[PROTOTYPE] has attracted a fair bit of attention during its development. A game that, from the pre-release trailers, seemed to offer a large city as your playground, and all the cities content as your playthings.
Does [PROTOTYPE] deliver this? Well, yes and no.
[PROTOTYPE] does indeed give you a large(ish) city to run, jump and smash your way through, filled with civilians, soldiers and as the story progresses more and more infected to unleash your fury on, but it also gets a few things wrong.
The game puts you in the shoes of Alex Mercer, a guy who's majorly pissed off and maybe more than a little nuts. But hell, I'd be pissed off and more than a little nuts if I woke up in a morgue and discovered I was no longer strictly human.
Mercer is a badass, a pissed off, lethal badass. Although the game ultimately gives you 'superhero' powers, it's safe to say Mercer isn't a superhero. In fact, it's hard to say what category Mercer would fall into. He's certainly no hero, nor is he an anti-hero, yet at the same time he's not paticularly a villain... He's simply a guy who should be dead, wakes up in a Morgue and goes on a path of destruction to find out what has happened to him.
The story can feel like abit of a mash-up at times, i'm not going to mention much about the story since I don't want to spoil things but it all seems to move a little too quickly, introducing characters and then a few missions down the line writing them back out, sometimes you can see holes so apparent in the plotline you'll wonder how the hell the writers missed them. Still, [PROTOTYPE] offers a fun, fast moving storyline with a decent enough (if a little mentally unstable) protagonist, and is a good length too, clocking in at around 10 -12 hours.
Moving on, the game offers alot of variety in terms of abilities/moves. When I say alot, I mean ALOT. So much variety in fact, that sometimes the control mapping really does suffer for it (One paticular move for example requires you to press X and B on the Xbox 360 controller at the same time, X & B!?) but it's hard to complain about so much variety in fairness, despite the control issues, since most games nowadays offer hardly any variety whatsoever.
Some of Mercers abilties include being able to turn his hands/arms into all sorts of wonderfully weird weaponry, including claws and blades amongst others. Our protagonist also has the ability to consume just about any civilian or soldier in the city, allowing you to take on their form.
This, for me, is easily the best mechanic in the game. Just imagine that for a second, you can take on the form of anybody just about... It sounds kool and it is kool, actually it's epic. Alot of press who have reviewed the game have slated the fact that there is hardly any variety in the civilians and it's pretty much a copy and paste job, you'll walk down the street and see the same faces over and over and over again. However, i'm not going to slate that, even though it is noticeable, it's also forgettable because you can fricking shapeshift! I mean come on, that's just nitpicking...
Graphically the game has some issues - Copy and paste buildings, occassionally sloppy textures and a poor draw distance all take away from the experience a little bit, but in all fairness you'll soon forget about these little gripes because you can fricking shapeshift!
The game is fantastically fun, running across rooftops then jumping tremendously high is great in itself. Add to that the ability to use your whip arm (Damn it, did I not mention the whip arm!? Shame on me) to grab helicopters and 'zip' yourself up, then hijack them and go on a rampage with your nice new chopper, being chased through the city streets by the military strike teams... Does it sound fun? There ya go.
The game has some areas that could have done with some polish, the aforementioned graphics for one thing, sound is also pretty basic. It does it's job however, so I won't lay down any criticism on it as it stands up well enough.
The enemy AI is poor, as in laughably stupid, and more often than not, downright terrible. The game does get harder as the story progresses and Mercer gains more powers, but it doesn't get harder due to the AI getting smarter, it simply throws enemies at you with bigger guns and harder armor. The thing is, if the enemies were considerably smarter, I honestly don't think the game would be as fun. There's just something about going into an enemy base and going around grabbing the soldiers and consuming them one by one, taking the form of each one and walking upto the next to take on his form, so on and so forth, so in all honesty i'm not sure whether I would consider the poor AI a flaw.
Unfortunately the co-op aspect of the game was dropped quite awhile back, and there have been no hints to suggest it'll ever be added, which is unfortunate as the game would be a blast playing with friends. However there's enough content here to keep you playing for a long time, especially if you're an elitist who wants to find every hidden secret and discover every aspect of the game. Speaking of secrets, one of my favourite features is what is called the Web of Intrigue.
Alex Mercer, as stated previously, wakes up in a Morgue and has no memory of who he is or what has happened to him. Over the course of the game, you will consume specific targets who are all linked to Mercer in one way or another, when you consume a target there's a short graphical cutscene if you like, which is actually just a mix of mixed up images, as well as a small piece of dialogue which plays and usually mentions Mercer in one way or another. These targets are called Web of Intrigue targets and from the pause menu you can access the Web of Intrigue interface and listen back to any of the consumed targets dialogue at anytime, ultimately allowing you to make sense of things and piece it all together. It's a neat feature and it works really well.
It's hard for me writing this review, because some of the powers are so awesome that I couldn't do them justice by writing about them, and I really don't want to spoil alot of the games surprises so I think i'll wrap it up here.
Closing Thoughts
[PROTOTYPE] is a gore filled, explosive roller coaster ride. It's fast paced from start to finish and will keep action fans satisfied all the way. Some graphical & audio issues, as well as the lack of co-op keep [PROTOTYPE] from reaching it's full potential, however that shouldn't stop you picking up this great title.
Comments
Huh? :s
RSS feed for comments to this post