Prototype's Story Holes

[maninahat]

Well, the <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9002-Yahtzee-Could-Have-Written-Duke-Nukem-Forever>DNF script has already been accounted for. As for the 2nd person perspective horror game, I was talking about this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9423-Survival-Horror-on-a-Cruise-Ship

You don't see through your own eyes, but the eyes of surrounding CCTVs.

Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about that, thanks! Funny, when he described that I tended to think of Suspended [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended]. Completely different game, but it had that idea of being trapped and only experiencing the world through mechanical senses that didn't necessarily work the same as the eyes in one's own head.

There was a horror game called Siren II. The main conceit of the game was that the protagonists (there were loads) has the ability to "tune into" other people's vision. This was to solve puzzles, but one of the characters was blind and had to rely on the ability non-stop. He even has to eye hack his own guard dog.

Shame I thought it was a big pile of poo.

 

[beefpelican]

I really love InFAMOUS 1 and 2 which is why I never bothered giving Prototype a try but after reading this I'm really intrigued with it

is it as good as InFAMOUS 1 or 2?

Haven't played either Infamous, except briefly in a best buy, so I can't really compare the two with any authority. However, I did play through Prototype 1, and I can assure you that it was amazingly good fun. The plot is a bit silly at times, and it does take itself too seriously, but my goodness is it ever excellent stress relief. You have all of Manhattan to play in, and you are just about the most mobile thing that there is. My favorite thing: Jumping off of a helicopter then diving face first towards a crowd of soldiers just to turn at the last second and smash the ground, throwing the entire crowd into the air. It isn't a hard game, but it is very satisfying.

 

[SquidVicious]

I like the idea about how you're not actually controlling Alec Mercer in the first game, but rather a virus that has replicated itself with that man's memories and appearance. It kind of reminds me of the backstory given to Swamp Thing after Alan Moore took over writing. The hypothesis definitely adds a richness to a game that I remember already having the potential for such a twist with the mechanic of advancing the plot by consuming the minds of the important people.

 

[Vault101]

[quote/]Are there any of us who can say we wouldn't start surfing on housewives if we acquired powers like Mercer? [/quote]

NO...I would not

what is it with people and being evil anyway?

 

[Formica Archonis]

There was a horror game called Siren II. The main conceit of the game was that the protagonists (there were loads) has the ability to "tune into" other people's vision. This was to solve puzzles, but one of the characters was blind and had to rely on the ability non-stop. He even has to eye hack his own guard dog.

Shame I thought it was a big pile of poo.

Sounds not entirely dissimilar to Yahtzee's opinion of Siren Blood Curse.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I wish there was a sufficient reason why the stories in AAA games are so poor, bland, and uninteresting. I bet there are plenty of talented people who'd love to use their skill at writing, and I bet there's a bunch of talented people with that skill on these game development teams. It's a shame none of it seems to make its way into the product.

I suspect that insuring that there are good story writers on the team and working hard to make the story interesting and consistent as part of the overall project is still not a strong priority for many development teams. A lot of dev companies probably still see story development as an ancillary element, rather than intrinsic one. And for games that are considered story-centric, you'd think that you'd see a TON of effort to get talented writers and give the story a huge weight of significance, but then you see story-centric games like Final Fantasy XIII that suffer from atrocious pacing, plot holes, and deus ex machina...things that someone with a measly undergrad degree in creative writing and no experience as professional writer (such as myself) can see a mile away.

This all leads me to believe that a great many video game story-writers are A) not the most talented writers out there, B) not given enough creative control over the process, i.e. they may write a good story but then the directors/producers of the project mess up their script for various reasons, or C) both A and B.

 

[UltraXan]

Yhatzee! You were thinking exactly what I was thinking about! I was even thinking about it the other day, wondering why people didn't notice it. "Alex Mercer died in Penn Station, the virus killed him when he released it and it used his body as a manifestation! That isn't really Mercer, just the virus itself." Though I never thought about it beyond that. I greatly enjoyed reading this!

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Great ideas, you could also throw in a wandering plot-conveying npc called Zarathustra.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I loved the big reveal at the end of Prototype where it turns out you were the virus and not Mercer. It was one of the better written twists or plot points in a video game for a proverbial age.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Prototype 2 was fun to play, it's just a shame that the story didn't go anywhere. Like... at all. It made me sad because the initial set-up actually grabbed my attention quite swiftly. It would he been interesting to see things as Yahtzee put it. To me, I had always thought of Heller as something created by Mercer as a means to stop himself from getting out of control. Or that's what I had hoped.

In the end, we're forced to pretty much forget about game one, just like Yahtzee says. Thanks for the interesting take on the game. Ahhh, what could have been...

 

[kuolonen]

Yahtzee is pretty much on point with this.

Its rather sad. In first prototype you played a morally gray character, a bold move by the gamestudio, then for the second game they wimp out and bring out the oh-so-boring hero with cliches up the arse, while keeping a gameplay that advocates eating innocent bystanders for health and general wholesale slaughter.

I loved prototype 1, especially Mercer. Finally a protagonist who would act like I would given superpowers. Like Yahtzee said, if you were given powers like this, would you not also be bodysurfing housewives down the 5th avenue? And on that note I find Prototype 2s protagonist an ungrateful prick. So your family got caught up in the mayhem that Mercer started? Who cares?! He also turned you into an immortal superhuman so how about some thanks instead of emoing up the place.

 

[mjc0961]

See, that would have been far more interesting. Instead we got a crappy reason for why Mercer is bad in a couple of comics and a bad plot that doesn't even finish explaining itself.

And yeah, that final boss fight was BS. Mercer should have been far harder to kill than that.

 

[nickpy]

Why on Earth didn't the Prototype 2 developers hire you to write the script.

Tell me.

That would have made the game much, much better.
I don't like it when companies churn out sequels to things without paying proper attention to the thing they're making a sequel to, which is what seems to have happened in this case.

 

[Shannon Spencer Fox]

Actually, while I was talking to my significant-other about this thread and what was discussed, they brought up a pretty valid point: Mercer never actually consumed Heller at all; he just infected him with the Blacklight virus. I suppose it's still possible that he's still a vessel for Mercer's squishier, more human feelings, but it does make it somewhat trickier to explain. Maybe, anyway.

Of course, that doesn't change the other points brought up, but there you go.

As for Mercer himself being something of a weak last boss... eh, maybe. Keep in mind that Heller wasn't exactly a slouch either, and there's a point near the end where Mercer attempts to actually consume him, but is unable to do so, and he then later makes a comment about Heller's 'annoyingly resilient DNA' (or something along those lines). So it's possible that Heller's version of the virus happens to be even stronger. Maybe. You could still argue experience and all that, though, in Mercer's favor.

 

[Nerexor]

I recently beat prototype 2, and I guess I never considered the infected humans to be mere extensions of Mercer's will. Perhaps there is a difference because they were alive while infected instead of being a mere reanimated corpse? Not that the idea isn't damned AWESOME, it would certainly make for a more thoughtful game rather than HELLER ANGRY, HELLER SMASH!

But then prototype has always been kind of a modern reimagining of the Hulk. We understand radiation a lot better now so it's no longer the scare it used to be, but bioweapons and genetic engineering, we don't really know the potential consequences. So something bad happens triggering an emergent being of incredible strength that can rip everything apart with an accidental gesture. Thus, Mercer-hulk is born.

The twist in prototype that Mercer was dead was interesting, partly for the novelty and partly because the virus was a better person than Mercer ever was. Mercer is slowly revealed to have been a total psycho who deliberately released the blacklight virus because things didn't go his way. Once the Virus final stops reacting and starts thinking, it goes out of its way to save the city from a nuke and take down the progenitors of the virus, rather than just infecting everyone in sight to make itself stronger.

Also: How do explain Sabrina Galloway with the Yahtzee premise, she also betrayed Mercer by allowing him to eat that other dude whose name I can't recall off the top of my head. But it was enough that Mercer actually shows up and threatens to murder Heller for it.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I think my biggest problem with Prototype 2 is that they turned Mercer into the the goddamned villain! Yes, I know he wasn't the most... trustworthy character, but I wanted to think he learned what a conscience was... but instead, they made him a villain for no good reason!

Well, actually, there was a follow-up comic between the first and second game in which Mercer tried to be good... but apparently, when faced with the nature of humanity, he turned evil. Wow, just... wow. Thank goodness I don't have superpowers, or I would have turned evil years ago!

That being said, I like Yahtzee's idea for the game, too bad they never went that route...

 

[JEBWrench]

Is it just me, or did Messer Croshaw, esquire, just write Prototype 2 fan-fiction?

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I like Yahtzee's premise, I really do but the problem here is I think some people would get lost with that much information being thrown at them. It would be too much to take in at once.

But it's an interesting concept, and sometimes the best stories in novels, movies, etc. are shown when you look over them again. When you know the story, certain elements in it start to make more sense, and you leave with a greater understanding of what you'd just experienced than what you had before.

Yahtzee, imo, makes a better storywriter than critic, imo. On that note, I should pick up Mogworld sometime soon.

 

[The Ubermensch]

... When I played through it that's pretty much what I was thinking all along... well until things like "He is more than death, he just doesn't know it yet" and "welcome to the top of the food chain"

Then I thought; Mercer is at the top right now? So he can't make the virus any stronger. What he does is create an adversary to fight, trains him up and then fights him, the victor would become stronger once the loser was absorbed.

There are two possibilities: either the writers are pretty damn clever and have set up plot points that mean different things for people with different contexts, or they are thick and have written a story of fluff... Yeah, Yahtzee is right, the later is far more likely