Prototype

Prototype for the X-Box 360 is a very visceral game which truly deserves its M rating. You play as Alex Mercer after he wakes up in the morgue and discovers he has amazing powers. Unfortunately what he doesn’t have is a memory. He can’t seem to remember what happened to him or what is going on, so the game involves you figuring this out…by eating people.

Yes, as one of Alex’s powers, you can consume people that you kill in a very brutal fashion. Doing this grants you bits of their memories and even allows you to take on their appearance. This and the fact you can morph your body into various lethal instruments makes it feel like you are playing West Craven’s The Thing, and you are the Thing. You can turn your arms into claws, clubs, a sword, and an extendo tentacle as well as cover your body in armor. You can upgrade your skills using evolution points which you obtain by completing missions and killing enemies. Some powers are more useful than others though. This game has the slowest health regeneration I have ever seen.

You’re also able to use military weapons like machine guns and rocket launchers, but honestly you do more damage with your bare hands which don’t run out of ammo, so there’s not much need to bother with guns in this game other than for fun. The tanks on the other hand are very powerful and fun to use, and the helicopters let you cover long distance very quickly. It is also easier to take out other helicopters from the air, and your body doesn’t take damage while in a vehicle.

Most of the missions involve either killing someone, eating someone, destroying a building, or protecting someone by killing a lot of people. There are a few boss fights, but most of them consist of running around, picking things up, and throwing them at the bad guy before he can come over and hit you which makes them all pretty easy, but then the entire game is pretty easy since all you have to do if you’re low on health is run away, eat some people to gain more health, and jump back into the fight. The most difficult missions involve keeping something else alive while you fend of hordes of enemies, but this doesn’t happen often.

The side missions consist of either killing and eating people, or pointless timing races and precision gliding. There are also a lot of collectables scattered through the map which give you more evolution points, and some tips for playing the game. The only time you really need to do any of these missions is to level up your powers a little bit before doing the next mission. You can also consume certain people of interest who have information about what’s going on. You watch their memories in disjointed bits to fill in nodes of the “web of intrigue” which helps you paint of picture of the events that led up to the current situation.

The story itself doesn’t make much sense and has a lot of holes in it. At one point while looking for answers you break into a building to speak with a person of interest. When you find her she is locked in an observation room, but it turns out she is evil, so she smacks you around and leaves. What I don’t understand is that the entire building is already covered in viral tissue. She already took the place over, and seconds after she leaves, monster pop out of the walls, so why did she need you to open a door? In fact if not for you being what you are at the right time, this woman would have destroyed the world uncontested. It just seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

The enemy AI is also a little inconsistent. Basically, once the soldiers see you kill one of them, they will chase after you like rabid dogs. But if you can break their eye contact for a second and change your form, they instantly lose you. Even if you re the only person in the alley you just ran into, or if the form you take is of a fellow soldier you killed in front of them earlier. I also don’t understand why you can walk in front of them without a disguise on. You are basically the most wanted man on Manhattan island. These guys have your picture, have given you a code name, and all have orders to kill you on sight, so how is it that you can just walk up to them? And although they react to you killing soldiers, they didn’t seem to mind when I was rolling down the street in a tank blasting civilians. It just seems a little inconsistent to me

Perhaps the most obvious example of just how dumb these guys are is in the “patsy” power in which you take on the guise of a soldier, and tell the other soldiers that one of them is in fact you. The soldiers kill the guy, but when he doesn’t revert into you, they don’t seem to care. I literally wiped out an entire base using this power over and over again until there was only one guy left. Then I killed him too.

Despite all of that, Prototype is incredibly fun for anyone who enjoys mindless destruction. You can roll down the street in a tank while several dozen pedestrians run around in terror until you blow them to bits. You can lift cars over your head and throw them at people, or lift people and throw them into a car with enough force to dent in the side of the vehicle. At one point I grabbed an old woman, ran up the side of the tallest building I could find with her in hand, jumped off, and power bombed her all the way to the ground. Then I took the form of an old man, lifted an army truck over my head and jumped onto an apartment’s rooftop, stopping just long enough to admire the screenshot before chucking the vehicle into a nearby helicopter.

There is an odd feeling of freedom and power as you make Alex run with incredibly fluid motion across buildings, over cars, through crowds, and up walls. He can jump great heights and glide through the air in an almost graceful way before you drop back down into the disease ridden war-zone below you. The city itself feels like you’ve been thrown into the Clover field move, or a zombie apocalypse. The streets are swarming with panicked people being attacked by monsters which are themselves being held back by the military. The only barriers in this game are believable. The bridges are heavily guarded and you’ll be torn to pieces if you try to leave, and an aircraft carrier in the harbor will blow you to bits if you try to fly away with a helicopter.

The game even entertains you while you’re not doing anything. If you stand still in a contested area where infected monsters are battling it out with the soldiers, you can just sit back and watch the fun. You can stand on a tank and let it take you for a tour of New York, or you can simply enjoy the scenery.

In reality most of the negative aspects of this game are only nitpicks, and for anyone who enjoys games like Grand Theft Auto, this is a very fun and brutal game which doesn’t even need a story line because just running around like a demigod and destroying all the people around you as you see fit is hours worth of fun. I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys causing destruction and mayhem. Enjoy!