It was somewhere in between bowling an old lady from the top of the Empire State Building and halving thirty people at once with a whip of an infected tendril that it finally clicked: Prototype isn't aiming for subtle. Carnage on a grand scale. Enough blood to earn a truck load of platinum donor cards. Civilian deaths in their thousands (onscreen pop-ups take great glee in delivering the toll). It opens with you performing elbow drops on tanks in Times Square - and this is a quieter moment. Once more with feeling: subtle it ain't.
Neither does it subtly hide its roots. A 'superpower sandbox' game, it follows in the footsteps first laid by Spider-Man 2, further enlarged by Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (also Radical's work) and more recently bounded from by Crackdown. While the GTAs and Saints Rows of this world dabble with the destructive abilities of a single human, this game casts you as God. And where those previous examples too often fall down is in casting you as a hero god, shackled by good guy status. But here you'll see bad Peter Parker kerb-stomp a cop's head into a jammy puddle.
Prototype
Official trailer
4:42Missions trailer
Prototype
Official trailer
4:42Missions trailer
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With great power doesn't come great responsibility, but the great desire to use said great power on causing great discomfort to great pedestrians. Uncle Ben's original point was more succinct, but Prototype's is way more fun. Technically, our hero (genero-scowler Alex Mercer) is trying to balance his attention between the army out to neutralise him and the infected hoard eating up New York, but this doesn't mean you have to be kind to the New Yorkers stuck in the middle of it all. They're nothing more than health packs and guinea pigs to test out new powers on.
And what brilliantly vicious powers they are. A kind of pic-'n'-mix of comic book lore, Radical take Spider-Man's agility, but replace Parker's weedy biff-pow-paff fisticuffs with Hulk's brute strength and Wolverine's razor sharp claws. There's a great deal of comedy in using Mercer's diseased biceps to lob people the width of Manhattan Island or splat them against walls (we don't want to know where Radical get the spot-on sound effects from), but the blood-drenched stars of the show are undoubtedly Alex's shape-shifting claws and tendrils.
Bodies are split at the waist, severed diagonally and cleaved perfectly in two - leaving both parts to slurp away from one another in comedy fashion. Claws mince. Giant bony fists pulverise heads into mush. Groundspikes jut from the tarmac to impale folk in an upward fountain of jiggling corpses. Whipfists turn Alex into Indiana Jones, albeit an Indiana Jones who can dismember ten at a time with a sweeping crack. And their arrivals are perfectly paced, so you're always motivated to earn XP to unlock that next bit of unpleasantness. Mindless murder? You can't go wrong.
Luckily, Prototype does mindful murder, too. Alex's forms are geared towards a variety of situations, and morphing between them is the key to not just efficient combat, but beautiful combat. (Well, as beautiful as a taxi through a helicopter can get, anyway.) For example, hammerfists can be used to clear away small fry before you unsheathe your sword arm to go one-on-one with a tank. For a more creative flourish, you could use your whip arm to yank an air vent from a rooftop before sprouting burly musclearms to lob it with added oomph. All while freefalling. From the Chrysler Building.
Considering that Spider-Man's camera could freak out if you even threw a punch, this is no small feat. Thanks mainly to a lock-on that always picks out the biggest threat (no small thing when you consider it has to often pick between two enemy sides at any one time) you're not just able to pull off these moves but watch them play out in all their glory. There's a deliberate smidge of slowdown just as you lock-on in order to give you time to ensure that you have the foe you want in your sights, but this effect also acts as the game taking a quick intake of breath before you do something undeniably awesome. It's a nice trick.
On the flipside to the bloody havoc is the game's stealthy alter ego. Using a horribly gooey body-absorbing technique, Alex converts biological foes into health and can steal other human forms. Got the army on your tail? Freedom is as easy as breaking the line of sight and morphing into an old lady. Not got an army on your tail? Do it anyway. There's nothing odder than an 80-year-old biddy hotfooting it up the Rockefeller Plaza. The real focus, however, is duplicating military personnel for strategic purposes. Alas, this isn't as well implemented as one might hope.
In a grunt's body you can walk undetected in their bases. That's handy. You can order down artillery strikes. Good for crowd control. Eat a commander and you enter private quarters to absorb the cream of the army crop, boosting weapon efficiency to boot. What a great idea! Er, but that's kind of it. You enter the same bases, using the same technique over and over again. Far too easy to succeed, it becomes more of a habit than a task. Once you unlock the 'stealth consume' move you can eat a hanger of thirty men without batting an eyelid. Isn't tension the idea of stealth?
By no means a colossal misfire - it's funny to see a hanger dotted with thirty dropped rifles - just not quite the creative free-for-all enabled by Alex's combat skills. The real problem is that, a few strict stealth missions aside, it's really no skin off Alex's nose to go in all guns blazing. Hop the fence, gobble up the commander, enter the base and activate a devastator attack to kill everyone in an instant. Trust us, if Sam Fisher could grow a twenty foot tentacle he'd soon jack in that shadow nonsense. Bombastic nastiness is so effortless in Prototype. Why reject it?
Radical took a big gamble making Alex a doddle to command. You hold the trigger and you run up skyscrapers. Draw out your riot shield and people, cars and trees will ricochet away like skittles as you sprint between them. Don't like a helicopter? Flick an air vent at them and they're gone for good. Did an entire street of people look at you the wrong way? Activate a devastator attack - ground bursting spikes in a twenty metre radius, for example - and they're all insta-mince. Practically every controller button is a death button; what could Radical do to stop you?
It's here Prototype most radically parts company with earlier superhero sandbox games. As Hulk grew stronger, so did enemy health bars. As Spidey gets faster, so to do the forces of evil. How obvious. How dull. Prototype is just as guilty of cracking out the old mega-enemies (under the guise of the ever-evolving infection), but it recognises it has to do more. Using the rapidly spreading virus as justification, Radical push the scale of action to a city-wide level, where even Alex's most colourful abilities will struggle to get your attention.
First, they give you a god, then they give you a god-sized problem. Hundreds of zombies scrabble amongst smoking car wrecks. Building-high hydras sprout from the streets. The assault rifle fire that tickled Alex before is replaced with grenades that destroy the meat in his hands that he intends to consume. Tanks light up the streets with barrages that push Alex to the rooftops, where awaiting helicopters are ready to bully him back down. For once, when the cut-scene villains boast about "closing in on him" you actually feel it.
You can expect similar scenes from some of the earlier missions, but once the game reaches the two-thirds mark the action of the missions spills out into every waking minute of game time. Smoke billows. Beasts burst from water towers. Looking down from the roofs you watch tanks gun street after street of infected to shreds. It's as impressive a riot set-piece as we've seen, but also one that strips some of the fun from messing around in-between missions. Enjoy those recrimination-free early days because they don't come back.
And while enemy numbers and chaotic happenings are a technical marvel, it is at the expense of a compelling environment. Although never succumbing to the glitches of the recent Hulk and Spider-Man titles (although Alex's gliding ability can reveal some ugly truths about the draw distance), the free-roaming city could have been lifted directly: it's New York at its blocky worst. We understand that geometrical simplicity is required to pull off Alex's parkour moves (the odd overhang he does hit can befuddle him), but do we really need to be here?
Hulk and Spider-Man were tethered to the Big Apple by the licence; Prototype is entirely in the hands of Radical. They could have set it in Norwich if they wanted to. Instead we get the same endless plains of glass-fronted skyscrapers, red brick universities and dock-side warehouses (although at least they kept away from the equally ubiquitous Las Vegas). There's a reason the game opens in Times Square: it's the only 100 square metres that has any colour. Factor in the disease slowly spreading through the city, entangling buildings in red vines, and the longer you play, the more hellishly vague the place becomes.
Similarly, if you've explored this city before you may get déjŕ-vu during some of the missions. Chase this chap for so many blocks. Destroy these machines on those rooftops. Defend this place for three minutes. In making a game about overblown superpowers, Radical cannot play with the minutia of city life that enables GTA's mission variety - but do super powered beings always need to retread the same ground? Stealth missions hint at a grander vision, but they still feel like, well, prototypes, for a finished project.
Don't get us wrong, this is by no means a deal breaker; we just wish Prototype's structure as a whole had the energy and vigour of its protagonist. People poke fun at Spider-Man's balloon rescuing missions, but what else is Parker to do? Saving balloons is part of Spider-Man's MO. Alex is free from the tiresome chores of the well intentioned - irresistibly free - so you can't help but see any pandering to these conventions as a slight betrayal. Don't worry though; spend half a minute lopping a few hundred heads off and all is right as rain again.
Berating Prototype for not having loftier ideals is sort of missing the point. It sits quite happily in a genre of imperfect games, and on a throne above most of them as well. Leaping from roof to roof, pirouetting as you go to throw satellite dishes at the police below, before delivering a flying kick to a helicopter - one can't help but be reminded why this genre exists in the first place. Like this month's Red Faction, it is an experience proud of its inherently silly gamey-ness; doing for human limbs what Guerrilla does for architecture. Short on frustration, big on satisfaction.
It won't challenge GTA IV. It's too blasé and obvious for that. Y'know, like GTA used to be. As we said earlier, there's not an ounce of subtlety in its whole virus-riddled body. Think about this as you cling onto the Empire State Building. Continue to hold onto the idea as you launch away and glide over to Times Square. Keep pondering the subject as you hurl to the ground like a missile, shattering benches, bones and Black Ops as you land. Go over the idea one last time as you crawl into a ball before launching out one hundred tendrils that explode every car, man and helicopter they touch.
Then walk away calmly and do it all over again as the old lady you're about to eat. You know what? Subtle ain't all it's cracked up to be.
And where those previous examples too often fall down is in casting you as a hero god, shackled by good guy status. But here you'll see bad Peter Parker kerb-stomp a cop's head into a jammy puddle.
There. That is precisely what I've never liked about the premise of this game since I first started reading about it. It's not that you can do bad things to innocent bystanders that has turned me off from this game; it's more to do with the sense that doing bad things to innocent bystanders and an army of soldiers doing their duty is the *only* point of the game. Others will like it and that's fine, but personally I find it difficult and distasteful to get behind the protagonist - indeed, from the get go he has appeared to me as the sort of character I would want to see defeated and destroyed in a movie and in real life. That makes me not want to play him and it means that I don't want to play this game.
There. That is precisely what I've never liked about the premise of this game since I first started reading about it. It's not that you can do bad things to innocent bystanders that has turned me off from this game; it's more to do with the sense that doing bad things to innocent bystanders and an army of soldiers doing their duty is the *only* point of the game. Others will like it and that's fine, but personally I find it difficult and distasteful to get behind the protagonist - indeed, from the get go he has appeared to me as the sort of character I would want to see defeated and destroyed in a movie and in real life. That makes me not want to play him and it means that I don't want to play this game.
Well you guys are just standard then. there is nothing like a decent anti-hero to go against the grain a bit.
You think that's going against the grain? If you want to really shock how about creating something meaningful for the ages? That's revolutionary. This just seems like a very nice looking, somewhat repetitive collection of cheap thrills and shock value, and it's not even all that shocking these days.
I said going against the grain ABIT. As in against your standard hero, and I wasn't solely talking about games, I was merely referencing character archetypes. I never said anything about it being shocking. As far as I'm concerned its an aimlessly destructive game. However as it is summer I will be playing sports and stuff, so just want something to pick up and play. Not everyone has to create something amazing and 10 out of 10 every time. if they did, the games that get rated 10 out of 10 would hardly be special would they?
And where those previous examples too often fall down is in casting you as a hero god, shackled by good guy status. But here you'll see bad Peter Parker kerb-stomp a cop's head into a jammy puddle.
There. That is precisely what I've never liked about the premise of this game since I first started reading about it. It's not that you can do bad things to innocent bystanders that has turned me off from this game; it's more to do with the sense that doing bad things to innocent bystanders and an army of soldiers doing their duty is the *only* point of the game. Others will like it and that's fine, but personally I find it difficult and distasteful to get behind the protagonist - indeed, from the get go he has appeared to me as the sort of character I would want to see defeated and destroyed in a movie and in real life. That makes me not want to play him and it means that I don't want to play this game.
Totally agree. That is why I always championed Infamous over Prototype, because at least with Infamous you get the choice between good and bad. Me? I'll always be the goody two shoes.
I said going against the grain ABIT. As in against your standard hero, and I wasn't solely talking about games, I was merely referencing character archetypes. I never said anything about it being shocking. As far as I'm concerned its an aimlessly destructive game. However as it is summer I will be playing sports and stuff, so just want something to pick up and play. Not everyone has to create something amazing and 10 out of 10 every time. if they did, the games that get rated 10 out of 10 would hardly be special would they?
And where those previous examples too often fall down is in casting you as a hero god, shackled by good guy status. But here you'll see bad Peter Parker kerb-stomp a cop's head into a jammy puddle.
There. That is precisely what I've never liked about the premise of this game since I first started reading about it. It's not that you can do bad things to innocent bystanders that has turned me off from this game; it's more to do with the sense that doing bad things to innocent bystanders and an army of soldiers doing their duty is the *only* point of the game. Others will like it and that's fine, but personally I find it difficult and distasteful to get behind the protagonist - indeed, from the get go he has appeared to me as the sort of character I would want to see defeated and destroyed in a movie and in real life. That makes me not want to play him and it means that I don't want to play this game.
Totally agree. That is why I always championed Infamous over Prototype, because at least with Infamous you get the choice between good and bad. Me? I'll always be the goody two shoes.
I think inFamous looks fantastic and I really like the idea that your character changes in appearance based upon your actions. That you have the option to be good or evil is more to my liking than what I've read about Prototype. I would happily buy Infamous if I had chosen to buy a PS3. Sony were too slow on the price drop though so I went with the Xbox 360 with no regrets.
let me start off by saying that i have been playing this for an hour and it is butt f**kingly hilarious. the opening 10 minutes is one of the sweetest openings ever. full blown carnage... it is very ugly to look at, definitely not much better than a top quality wii game. but the combat really is awesome. check it out, you won't be sorry.
on the note of infamous, yep the game is incredible. i think i prefer it over prototype. that said, there is no reason why there needs to be a contest between the two. they are very different and should stand as two sole titles.
i own both and i'm happy that i've got such brilliant games within a month of each other.
I think inFamous looks fantastic and I really like the idea that your character changes in appearance based upon your actions. That you have the option to be good or evil is more to my liking than what I've read about Prototype. I would happily buy Infamous if I had chosen to buy a PS3. Sony were too slow on the price drop though so I went with the Xbox 360 with no regrets.
i actually bought a ps3 just for infamous and i wasn't sorry. i like my ps3 more than my 360 now. just to clarify, infamous is a solid reason to part with your cash.
I think this is a renter at first anyway I only bought infamous two weeks ago and picked up Red Faction yesterday so my game money is spent for June my Credit Card clearance comes first.
I really have been enjoying infamous too. I also want to go back to Fable II because I dont think I gave it a fair crack of the whip....... The 360 and PS3 are great down with the Wii
I think inFamous looks fantastic and I really like the idea that your character changes in appearance based upon your actions. That you have the option to be good or evil is more to my liking than what I've read about Prototype. I would happily buy Infamous if I had chosen to buy a PS3. Sony were too slow on the price drop though so I went with the Xbox 360 with no regrets.
i actually bought a ps3 just for infamous and i wasn't sorry. i like my ps3 more than my 360 now. just to clarify, infamous is a solid reason to part with your cash.
Oh I don't doubt inFamous is worth paying good money for. However, given my at best lukewarm interest in BR (for now, I expect it will change in time as prices come down,) and the price for the PS3 compared to the bargain price I got for the Xbox 360, and in light of the extensive entertainment both consoles offer (the Wii too, but it's gaming library doesn't appeal as much to me,) it was an easy decision for me to make. Had Sony been more competitive price wise earlier on it might have been their console I bought, but for now my gaming PC and my Xbox 360 are more than sufficient for me.
I think inFamous looks fantastic and I really like the idea that your character changes in appearance based upon your actions. That you have the option to be good or evil is more to my liking than what I've read about Prototype. I would happily buy Infamous if I had chosen to buy a PS3. Sony were too slow on the price drop though so I went with the Xbox 360 with no regrets.
i actually bought a ps3 just for infamous and i wasn't sorry. i like my ps3 more than my 360 now. just to clarify, infamous is a solid reason to part with your cash.
Oh I don't doubt inFamous is worth paying good money for. However, given my at best lukewarm interest in BR (for now, I expect it will change in time as prices come down,) and the price for the PS3 compared to the bargain price I got for the Xbox 360, and in light of the extensive entertainment both consoles offer (the Wii too, but it's gaming library doesn't appeal as much to me,) it was an easy decision for me to make. Had Sony been more competitive price wise earlier on it might have been their console I bought, but for now my gaming PC and my Xbox 360 are more than sufficient for me.
I have to attest to being a bit puzzled by you getting a 360 though, considering you already get most of the decent games on PC.
I think inFamous looks fantastic and I really like the idea that your character changes in appearance based upon your actions. That you have the option to be good or evil is more to my liking than what I've read about Prototype. I would happily buy Infamous if I had chosen to buy a PS3. Sony were too slow on the price drop though so I went with the Xbox 360 with no regrets.
i actually bought a ps3 just for infamous and i wasn't sorry. i like my ps3 more than my 360 now. just to clarify, infamous is a solid reason to part with your cash.
Oh I don't doubt inFamous is worth paying good money for. However, given my at best lukewarm interest in BR (for now, I expect it will change in time as prices come down,) and the price for the PS3 compared to the bargain price I got for the Xbox 360, and in light of the extensive entertainment both consoles offer (the Wii too, but it's gaming library doesn't appeal as much to me,) it was an easy decision for me to make. Had Sony been more competitive price wise earlier on it might have been their console I bought, but for now my gaming PC and my Xbox 360 are more than sufficient for me.
I have to attest to being a bit puzzled by you getting a 360 though, considering you already get most of the decent games on PC.
It's fairly straight forward as reasons go: There are actually quite a number of games that are released for the Xbox 360 which do not make it to the PC, or which I would rather play on the Xbox. Now couple that with the "right" price range in so far as my tastes go at present and the odds strongly favoured MS this time around. Both Sony and Nintendo (which surprised me a bit,) actually got quite a bit more consideration than I had expected, but in the end Sony's price range is not one I'm willing to pay for a console (I would be playing games on it primarily and not care too much about any other functions), and the Wii's games line-up is only now starting to show a few potential gems that I'm interested in.
I was really up for P'type being as good as inFAMOUS but it just isn't in it's league at all for me. It starts off impressively but soon the really poor textures, weak animations and rough edges creep in.
Also I find that you're pretty much invulnerable to anything but the hardest of opponents and playing games where it's easier to win athan it is to die a bit off putting.
Simply doesn't have the visual , narrative clout or slick controls and balanced gameplay of inFAMOUS and I think a 7/10 would be very accurate-it's still a fun romp just a bit less pretty than I'd hoped(and I got it for PC!)and VERY similar to their previous Hulk game. Don't like the cars/blocks/stuff you pick up to chuck around going invisible very appealing either as it just looks silly.
Having got both systems x360/PS3 I got this for PS3 as I recently got a PS3 and need to build up a collection..and wow, this game rocks! You dont notice the innocents geting hurt (but you wewre genetically experimented on and trying to track source with army and everyone else on your case) not like inFAMOUS where I started anti hero and changed and started again as the game made me feel bad so I became good...but still, this is fun, it is no spiderman, I cant websling so I dont know where thats coming from, and as the hulk, um, I can pick up trucks and throw them yeah, I see, but otherwise last night I spent a full hour battling Hunter beasts and consuming them gaining exp and all I had to do was knock out these fuel tanks! Still ace fun battling monsters and consuming them gaining exp and using that exp to up my moves/powers, I cant wait to play more, as for inFAMOUS I am loving it, glad I got a PS3...the 360 I got Velvet Assassin annoying me to death and Bionic Commando which I won from CAPCOM
I rented this and was impressed to begin with. The freedom, the carnage etc.. etc... But it's all starting to wear a bit thin. You are literally pummelled at every turn, I found myself just flying about panicking as I got repeatedly bombarded with missiles and the ilk.
You take a split second to consume for health and you get ten missiles up your ass.
To cap it all off the game has decided to take away all my powers *again* so dealing with tanks and the ilk are now infinately more difficult and frustrating.
The switching between powers is really clumsy, I would have much preferred a quick select so you can link combos together easier.
It's just too manic, the city is a hell of a boring place to play in after a while and all you've got egging to on is the power upgrades, then they decide to take them off you.
It's totally weird how I went from wanting to buy this to wanting to burn the disk in a few hours.
As a game to mess about in and kill stuff it's good to chuck on and let off steam, as an actual game it fails quite badly. I wish these developers would spend more time making the missions interesting to do.
It's a shame, with refinement this could have been a class game. What's really weird is that even at 49% infection there's still traffic just milling about, it's a f**king odd game.
I rented this and was impressed to begin with. The freedom, the carnage etc.. etc... But it's all starting to wear a bit thin. You are literally pummelled at every turn, I found myself just flying about panicking as I got repeatedly bombarded with missiles and the ilk.
You take a split second to consume for health and you get ten missiles up your ass.
To cap it all off the game has decided to take away all my powers *again* so dealing with tanks and the ilk are now infinately more difficult and frustrating.
The switching between powers is really clumsy, I would have much preferred a quick select so you can link combos together easier.
It's just too manic, the city is a hell of a boring place to play in after a while and all you've got egging to on is the power upgrades, then they decide to take them off you.
It's totally weird how I went from wanting to buy this to wanting to burn the disk in a few hours.
As a game to mess about in and kill stuff it's good to chuck on and let off steam, as an actual game it fails quite badly. I wish these developers would spend more time making the missions interesting to do.
It's a shame, with refinement this could have been a class game. What's really weird is that even at 49% infection there's still traffic just milling about, it's a f**king odd game.
Thanks for the update; it confirms my concerns about this game. This is one title I'll be taking a pass on.
I think it is a fantastic game. There is always so much going on at once.
I played Infamous first and really liked it although found it a bit slow and dull in places. Prototype is anything but dull. Once you get the swing of combat you are a force to be reckoned with.
Brilliant stuff. Finished it last night and it's one of the only games (bar Dead Space) that I would want to play again.
Could someone please tell me when 8 became average.. if so then we have a 16 point scale yeah?
Honestly, not buying a game because it gets an 8 is like not dating a beautiful woman because she has blonde hair instead of brown..and your mates dont like blonde hair.
get some perspective, geeze.
As to whether its a good game, i enjoy it, though i can see the repetitive argument being fair, so i would also give it about an 8.
honestly the game is very average, not nearly comparable with infamous and certainly not the epic dead space.
I have yet to play infamous, but the Game(tm) review of it said it was buggy as hell and not very fleshed out..which surprises me due to suckerpunch's previous sly raccoon stuff...but it never really interested me. Karma type stuff is so artificial and rubbish that i had no need to play it. Ill play the demo later and see how it compares anyway.
as for dead space being epic...
no. just no.
and its a completely different type of game, like comparing GT5 with Lost Planet...they both have driving in them but..wtf?
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Outrageously violent
infamous and prototype both got higher then 8/10 BOW DOWN B!TCH sorry guys looks like im here 2 stay 
