Lots of fun when you're blowing stuff up, but a somewhat boring narrative brings it down a bit.
It seems like a lot of people want to compare PROTOTYPE and InFamous, and while they are similar in certain aspects, I honestly think PROTOTYPE has a few more things in common with another Activision published title, the last Spider-Man game called Web of Shadows. I suppose that comes from the whole running up walls thing that Alex Mercer uses to scale the city buildings, in addition to the large powered up jumps he can make, but it also stems from the way the power-ups to his abilities work, along with the targeting and melee style combat involved.
That said, they're not made by the same team of course, and while Radical has worked on a Marvel property before with Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Alex Mercer is a far cry from your typical superhero. Over the course of the game you will kill thousands and thousands of people, with a mix of military personnel, regular civilians, and those infected with the strange virus that has slowly swept across the city, and seems to be the root cause of all of Alex's current issues.
The gameplay is fun, a lot of fun in fact, and is easily the best reason to pick up the title. If you choose to take apart certain things, it doesn't compare as favorably to other open world sandbox titles that have recently released, like say, Red Faction: Guerilla, but as a whole the game does exactly what it's intended to do, make you feel like a powerful bad-ass that can take a world of pain and at the same time dish it out. That's exactly what Alex does too, and as you progress through the game and gain experience points used to purchase various powers through your menu screen, Alex will gain large claws used to eviscerate opponents, a shield arm to deflect large attacks, the ability to consume and destroy not only enemies but regular people for health, speed that's on the borderline of being super, massive jumping abilities, and so on. A lot of this is derivative of other super-hero titles, sure, but it really doesn't matter since you'll still have a lot of fun performing all the moves available.
PROTOTYPE's only real big failing comes from the storyline, and the lack of impact Alex's involvement seems to have when it comes to those around him. As the game progresses Alex will meet a few people along the way that attempt to clue him in on the world around him, including why he woke up on a slab from a death nap with some funky powers in tow. My biggest issue though, is that everyone seems to interpret Alex as a hero, or a good guy, while the majority of the actions I take in the game are pretty damn evil (and unavoidable). His ex is sorry things didn't work out, (and this is after a mission where I killed 100 or so regular folks), his sister is pretty gung-ho about giving him a hand, and even a reluctant doctor that you run into has no issues boarding a tank with you and running over multiple people in order to get to your goal. I understand that tough times lead to desperate measures, but when nobody reacts to the overall destruction that you cause, it tends to bring you out of the narrative quite a bit.
I also wasn't sold on the story, about halfway through I started to not care about the virus, and more so about finishing the missions and completing sidequests, just to see how powerful Alex would get at the end point. The story felt a little convoluted to me, and having to track down optional individuals that would seemingly be random pop-ups on the mini-map started to tire out my patience when it came to filling in the holes that the story presented. This is where I will compare the game to Infamous though, in that Infamous was still a very serious narrative, but at the same time it managed to keep me involved and even a little emotionally attached to it's characters, while everyone in PROTOTYPE feels very hollow and stereotypical of other generic action game characters. It's not due to the voice over work, which was fine for everyone involved, and I can't quite nail down what didn't work for me, but the whole story felt very boring and basic overall.
There's a fair amount of value in the time the game will take you to complete, with a number of regular story related missions in addition to the tons of side-quest style events you can participate in, and two different hidden orbs (hints and locations) to track down and add to your experience pool. If you're a player that feels the need to get 100 percent in a game, PROTOTYPE will certainly take up a good chunk of time. There are various medals for the side-events, gold, silver, and bronze, but they're also not particularly hard. I managed to get gold on quite a few in a first attempt, so they most likely won't require the average player to retry them very often. However, the overall difficulty of the game is a little higher than I was suspecting. On the normal difficulty you'll realize quickly that if you're not particularly skilled in targeting and switching targets to high damage enemies you'll be taken out pretty fast, regardless of how super Alex Mercer might feel. The tanks and rocket launching enemies can be troublesome in particular, especially the rocket launchers since the enemies aren't too distinct looking, and the only way to tell them apart is by actually seeing what weapon they're carrying.
There is definitely a level of awesome that comes from taking down the big guns though, and certainly dropkicking a helicopter is a thing of awe. As the game progresses there are targets that Alex can consume that'll teach him some basic skills, including the ability to drive a tank, pilot a helicopter, and more, which just adds another level of fun to the gameplay. Also, Alex can pick up the weapons from enemies that have fallen, so you're not tied into just the powers you can wield, and the targeting system works well enough that combat with guns doesn't feel cumbersome. There's some dodge abilities tossed in too, and it's pretty easy to get around most basic enemy attacks without the camera messing you up or anything like that.
So depending on what you come into a game for, whether it's story or gameplay, will probably dictate whether PROTOTYPE is the game for you. It's a lot of fun when you're actually playing, but when it comes the story related material, it falls flat. If you enjoy open world sandbox style games, PROTOTYPE has a lot going for it, and there's certainly a lot of ground to cover through the entire city, and a lot of random stuff to find and toy around with. In the end, I had fun with PROTOTYPE, and while I might feel a bit more partial towards a couple other likeminded games that have recently released, it's certainly worth playing and checking out. The story is bland, but the action is great, and in a game like PROTOTYPE that's about all that really matters.
