REPLAY: [PROTOTYPE]

11 Jul, 2011

Title: [PROTOTYPE]
Platform: Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 / PC (reviewed on Xbox 360)
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: Activision
TL;DR: BOOM.
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Are you angry? Angry enough to kick helicopters out of the sky and pick up tanks with your bare hands, just to trash an entire city block? If you answered “Yes” to any of the above, or hell even if you have day dreams of causing widespread pandemonium, then Radical Entertainment’s [PROTOTYPE] is for you.

Now, this game is far from perfect. I will say this though: it is one hell of a fun game. It doesn’t have the most original story, and it certainly lacks in some departments. As a whole though, [PROTOTYPE] delivers, and it delivers big. I place emphasis on the “big” because of the scale of mass destruction you can wreck.

[PROTOTYPE] is a game that chases after any superhero games’ hearts. You play as Alex Mercer, a very angry man who has super powers granted to him by a virus that resides within his body. He parkours like nobody’s business, can run up the side of a skyscraper without breaking a sweat, and yes he can kick the best military helicopters out of the air.

Let me get something straight though. While this game is a lot of fun, it also made me become very angry and wish I could kick a helicopter out of the sky just for the fun of it. The action is very fast paced and frantic, which is part of the fun, but also contributes to the chaotic mechanics. Imagine a battlefield, strewn with little zombies nipping at your heels. There are three very large, very angry infected enemies running towards you full tilt. These are only half of your problems, as you’ve also got military personnel firing away at you with rockets, grenade launchers, tanks, and oh yeah, those helicopters you can kick out of the sky.

“Complete and utter chaos” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The erratic camera in this case is to be expected. With Mercer jumping around like a crazy monkey that’s had its tail set on fire, it’s really no surprise that sometimes the camera angles simply can’t keep up with you. This becomes quite bothersome during later stages of the game, where defeating stronger enemies forces you to focus on them while everything else is still trying to kill you.

The horrid targeting system, however, is simply beyond words. Radical Entertainment’s definition of “priority targets within your line of sight” just doesn’t work. With millions of targets on screen at any given time, pressing the trigger button to lock-on to the nearest target often resulted in locking on to a tiny zombie, as opposed to anything of real threat. And then death occurred. Frustrating? Yes. Maddeningly so.

Fortunately, much of this game makes up for the downfall in its fun factor. The game design encourages you to destroy everything. Your surpremely angry protagonist, Alex Mercer, is quite upset and for good reason. As the game begins, you’re immediately tossed into the fray of the battle with all of your powers, along with an in-game tutorial of how to switch between your weaponry, how to maneuver, and other basics. Mercer is trying to stop the military from covering up a massive biological weapons program, which is linked to his current condition of being able to pick up tanks like most of us picking up the morning paper. The military wants him six feet under so they can escape with their dastardly plans, and other infected monsters simply don’t like him because he’s still human. If you think being nice will you get you through a world where everyone hates you, Alex Mercer would disagree. Vehemently.

While the story itself is nothing to write home about, I did enjoy the way it was told. The standard “military science program gone horribly wrong is causing a problem and the military will cover it up and pretend nothing happened” story is just like that in [PROTOTYPE]: standard, and rather painfully so. However, the conventions used to tell it were rather interesting. Instead of holding your hand through every plot point, a bare minimum is given if you only follow the main story missions. Players are asked to search for certain targets who have knowledge of the science program in question. These targets appear randomly on your overworld map, and encourages players to wander around the whole of New York City in order to discover the plot in its entirety, which gives it a little more depth than, “Oops, military cover up.”

And again, I don’t really have to reiterate that a lot of fun comes from simple destruction, and perhaps a little from the chaotic battles. There’s really nothing more entertaining than picking up a truck, sending it bowling down a main street and watching infected monsters get crushed beneath it like ants. The power of Mercer’s virus can really make you feel drunk with power. Picking up people and flinging them like ragdolls as they scream the whole way? Sure, why not.

Something that is very noticeable within the first few missions is the balance that [PROTOTYPE] was able to achieve between drunk with power and being vulnerable. Finally, a game where you’re given such power that you can wreak havoc, but at the same time you’re not completely invincible. There are times where you will feel like you can take on the world, and other times where you’ve got to go hide. Alex Mercer is, afterall, still in a human body. That means he can die. There are missions that happen throughout the game that force you to stop and re-evaluate your position. Would it be wiser to infiltrate a military base under a disguise, or should you go all in with the big guns? Your reward for not thinking your decisions through wisely is, of course, death. And there’s plenty of it if you’re not careful.

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect in [PROTOTYPE] is the attention to details. As is realized early in the game, traveling by jumping from rooftop to rooftop is an effective way of crossing the city and also avoiding the attention of the military. You don’t even see the streets until you’re making a crater right in the middle of an intersection. But all of the attention is still there. All of the sidewalks are teeming with pedestrians and honking cars that you can hear while making your way through the skies. While the people on the streets feel a little stiff from time to time, the effort won’t go unnoticed. [PROTOTYPE] could have just as easily abandoned all the details and made the setting a completely barren wasteland, but such is not the case.

Looking for a game that encourages you to destroy as you go? Need to blow off steam because something went wrong at work? Want to level an entire city? [PROTOTYPE] is the game for you.

The Good

Interesting story-telling mechanic makes you want to know more and explore.

A balance in gameplay between power and vulnerability keeps you on your toes.

Destruction of everything is encouraged.

Attentions to detail bring the environments to life.

The Bad

Overly frantic battlefields lead to frustration.

Lock-on targetting hinders more than it helps in many cases.

Alex Mercer’s angry demeanor makes it hard for us to like the little s***.

[PROTOTYPE] is available now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It can also be downloaded from Xbox Games on Demand.

Family Focus
No way. Rated M (ESRB) and 18+ (PEGI) for a lot of bloody bits flying everywhere, among other things.