roku

New member
Jul 9, 2008
6,169
0
0
Decent review, but very good for a first attempt. A few things:

-You seem to have made a few of the same points as Yahtzee (which in itself would be acceptable) in the same style as him, seemingly to avoid elaborating. This is not good because A)You seem to be attempting to piggyback off him (even if you really aren't, that's how it seems) and B)It leaves us with a feeling that you don't really know what you're talking about

-You go on several tangents that don't really go anywhere. Reordering/deleting certain parts may be a good idea

-Similarly, some parts don't make sense, or would not make sense if one had not already played Prototype. To the first, a quick re-read can help you catch it (usually). To the second, remember to never assume that we know anything about the game going in, that would defeat the purpose of a review

There's more, but I'll wait for Maet (if he hasn't already posted while I was typing) or someone else.
 

VitalSigns

New member
May 20, 2009
835
0
0
You actually believe your the first person to write a negative prototype review? First time on the internet?

Too much rant in the review, if your review is read not heard then there is a better way to deliver it, as well 99% of Rants are terrible, which is all this seems to be. I haven't played the game yet but I want to very badly.
 

Suikun

New member
Mar 25, 2009
159
0
0
Well, it's a review, but I can't quite decide if I like or dislike it. Truth be told, parts of it go both ways. You do well with citing out individual problems with the game, but you could use a little organization to talk about each separate group of problems. Also, your review is a bit short, and I kinda feel like there was more you wanted to say, but because you were trying to get your ideas down so quickly, you didn't quite get them onto paper (or internet as the case may be).

I agree with you, however, about the game and how terrible it is (in my opinion) and truth be told it seems like Prototype is a love/hate relationship with people. And I still think it's a bit fishy that Mercer is such a misanthropic sociopath who is apathetic about every little thing, but the second something happens to someone he cared about in his past life, before he woke up in the morgue, he goes ape-shit crazy to save them. That never made sense to me...

Oh, and by the way, "lacerate" is cutting people, i.e. slashes from a sword. I think the word you're searching for is "eviscerate".
 

cp2u

New member
Jul 28, 2009
88
0
0
thanks for the advice, and FYI i'm not piggybacking on yahtzee. it just seems that anyone who tries to add humor to a negative review runs the risk of being compared to him, especially on this site. you want to see piggybacking? look up "reviews from the blue" or something like that on youtube. total rip-off.
 

Ashbax

New member
Jan 7, 2009
1,773
0
0
colinpiscool said:
thanks for the advice, and FYI i'm not piggybacking on yahtzee. it just seems that anyone who tries to add humor to a negative review runs the risk of being compared to him, especially on this site. you want to see piggybacking? look up "reviews from the blue" or something like that on youtube. total rip-off.
Well, you even compared the gliding to be like slashing, and if I remember correctly, yahtzee called it "Shooting blood from your wrists like emo peter pan" Which is pretty much a more elaborate way of saying it... But thats the best I can argue, so I wouldnt really say your imitating yahtzee, just making some points similar to his, like all the 14 year olds who take his reviews seriously as reviews, not comedy rant.

However, this is a rant, Yet you call it a review...You had almost no positives, just negatives, you barely described the game, it was too short, bad grammar, unneccesarily long paragraphs...gah. The worst complaint someone should have about a good review is a wrongly bolded word, or forgetting the apostrophe in 'It's'...

But still, its a first review, and alot better than some ive seen out there. Just..next time, have an even balance on the negatives and positives, and fix those other problems I mentioned.

In fact, just read the guide to reviewing, its stickied in this part of the forum. A great help to start you off.
 

kemosabi4

New member
May 12, 2009
591
0
0
colinpiscool said:
Interstingly enough, it seems that being on the street he drives down in a stolen tank is considered "wronging him". this is one of my many problems with the storyline.
He's on a mission for revenge. You said "whoever wrongs him". That makes it sound like he's gonna go out of his way to kick somebody's ass for looking at him funny. You should have said "whoever wronged him". It doesn't have to do with the actual game, just wanted to point that out.
colinpiscool said:
Mercer is cast as man on a mission for revenge, but is so inconsistent in this mission. As I played through this game, I killed hundreds of civilians who did nothing wrong, and at times, I found myself in a side mission where I had to save the soldiers who so wronged me. why? Is Alex Mercer so indecisive that he helps his enemy just because he's not too sure that the common soldier is to blame? no, that can't be because he kills them and says it is out of revenge all the time. Oh, did I mention that 90% of the game is him telling his story to a soldier on a rooftop?
The civilians part would be because they were either collateral damage, or you killed them during free mode. As for helping the soldiers, those were either side missions, or it was essential to the story. You obviously weren't paying attention if you think Alex actually helped them because he had a choice. If you actually followed the story, you would discover that the soldier on the roof as well as several missions helping soldiers all are extremely essential to the story line, and didn't happen because Alex is schizophrenic.
colinpiscool said:
I realized that despite the great variety of arms Mercer has at his disposal, he still uses them for punching. Sure, you can punch with fast arms, or strong arms, or whiplike arms, but it's still a punch. If I bash you on the head with a rock or a log, it will still hurt. When you distill the crazy arms down to their purest form, you can still only kill people by shooting them, hitting them, or eating them. Yes, you can change forms to look like them, but in the end, you will have to shoot, hit, or eat them after all.
Are you just finding excuses to hate this game? Unarmed melee very rarely strays from punching or kicking, both of which you can do. Of course all the powers amount to punching! That's what it's called when you hit something with your hand!
colinpiscool said:
Also, the freerunning mechanics are basically just hold the right trigger, and point the joystick up until you get somewhere. Sure you can slit your wrists and ankles and glide, but when you can just run up the wall of the building you would have glided to, it doesn't matter except to save your self a couple of seconds.
First off, you can't glide upwards. Parkour is needed to reach the rooftops. Besides, there was only one button to use. All of the others were taken. You can't complain when the control scheme only allowed one button.