Released only a few days ago, Prototype has already earned itself the title "inFAMOUS without the electricity" amongst the general video game populace. An understandable statement at first glance, considering the fact that the phrases "Government quarantine", "Disease outbreak", and "Superpowered free running protagonist" all apply to both games. The similarities between these two games are unmistakable, but I like to see Prototype as less a copy of inFAMOUS, and more the other side of the coin.
In the game Prototype you play as the main character Alex Mercer, an insomniac super powered soon-to-be monster with questionable taste in clothing. No matter how cold it is in New York, it's not the best choice to wear both a hoodie and a jacket at the same time. You wake up in a morgue, as a refreshing twist with hospital-based opening scenes, and right before your autopsy. The opening cutscene has you stumble bleary-eyed out of the building you woke up in, get shot up, and still manage to leap tall buildings in a single bound to escape.
The first thing you notice about Prototype is the ease of the control scheme. Right trigger activates your 'sprint' and 'free running' ability, which automatically accounts for whatever obstacles are in your way without having to manually check where you're going. A car in your path? No problems, he'll skip off the ground, tag the hood, and keep going. Crowd of people? Elbowing through is effortless, and with a building in the way you merely run right up the wall - no worrying about handholds or specific paths.
'A', the archtypical Jump button, is also your 'charge jump' - an ability that doesn't require you to be standing still to perform. While sprinting through traffic in an effort to escape the stubborn military, you can hold the jump button to prepare for a massive leap onto another building, sprint up the face, and leap to the roof when you're halfway up to take the chase to the rooftops, providing a quicker escape route. The movement system flows together easily and makes it fun to escape from your pursuers.
When it comes to your pursuers, however, the proverbial ball has been dropped. It would appear that creator Radical Entertainment hasn't yet grasped the subtle workings of Artificial Intelligence, and instead substitutes with Semi-Intelligent Artifice. When stealthily devouring military personnel you merely have to be out of the immediate sightline of any other member of the military and nothing bad will happen - even if they walk right up to you while you're sucking their best friend's brain out. Ironically, the game includes the ability to speed up your 'stealth consume' ability even though it doesn't seem like the enemy seeing you after you start makes any difference.
I actually was able to stealth consume an entire military base with only two ammo crates for cover, and an entire helipad even though there was less than an arm's length distance between two of the soldiers I devoured. It would appear the stalwart Blackwatch soldiers are deaf to the sound of an arm ripping through the sternum of a close ally, so long as it happens just outside their peripheral vision.
Which brings us to the combat. Fighting in Prototype is similar to a chainsaw ballet: Graceful, elegant, and with dismembered limbs flying all over the place. Picture if you will the childish thrill gained from leaping off a building and nosediving into a crowded area of Manhattan, landing with such force that you send lamp posts, people, and cars flying away. Your actions alert a nearby military officer who calls in for support. In an attempt to stop him from calling in support, you madly dash towards him - easily leaping over downed vehicles that lie between you and him.
Unfortunately, you don't get to him in time and the soldier open fires on you as you rush towards him. With the unlocked 'Running Grab' ability, you merely have to tap the B button while rushing and you'll snag the bastard by the throat, at which point you can stop and brutalize him to gain additional health or you can use him as your own personal human bowling ball against his then-arrived buddies.
Of course, later in the game are introduced creatures that can't so easily be taken down, but you can upgrade yourself to compensate for that with more powerful transformations, enhanced health/speed/armor, and the ability to hijack tanks, only to have an even more powerful creature be revealed and cause you to fight twice as hard, providing a difficulty curve that closer resembles a heartbeat monitor than an actual curve.
The storyline of Prototype suffers a little, but considering this is only the second [Possibly third] original product developed by Radical Entertainment, and their last two were Crash Bandicoot games which is to writing what lepers are to hygiene, it can be forgiven. It's a loosely-strung together story of bioweapons research gone awry, renegade scientists ala Gordon Freeman [Because who doesn't like the idea of a scientist beating up the military?], and tyrannical private military organizations running the show. Of course, at the heart of it Prototype is less about making socio-political points and more about "Rip that guy's guts out his face and curb stomp his baby."
Yes, you do indeed become a monster in Prototype and you don't really care who knows it. Civilians are no more than blood-filled health kits, providing easy kills with which to restore your vitality - for devouring people is the easiest way to heal yourself in Prototype, and civilians are like mindless sheep that continue to walk the streets even after everyone they've ever known has been ripped to shreds and eaten by either you or one of the other monstrosities unleashed on Manhattan.
To sum up in a pithy sort of way, Prototype is a fantastically brutal addition to the video game universe, and if you can forgive the half-hearted story and half-thick AI, along with a few minor glitches such as the time when a Hunter I was chasing got stuck going down the side of a wall and ended up running down into the ground until I kicked it in the head and it righted itself, it comes with a hearty recommendation to buy and add it to your collections.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a city to cull.
In the game Prototype you play as the main character Alex Mercer, an insomniac super powered soon-to-be monster with questionable taste in clothing. No matter how cold it is in New York, it's not the best choice to wear both a hoodie and a jacket at the same time. You wake up in a morgue, as a refreshing twist with hospital-based opening scenes, and right before your autopsy. The opening cutscene has you stumble bleary-eyed out of the building you woke up in, get shot up, and still manage to leap tall buildings in a single bound to escape.
The first thing you notice about Prototype is the ease of the control scheme. Right trigger activates your 'sprint' and 'free running' ability, which automatically accounts for whatever obstacles are in your way without having to manually check where you're going. A car in your path? No problems, he'll skip off the ground, tag the hood, and keep going. Crowd of people? Elbowing through is effortless, and with a building in the way you merely run right up the wall - no worrying about handholds or specific paths.
'A', the archtypical Jump button, is also your 'charge jump' - an ability that doesn't require you to be standing still to perform. While sprinting through traffic in an effort to escape the stubborn military, you can hold the jump button to prepare for a massive leap onto another building, sprint up the face, and leap to the roof when you're halfway up to take the chase to the rooftops, providing a quicker escape route. The movement system flows together easily and makes it fun to escape from your pursuers.
When it comes to your pursuers, however, the proverbial ball has been dropped. It would appear that creator Radical Entertainment hasn't yet grasped the subtle workings of Artificial Intelligence, and instead substitutes with Semi-Intelligent Artifice. When stealthily devouring military personnel you merely have to be out of the immediate sightline of any other member of the military and nothing bad will happen - even if they walk right up to you while you're sucking their best friend's brain out. Ironically, the game includes the ability to speed up your 'stealth consume' ability even though it doesn't seem like the enemy seeing you after you start makes any difference.
I actually was able to stealth consume an entire military base with only two ammo crates for cover, and an entire helipad even though there was less than an arm's length distance between two of the soldiers I devoured. It would appear the stalwart Blackwatch soldiers are deaf to the sound of an arm ripping through the sternum of a close ally, so long as it happens just outside their peripheral vision.
Which brings us to the combat. Fighting in Prototype is similar to a chainsaw ballet: Graceful, elegant, and with dismembered limbs flying all over the place. Picture if you will the childish thrill gained from leaping off a building and nosediving into a crowded area of Manhattan, landing with such force that you send lamp posts, people, and cars flying away. Your actions alert a nearby military officer who calls in for support. In an attempt to stop him from calling in support, you madly dash towards him - easily leaping over downed vehicles that lie between you and him.
Unfortunately, you don't get to him in time and the soldier open fires on you as you rush towards him. With the unlocked 'Running Grab' ability, you merely have to tap the B button while rushing and you'll snag the bastard by the throat, at which point you can stop and brutalize him to gain additional health or you can use him as your own personal human bowling ball against his then-arrived buddies.
Of course, later in the game are introduced creatures that can't so easily be taken down, but you can upgrade yourself to compensate for that with more powerful transformations, enhanced health/speed/armor, and the ability to hijack tanks, only to have an even more powerful creature be revealed and cause you to fight twice as hard, providing a difficulty curve that closer resembles a heartbeat monitor than an actual curve.
The storyline of Prototype suffers a little, but considering this is only the second [Possibly third] original product developed by Radical Entertainment, and their last two were Crash Bandicoot games which is to writing what lepers are to hygiene, it can be forgiven. It's a loosely-strung together story of bioweapons research gone awry, renegade scientists ala Gordon Freeman [Because who doesn't like the idea of a scientist beating up the military?], and tyrannical private military organizations running the show. Of course, at the heart of it Prototype is less about making socio-political points and more about "Rip that guy's guts out his face and curb stomp his baby."
Yes, you do indeed become a monster in Prototype and you don't really care who knows it. Civilians are no more than blood-filled health kits, providing easy kills with which to restore your vitality - for devouring people is the easiest way to heal yourself in Prototype, and civilians are like mindless sheep that continue to walk the streets even after everyone they've ever known has been ripped to shreds and eaten by either you or one of the other monstrosities unleashed on Manhattan.
To sum up in a pithy sort of way, Prototype is a fantastically brutal addition to the video game universe, and if you can forgive the half-hearted story and half-thick AI, along with a few minor glitches such as the time when a Hunter I was chasing got stuck going down the side of a wall and ended up running down into the ground until I kicked it in the head and it righted itself, it comes with a hearty recommendation to buy and add it to your collections.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a city to cull.
