The story
The game begins with the protagonist, Alex Mercer waking up at the morgue about to be cut open by two scientists presumed dead and carrying inside him a virus dubbed as Blacklight.
After the initial shock and slaughter, new feelings surface. Who did this to me? Where is he? I want vengeance and in that process no property is sacred and civilian lives lost is not a problem.
Sound familiar? Does the name Wolverine sound familiar? That's right. This game borrows heavily from other games. The huge fists from Hulk, the 'web' from Spiderman, and the claws from Wolverine.
Granted, it doesn't bother me the very least because the powers are well adapted to fit Alexs' ability to alter his own genetic code.
So yeah, the basic driving force of the game and story is revenge. But there is much more to that. Yes yes, virus you say. Zombies you say. We have been here before. No, not like this.
Prototypes' story is so much more diverse, and has so many twists to it, if only you have the patience to figure them out. That's the downside, to find out more about the plot than what is revealed in cutscenes during game missions, you have to WANT to know more, you have to find out more by yourself. You do this by wandering around town looking for people that are connected to you or the virus somehow and consume them, unlocking more of the 'Web of Intrigue'.
If you are not that sort of a person, here it is in a nutshell:
Many years back, the military tested a virus dubbed as Blacklight in the city of Hope, Idaho after numerous tests on animals they wanted to see what it would do on humans. At first, it seemed it did nothing and just after they had let their guard down, it struck. Taking down the entire city within days. There was.. one survivor. Elizabeth Greene, the main villain of the game. Instead of resisting, Elizabeths' body embraced the virus, giving it the perfect host it had wanted.
Elizabeth was taken by the military and conducted tests on until Alex breaks her out early in the game not knowing who or what she is. Thus, creating his own main advesary.
The gameplay
This is the part that Prototype truly masters.
The controls are fluid, but take some time to learn on PC and the PC-version has no built-in support for every gamepad out there and if you want to get YOUR gamepad working with it, you're gonna have some tweaking ahead of you assuming the game engine is in a good mood and it works.
The city of New York is perfect for this game, enough room to explore, wreak havoc, or just run around looking for hints and/or landmarks that yield you 'EP' or Evolution Points.
Which brings me to the next thing, Evolution Points and the almost RPG-like skill improving and buying of new ones. That alone is enough to keep you playing just to see what you can buy next that improves your current ways or gives you new ones to rip through hordes of enemies.
Evolution Points are earned by doing basically anything in the game but mainly by doing missions, sidequests aka. events and discovering hints and landmarks.
Alex has multiple abilities to help him rip through the city as fast as possible. He can jump for insane distances, he can run faster than a train or a helicopter and he also has the ability to glide through the air, making it more easier to move large distances without even setting your feet to the ground.
But that's not what you want to know is it? No.. you want to know about the genetic mutations available for Alex, also known as superpowers.
Alex has the power to mutate his body to many weapons, like Wolverine-like claws that can shred armies of lesser enemies, the Whipfist, that can also down large groups of enemies and can be used to skyjack a helicopter without the need to be at close range.
Then there is the hammerfist, Hulk-like fists that wreak massive havoc on heavy armor and tougher foes. But the one thing that conquers all, is the Blade, your most powerful weapon against enemies and armor in the game.
Alex can also grow a shield out of his arm but that is rendered useless later in the game after learning the armor-ability that covers your body in thick armor-like substance making hits and shots fired at you much less effective but rendering your glide ability useless.
Oh, and he can consume enemies or civilians, gaining their appearance and if it is a person linked to you and the Web of Intrigue their memories as well which are displayed in small cutscenes that show what the person knows related to you. Everything you learn is added to Web of Intrigue and you may view the memories at a later time by pausing the game and entering the Web via the menu.
Graphics
Graphics, usually the last thing you should look at when searching for a game you will like, but times have changed.
Prototype has good graphics. Not the best and at worst horribly lacking in some areas like facial expressions and the fact that the options granted for changing the graphical quality is more like 2001 than 2009 but that is acceptable for a game as visually busy such as this one.
The characters, at least the main ones are well animated and textured, where as the environment is not but in the heat of the game you won't notice it too much.
Now, the big hit this area takes in points comes in the fact that it is horribly bug ridden and the resolution you want for your display may not be available because majority of the resolutions are locked out for cards with less than 500MB of memory. And even if you have 512 MB of memory on your card it does not guarantee your resolution will be available because the system is bugged and getting the right one requires HEX-editing the engine's .dll-file found in the game's installation folder.
The main question that everyone has when looking for a game is "Is it worth it?" is it really worth putting 50$ into it? From a biased point of view, it so totally is. From an unbiased POV. Still, yes. If you like mayhem, can tolerate the fact that the game offers little to none variation to the parade of missions beginning with the consumption of someone and ending with a bloodbath.
Yes, it is worth it if you can tolerate the somewhat lacking graphics and bugs that you may face if you are purchasing the PC-version and even the console-version if you are unlucky.
The game begins with the protagonist, Alex Mercer waking up at the morgue about to be cut open by two scientists presumed dead and carrying inside him a virus dubbed as Blacklight.
After the initial shock and slaughter, new feelings surface. Who did this to me? Where is he? I want vengeance and in that process no property is sacred and civilian lives lost is not a problem.
Sound familiar? Does the name Wolverine sound familiar? That's right. This game borrows heavily from other games. The huge fists from Hulk, the 'web' from Spiderman, and the claws from Wolverine.
Granted, it doesn't bother me the very least because the powers are well adapted to fit Alexs' ability to alter his own genetic code.
So yeah, the basic driving force of the game and story is revenge. But there is much more to that. Yes yes, virus you say. Zombies you say. We have been here before. No, not like this.
Prototypes' story is so much more diverse, and has so many twists to it, if only you have the patience to figure them out. That's the downside, to find out more about the plot than what is revealed in cutscenes during game missions, you have to WANT to know more, you have to find out more by yourself. You do this by wandering around town looking for people that are connected to you or the virus somehow and consume them, unlocking more of the 'Web of Intrigue'.
If you are not that sort of a person, here it is in a nutshell:
Many years back, the military tested a virus dubbed as Blacklight in the city of Hope, Idaho after numerous tests on animals they wanted to see what it would do on humans. At first, it seemed it did nothing and just after they had let their guard down, it struck. Taking down the entire city within days. There was.. one survivor. Elizabeth Greene, the main villain of the game. Instead of resisting, Elizabeths' body embraced the virus, giving it the perfect host it had wanted.
Elizabeth was taken by the military and conducted tests on until Alex breaks her out early in the game not knowing who or what she is. Thus, creating his own main advesary.
The gameplay
This is the part that Prototype truly masters.
The controls are fluid, but take some time to learn on PC and the PC-version has no built-in support for every gamepad out there and if you want to get YOUR gamepad working with it, you're gonna have some tweaking ahead of you assuming the game engine is in a good mood and it works.
The city of New York is perfect for this game, enough room to explore, wreak havoc, or just run around looking for hints and/or landmarks that yield you 'EP' or Evolution Points.
Which brings me to the next thing, Evolution Points and the almost RPG-like skill improving and buying of new ones. That alone is enough to keep you playing just to see what you can buy next that improves your current ways or gives you new ones to rip through hordes of enemies.
Evolution Points are earned by doing basically anything in the game but mainly by doing missions, sidequests aka. events and discovering hints and landmarks.
Alex has multiple abilities to help him rip through the city as fast as possible. He can jump for insane distances, he can run faster than a train or a helicopter and he also has the ability to glide through the air, making it more easier to move large distances without even setting your feet to the ground.
But that's not what you want to know is it? No.. you want to know about the genetic mutations available for Alex, also known as superpowers.
Alex has the power to mutate his body to many weapons, like Wolverine-like claws that can shred armies of lesser enemies, the Whipfist, that can also down large groups of enemies and can be used to skyjack a helicopter without the need to be at close range.
Then there is the hammerfist, Hulk-like fists that wreak massive havoc on heavy armor and tougher foes. But the one thing that conquers all, is the Blade, your most powerful weapon against enemies and armor in the game.
Alex can also grow a shield out of his arm but that is rendered useless later in the game after learning the armor-ability that covers your body in thick armor-like substance making hits and shots fired at you much less effective but rendering your glide ability useless.
Oh, and he can consume enemies or civilians, gaining their appearance and if it is a person linked to you and the Web of Intrigue their memories as well which are displayed in small cutscenes that show what the person knows related to you. Everything you learn is added to Web of Intrigue and you may view the memories at a later time by pausing the game and entering the Web via the menu.
Graphics
Graphics, usually the last thing you should look at when searching for a game you will like, but times have changed.
Prototype has good graphics. Not the best and at worst horribly lacking in some areas like facial expressions and the fact that the options granted for changing the graphical quality is more like 2001 than 2009 but that is acceptable for a game as visually busy such as this one.
The characters, at least the main ones are well animated and textured, where as the environment is not but in the heat of the game you won't notice it too much.
Now, the big hit this area takes in points comes in the fact that it is horribly bug ridden and the resolution you want for your display may not be available because majority of the resolutions are locked out for cards with less than 500MB of memory. And even if you have 512 MB of memory on your card it does not guarantee your resolution will be available because the system is bugged and getting the right one requires HEX-editing the engine's .dll-file found in the game's installation folder.
The main question that everyone has when looking for a game is "Is it worth it?" is it really worth putting 50$ into it? From a biased point of view, it so totally is. From an unbiased POV. Still, yes. If you like mayhem, can tolerate the fact that the game offers little to none variation to the parade of missions beginning with the consumption of someone and ending with a bloodbath.
Yes, it is worth it if you can tolerate the somewhat lacking graphics and bugs that you may face if you are purchasing the PC-version and even the console-version if you are unlucky.
