[Prototype]

Prototype. A game set in Manhattan, New York. You play as Alex Mercer, who at the beginning doesn't remember a thing, waking up on an autopsy table. As he escapes, he is shot dead presumably several times. As he tries to uncover his past, he unravels a super-secret government conspiracy around the development of biological weaponry, particularly around the one that infected him, known as the Blackwatch Virus.

It plays much like The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.



The game is pretty simple to understand. You can free-roam around Manhattan and do whatever you please, and when you want to continue the story, the marker is on your minimap as well as your main map showing you where to go.

It looks pretty much like a zombie game. Infections of a virus spreading, and the military attempting to contain it. Both sides gain stronger units built specifically to fight Mercer as the story progresses.




But thankfully, as the game progresses you gain new abilities which will allow you to be more agressive against the ever-increasing military numbers coming into the island. Some of the abilities are given automatically during story events; however, most of the abilities must be purchased through an "upgrade" menu. You earn points to spend in the menu with pretty much everything you do in the game, and the harder the task, the more points you earn. There are also "Events", which give you a specific task to earn a specific amount of points, littered throughout the city. More appear as the story progresses.

Alex also has an ability innate to the start of the game, that allows him to "consume" a person. When you do, you can then disguise yourself as that person. But only the most recent person you consumed. Usually, it would be used to gain health. But it could also be a part of the story, or to hide from the military.

The story itself is pretty straightforward. Do this, attack that, kill that guy, consume that guy. If you want to get the meaning behind the picture, however, then finding certain people, marked with a little floating red head above them, will give you information that makes the simple story a lot deeper, and if you find enough, it becomes significantly darker. These people are called "Web of Intrigue" targets, and the name rightly fits them.




I give [Prototype] a 4 out of 5.

The good points:
The story is very detailed, if you try to find all of the web targets. Even if you find the minimal amount of the side story, the flow between the main events is smooth. The gameplay is pretty straightforward. The battle system is somewhat complex, but remains consistent.

The bad points:
Some missions, as well as events, require precision movement, which is practically impossible. It takes less than a minute fully upgraded to move from the lowest corner of the island to the opposite, highest point, but when you are asked to move from point 'A' to point 'B' in a certain amount of time, with sharp turns and ludicrus obstacles, it gets to the point of "throw your controller through your tv" frustration. And if that wasn't bad enough, boss fights in the game will make you even more angry. Fighting leading up to the boss fights are relatively easy to somewhat complex; but then when you get to the boss himself/herself, it's as if the game developers that went something like this:
"All right, How should we do the boss fights?"
"I vote we put the hardest rarer units in with the boss, in large numbers."
"I vote we add the military to go in there, with tanks and helicopters, and rockets, in large numbers."
"I vote we make the fights long. Very long."
"Good, good. And to top it all off, if you die, even if you were two seconds away from winning, you have to restart from the beginning of the fight. Good work everyone, that alone would make any gamer weep with joy."



Definitely a game worth playing, and even replaying. Just beware of the movement-specific events.

~Koubo