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The most fun open-world game in a long time. Prototype, the latest game from Radical Entertainment, developers behind The Simpsons: Hit and Run and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, takes the open-world formula, removes all the fluff, and gives you an insanely powerful guy to wreak havoc (and save Manhattan) in the process.
Protoype stars Alex Mercer, a rather typical anti-hero, who finds himself with superhuman powers and abilities but no recollection of how it happened. After an incredibly exhilarating opening, you realize that you have no idea why you have powers or Manhattan got infected. The game then shifts back 18 days before the infection to fill you in. Along the way, you’ll also be able to consume various people (more on this later) and absorb their memories in an intriguing feature called “Web of Intrigue” which fills out the details and allows you to see how different people are linked. Nonetheless, the story is rather standard and ultimately forgettable fare.
Prototype’s 10-12 hour singleplayer campaign contains 31 missions as you try to understand how you got these powers, who was involved in creating you, and what happened to the city. As hinted above, Alex is truly a powerful well, thing. You can leap over cars (or crush them out of the way), jump dozens of flights, run up walls, glide through the air, and throw vehicles at helicopters in a zombie-infected Manhattan. You also have hands that shift into tentacles, blades, claws, supersized fists, and more at your disposal. Alex also has the ability to consume people (including Blackwatch guards, commanders, ect) to shift into their appearance (and absorb their memories and skills). You’ll notice a meter in the bottom-left corner that shows whether the Blackwatch forces are watching you (yellow) or onto you (red). If they’re onto you, you can choose to fight them off or hide and disguise yourself and walk away freely. The game’s best missions give you the flexibility to go in guns blazing (you can pick up guns, assault rifles, and grenade launchers) or simply disguise yourself and walk in without alerting anyone.
Like the Grand Theft Auto games, you can have a ton of fun with Prototype when you’re not in a mission. Running up walls, gliding down, running up another wall, running into and grabbing a van that you then hurl at an enemy before you send huge spikes at another is thrilling, especially since you can upgrade your powers, movement and skills as you play the game by collecting red orbs from fallen enemies. As mentioned above, you begin the actual game with fairly limited superpowers but by the end you’re almost ridiculously powerful with the ability to have dozens of tentacles come out of your body in every direction and the ability to have dozens of spikes come in from the ground.
Further, the game has over 60 side missions that give you additional evolution points as you earn bronze, silver and gold medals. These missions range from consuming a particular set of enemies, killing a certain number of enemies, racing through checkpoints in a certain number of time, etc. There are also hundreds of hidden orbs (including some which give hints for gameplay) that you’ll feel compelled to find because moving around the city is so fun. It would have been awesome if Radical included some sort of free-roam online mode but there’s still a ton of content in Prototype.
Once you’re done with the story, you unlock a Game+ mode that lets you replay the game (perhaps at a higher difficulty level) with all of your upgrades unlocked. You’re also free to continue roaming the city and completing the side missions.
The game isn’t without issues. The last few missions are quite challenging as the difficulty ramps up significantly from the missions before that. It would have been awesome to not see any loading screens (there are quite a few usually before CGI story scenes and they’re longer on the PS3). Also, sometimes you need to run away a bit too much for a game that otherwise encourages such raw display of strength. These issues are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, though.
Visually, Prototype definitely shines. The scaled down Manhattan is detailed and includes all of the landmarks you’d expect (Empire State Building, Central Park, Times Square, Penn Station, bridges, etc) and looks great. You’ll also see how the city deteriorates from the start of the game (where it looks normal) to the end (where it really looks like a gross, zombie-infected mess). The game throws a lot onscreen including a ton of vehicles, civilians, enemies, and guards, etc. The character models, especially Alex, all look great with sharp textures and models, although it would have been nice to see more differentiation between the Blackwatch guards. The game is wonderfully gruesome as you’ll have the ability to slice people into pieces and then keep pounding on them. There are also tons of special effects, including the really fancy Devastator attacks that Alex can pull off. The framerate isn’t perfect but isn’t a detriment either especially considering how much is going on.
Similarly, the audio is well made with great explosion and fighting effects topping out the good but not great sound effects and voice acting. Of course, given the game’s focus on causing mayhem, the fact that this area delivers is probably all you’ll need.
Prototype is easily one of summer’s must-haves and a ridiculously fun game. The insane amount of strength, skills and powers you get in the game is amazing and the game does a great job of making you feel like you’re really in control of a truly powerful being. Some of the missions are a bit too hard and there are other nitpicks but none really matter considering how wonderful most of the missions are and how fun the core gameplay is. You can waste hours jacking tanks, skyjacking helicopters, gliding around the city, and generally causing mayhem in a way only an anti-hero could. A great example of what an open-world game could be. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Jun 9, 2009
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