I remember a few years ago, while waiting for a train, I had an idea for a game about werewolves; as a wolf you could hunt and stalk foes through forests using enhanced senses, as a human you could use weapons or infiltrate buildings and as a wolfman you would wreck shit up. Fun times would happen and hijinks would ensue. And I have to say that when I started playing Prototype I had to stop and coat my head in tin foil because it was so close to my vision that someone was stealing my thoughts. Of course, I then unwrapped my head and thought "this is a lot like Spiderman: Web of Shadows".
The close time of their releases mean most people were comparing Prototype with Infamous (both being sandbox games about superhuman dickery) but under the hood, the latest offering from Marvel's posterboy has much more in common with Prototype than Infamous. Which isn't entirely surprising since Prototype is actually a property of DC's Wildstorm imprint (as is occasionally elegantly hinted at through in-game billboards). It is, in a very real sense, a comic book game. Specifically a comic book from the mid-90's, when everything was legally required to be as bloody, dark and emo-whiny as possible and only brooding anti-heroes were allowed; an era known as the Iron Age by fans, where writers rebelled against the unrealistically simple morals of the Golden Age. (In case you're curious, we're now in the Platinum or Modern Age) The end result is that the game is essentially only HALF of Web of Shadows - playing through with only the black suit. It also feels like a little bit of a throwback, since it's a story that feels about ten years old, as if they were just waiting for gaming technology to catch up with their dream.
Let's start with the story. Today's gravelly voiced amnesiac cliche is Alex Mercer, who wakes up on a mortuary slab with no memory and a horde of heavily armed Special Forces goons on his tail. As he escapes, he discovers he has the ability to consume people in order to assume their form, as well as their memories. It's up to Alex to peice together what's left of his life in order to get to the truth behind the viral outbreak that's turning the people of New York New York into ravening monstrosities. The problem is that, as he unravels a decades-long conspiracy, the military have got it into their jar-like heads that Alex is central to the outbreak and go to some extreme lengths to stop him - they'll nuke Manhattan into glass if they have to. Thankfully, he begins to develop some nasty little tricks using his powers to stay one step ahead, but the infection is getting worse and has the potential to end human civilisation if it gets off the island..
The story is fairly similar to Web of Shadows, of course; instead of Spidey's symbiote infecting the people of New York, it's Alex's virus. Both are the source of the main character's powers (well, partially in Spidey's case) and both end up with you fighting the infected foes. The problem is that it's also simpler - there's none of the branching choice-making that is available in WoS. It just pootles along and doesn't really break any interesting ground, which is a shame. It's about conspiracies and transhumanism and identity, but none of these ideas or themes are ever really explored to their full extent. Characters are flat and cardboard-like nine times out of ten; smarmy female sidekick, military hardass #1, military hardass #2, creepy woman. The only real difference that the narrative of Prototype exhibits in the Web of Intrigue; by devouring certain individuals, Alex gets a few seconds of insight into the motivations and events behind the scenes. While it's an interesting idea, it's execution could have been a little better. Intrigue targets pop up at random and Sod's Law dictates quite reliably that they'll only turn up while you're in the middle of a race or a firefight. Which means you either have to ignore them or they'll get killed. And while you will get some of them as part of the main plot, you aren't going to get many unless you deliberately seek them out; the writers have to assume that someone's only getting 10% of them and as a result for every plot-relevant one you eat you'll get three or four targets telling you the Marines are willing to nuke the city and another three or four scientists telling you that Alex is a fascinating specimen.
The story is problematic and frankly unengaging; while two factions are warring, Alex can't side with either of them and you feel like nothing you do actually matters. For instance, you could destroy Infected hives and reclaim patches of New York, or you could do the same to the military bases, but beyond an experience gain there's no point to it. They grow back like an unfortunate fungal rash and doing so has no actual impact on the story at all. And it feels weird to fight the military when they're the ones doing the most against the infection.
Moving away from the story, let's get into the meat and bones of the gameplay. Prototype is a sandbox game set in a highly faithful recreation of New York city, which Alex can traverse using wall running, gliding, acrobatics or hijacked military vehicles. It all flows quite well as you move across the place and Alex's superhuman powers make him a very competent free runner. A number of racing missions stem from this, which work quite well. After upgrading some relevant abilities, control becomes a little difficult for some of them though. Though not quite as exhilirating as Spidey's web slinging, Alex's runny-jumpy-glidy action is nevertheless highly functional and can let you get from one end of the island to another at ease. When you pass into an infected region, everything takes on a dirty red tint and the view range drops massively.
Combat is a make or break issue for a game like this. Most missions involve body counts in the hundreds and later ones go into the thousands. Alex can shift his limbs into a number of dismembering forms, including claws, whips and a scythe, or turn his skin to armour. He can also utilise the guns the military use (although they are mostly ineffective). Alex's powers allow him to shred his way through soldiers with great ease, although the result is that it's a little too easy to deal with them. Bigger threats aren't really common enough to be actually worth it and there's only really a 50-50 chance that the dodge button will actually do anything when you push it. There are a wide variety of available moves, but if I'm honest most of them aren't worth bothering with. Consuming someone also adds to your health, and can take it over 100% - which unlocks devastating moves that can wipe a street clean of life. The combat is functional, but frustrating in larger battles, and you really have to wonder just how many missile launchers are actually equipped to soldiers because literally one in three Marines have them and get to hit you from off-screen with irritating regularity.
Aside from the combat, Alex can use his shapeshifting talents to devour a soldier and infiltrate a military base. There is some catharsic potential to these parts of the game, but the character skins are all very samey and the bases are all identical. Once you've taken someone's form, accused their mate of being you and watch everyone else gun him down, then there's basically no point in infilitrating bases other than to pick up some weapon upgrades or Intrigue targets. The stealth aspect of the game is pretty underdone and pointless as a result, a fact not helped by science-magic devices that can see through your disguises.
Coming into Prototype, I saw a lot of potential. Shapeshifting, as a superpower, opens a lot of doors to you but none of them are really explored to any real extent, nothing interesting is really done with it. And the potential of the game, as a whole, isn't actualised. Where the combat could be exciting and dynamic, it is frustrating and unpreditable. Where the story could be engaging and involving, it feels incomplete, hole-ridden and unimaginitive. Infamous and Prototype had to race each other and Prototype suffered for it. There was potential for gold here, but all we get is rusted iron, and when I finished the game I felt like that was eight hours of my life I should have spent... writing a book or building a boat or doing something worthwhile.
Verdict: Prototype has strong foundations, it lacks polish. While a solid rental, there isn't enough material here to make it worth recommending to anyone in particular; the action won't interest the blood-and-guts crowd and the stealth is non-existent. If you really want to buy it, go for a pre-owned. Maybe you'll get my one, if you're lucky.
The close time of their releases mean most people were comparing Prototype with Infamous (both being sandbox games about superhuman dickery) but under the hood, the latest offering from Marvel's posterboy has much more in common with Prototype than Infamous. Which isn't entirely surprising since Prototype is actually a property of DC's Wildstorm imprint (as is occasionally elegantly hinted at through in-game billboards). It is, in a very real sense, a comic book game. Specifically a comic book from the mid-90's, when everything was legally required to be as bloody, dark and emo-whiny as possible and only brooding anti-heroes were allowed; an era known as the Iron Age by fans, where writers rebelled against the unrealistically simple morals of the Golden Age. (In case you're curious, we're now in the Platinum or Modern Age) The end result is that the game is essentially only HALF of Web of Shadows - playing through with only the black suit. It also feels like a little bit of a throwback, since it's a story that feels about ten years old, as if they were just waiting for gaming technology to catch up with their dream.
Let's start with the story. Today's gravelly voiced amnesiac cliche is Alex Mercer, who wakes up on a mortuary slab with no memory and a horde of heavily armed Special Forces goons on his tail. As he escapes, he discovers he has the ability to consume people in order to assume their form, as well as their memories. It's up to Alex to peice together what's left of his life in order to get to the truth behind the viral outbreak that's turning the people of New York New York into ravening monstrosities. The problem is that, as he unravels a decades-long conspiracy, the military have got it into their jar-like heads that Alex is central to the outbreak and go to some extreme lengths to stop him - they'll nuke Manhattan into glass if they have to. Thankfully, he begins to develop some nasty little tricks using his powers to stay one step ahead, but the infection is getting worse and has the potential to end human civilisation if it gets off the island..
The story is fairly similar to Web of Shadows, of course; instead of Spidey's symbiote infecting the people of New York, it's Alex's virus. Both are the source of the main character's powers (well, partially in Spidey's case) and both end up with you fighting the infected foes. The problem is that it's also simpler - there's none of the branching choice-making that is available in WoS. It just pootles along and doesn't really break any interesting ground, which is a shame. It's about conspiracies and transhumanism and identity, but none of these ideas or themes are ever really explored to their full extent. Characters are flat and cardboard-like nine times out of ten; smarmy female sidekick, military hardass #1, military hardass #2, creepy woman. The only real difference that the narrative of Prototype exhibits in the Web of Intrigue; by devouring certain individuals, Alex gets a few seconds of insight into the motivations and events behind the scenes. While it's an interesting idea, it's execution could have been a little better. Intrigue targets pop up at random and Sod's Law dictates quite reliably that they'll only turn up while you're in the middle of a race or a firefight. Which means you either have to ignore them or they'll get killed. And while you will get some of them as part of the main plot, you aren't going to get many unless you deliberately seek them out; the writers have to assume that someone's only getting 10% of them and as a result for every plot-relevant one you eat you'll get three or four targets telling you the Marines are willing to nuke the city and another three or four scientists telling you that Alex is a fascinating specimen.
The story is problematic and frankly unengaging; while two factions are warring, Alex can't side with either of them and you feel like nothing you do actually matters. For instance, you could destroy Infected hives and reclaim patches of New York, or you could do the same to the military bases, but beyond an experience gain there's no point to it. They grow back like an unfortunate fungal rash and doing so has no actual impact on the story at all. And it feels weird to fight the military when they're the ones doing the most against the infection.
Moving away from the story, let's get into the meat and bones of the gameplay. Prototype is a sandbox game set in a highly faithful recreation of New York city, which Alex can traverse using wall running, gliding, acrobatics or hijacked military vehicles. It all flows quite well as you move across the place and Alex's superhuman powers make him a very competent free runner. A number of racing missions stem from this, which work quite well. After upgrading some relevant abilities, control becomes a little difficult for some of them though. Though not quite as exhilirating as Spidey's web slinging, Alex's runny-jumpy-glidy action is nevertheless highly functional and can let you get from one end of the island to another at ease. When you pass into an infected region, everything takes on a dirty red tint and the view range drops massively.
Combat is a make or break issue for a game like this. Most missions involve body counts in the hundreds and later ones go into the thousands. Alex can shift his limbs into a number of dismembering forms, including claws, whips and a scythe, or turn his skin to armour. He can also utilise the guns the military use (although they are mostly ineffective). Alex's powers allow him to shred his way through soldiers with great ease, although the result is that it's a little too easy to deal with them. Bigger threats aren't really common enough to be actually worth it and there's only really a 50-50 chance that the dodge button will actually do anything when you push it. There are a wide variety of available moves, but if I'm honest most of them aren't worth bothering with. Consuming someone also adds to your health, and can take it over 100% - which unlocks devastating moves that can wipe a street clean of life. The combat is functional, but frustrating in larger battles, and you really have to wonder just how many missile launchers are actually equipped to soldiers because literally one in three Marines have them and get to hit you from off-screen with irritating regularity.
Aside from the combat, Alex can use his shapeshifting talents to devour a soldier and infiltrate a military base. There is some catharsic potential to these parts of the game, but the character skins are all very samey and the bases are all identical. Once you've taken someone's form, accused their mate of being you and watch everyone else gun him down, then there's basically no point in infilitrating bases other than to pick up some weapon upgrades or Intrigue targets. The stealth aspect of the game is pretty underdone and pointless as a result, a fact not helped by science-magic devices that can see through your disguises.
Coming into Prototype, I saw a lot of potential. Shapeshifting, as a superpower, opens a lot of doors to you but none of them are really explored to any real extent, nothing interesting is really done with it. And the potential of the game, as a whole, isn't actualised. Where the combat could be exciting and dynamic, it is frustrating and unpreditable. Where the story could be engaging and involving, it feels incomplete, hole-ridden and unimaginitive. Infamous and Prototype had to race each other and Prototype suffered for it. There was potential for gold here, but all we get is rusted iron, and when I finished the game I felt like that was eight hours of my life I should have spent... writing a book or building a boat or doing something worthwhile.
Verdict: Prototype has strong foundations, it lacks polish. While a solid rental, there isn't enough material here to make it worth recommending to anyone in particular; the action won't interest the blood-and-guts crowd and the stealth is non-existent. If you really want to buy it, go for a pre-owned. Maybe you'll get my one, if you're lucky.
. My experience with Prototype was that it was a decent game, but got fairly repetitive in the second half. The powers, running up and across buildings, killing random people without any real penalty were all some of the points i liked. Part of the problem was though i'd already played a lot of the Spidey games to death, and it just felt too much like Web of Shadows (which i didn't even enjoy that much). Most of the gameplay mechanics just felt too similar. Throughout the singleplayer, the main missions start off punchy but begin to feel very alike. The only side quest i really enjoyed was web of intrigue as it added something to the story, the others seemed fairly arbitary, especially seeming as xp isn't really that hard to get.