Playing Prototype
Prototype is a third person, sandbox style of action game that puts gamers in control of Alex Mercer, a former scientist at a secretive facility known as GenTek. Something has happened to Alex and he now has special powers, including incredible strength, agility, the ability to shapeshift, and the power to consume organic material to turn it into health, while simultaneously harvesting the memories (and abilities) of the consumed. Players will need to use all of these abilities as they fight their way through endless droves of Infected and Military personnel across thirty-one missions.
At the outset, Alex’s motivation is to figure out who he is and how he got infected. He’s angry, and with the help of his hacker little sister (and a couple of other NPCs later), begins to seek out the truth by taking on missions across New York City, including infiltrating military bases. These bases were setup in response to a viral outbreak that has much of the population — and increasingly more — turning into bloodthirsty zombies; they’re known as the Infected.
The story unfolds over the course of eighteen days, and Alex’s motivations change as he comes closer and closer to the truth. Gameplay starts on the 18th day, just to give players a taste of the ridiculously frentic action that you will become all too used to. After this teaser mission ends, players are taken back to the first day of the infection, when Alex only has a few basic powers.
Missions are comprised of several types, including locating and destroying a set number of objects, collecting objects, Consuming a particular character, escorting an NPC, boss fights, destroying buildings, and chasing a fleeing character(s). As you complete missions and defeat enemies, you earn Evolution Points (EP), one of the most important elements in Prototype. EP allows you purchase dozens of upgradeable abilities in categories like Survival, Defense, Movement, Combat, Powers, Weapons, Vehicles, and Consume. Each of these tiers has multiple upgradeable options, many of which are critical to success, which I will elaborate on shortly.
You can earn more EP by engaging in any of several dozen Events, or challenges, that are spread throughout the city. These brief challenges are divided into categories, including those that require mastery of movement controls and combat technique. Events are green markers on your map and each marker has a icon, indicating what type of event it is. When you arrive at an Event, you walk into a small circle and start it with a push of a button. Most Events are designed to be completed within two minutes; you can see what the criteria is for medalling in these Events just before it starts — players can earn Bronze, Silver, and Gold medals, with each medal rewarding you with some amount of EP. Frankly, I found the frustration-to-reward ratio for these Events to be too far in the frustration column to bother with. Many challenges, especially the movement ones where you have to guide Alex to green spheres like checkpoints while a timer marches on, are setup in such a way that one mistake can throw you completely off and you come away with no reward at all. The few combat Events I attempted were also just too hard to bother with; the reward just isn’t worth it. The last point about Events that made me avoid them was just how off course from the next story mission many of them were. You can see where Events are by looking at your map in the Pause Menu or on your mini-map in the HUD; more often than not, Events are significantly far away from the next mission marker, and there is no way to just warp over to an Event and morph back to where you were.
So, Events weren’t really of interest to me, but I was able to get more EP via collectibles. There are two kinds of collectibles: Landmark collectibles, represented by a small blue ball of energy, are spreadout across New York — there are 200 to find, which should make completionists very happy. Additionally, you can also look out for any of the fifty Hint Collectibles, which are purple balls of energy. The Hint collectibles give you a Hint upon pickup, but otherwise neither of these collectibles serves a purpose.
You can upgrade your abilities at anytime via the Pause Menu. Additionally, you have to purchase some Core abilities before others will unlock, but these required ones are marked in the Upgrade menu which is a plus. Also, many upgrades have to be unlocked by completing missions (or Consuming certain military personnel) before they can be purchased. Similiarly, some missions require you to have a certain ability before you are allowed to start them. It’s noteworthy that I was able to purchase just about every single upgrade, and pretty much all of them that I wanted to, by the end of the game with only having done a few Events and having found only about fifty Landmark collectibles and about twenty Hint ones — you really don’t have to spend time on the Events to unlock all that you need for the campaign and more.
Obviously upgrading Alex is a very key part of the experience, so much in fact that the game will actually pause and pop up a message to remind you that you can upgrade on occassion, although this only happened four or five times throughout my twelve hour play-through. Anyway, there are a lot of tempting purchases to make while perusing the Upgrades; certainly maxing out your Sprint and Jump ability ought to be high on your list (especially if you want to have a crack at those Events). You can also choose between several different Powers, which are basically forms of Alex’s tendrils (think Marvel’s Carnage or Venom); there are several forms, some more useful than others. I found the Claw probably the most effective, although the Hammerfist was vital against armor and the final boss. The Whip Power didn’t do much for me, nor did the Muscle Power that gives Alex additional strength when attacking with his fists and throws. About midway through the campaign, you also unlock a Blade (the one from the box art) that is given to you; it’s great for melee combat. Within each Power are optional purchaseable moves, three or four each, like a diving attack with the Hammerfist or the Ground Spikes for the Claw, which looks great but also leaves Alex open for attacks immediately afterwards.
Offensive attacks don’t end with with just these Powers however; Alex can also unleash Devestator attacks, which are massive special moves that can do a lot of damage. I thought the Devestator attacks were a nice idea, but poorly implemented — to use them, Alex has to have maximum health. Your health meter, displayed in the upper left of your HUD, will turn from red to blue on the last inch of the full side to show that you are in Critical Mass. Depending on your Upgrades to this point, you can unleash up to three Devestator attacks in a row. Many times, I found it hard enough to execute just one — reason being is that, when you really need to use one, chances are that you are under massive attack. So, you not only have to fill up your health to max and maintain it, but also hold down two face buttons for a full second and target your attack to be effective. This combination of requirements is tremendous pain in the ass because so often you are incredibly overrun with enemies that hound you constantly. Moreover, if you don’t press both face buttons down properly, Alex won’t do the attack and by just that one mistake alone, you’re probably already too late to try again because you’ll have taken damage during that time. That said, I found the Ground Spike Devestator attack to be more cool looking than anything, especially against the few bosses you encounter. Speaking of boss fights, the final boss fight has a truly frustrating issue where if you use your Critical Pain Devestator attack, he is often able to clip right through it and smash you, even though your tendrils are clearly blasting through his body… one of many instances in Prototype that frustrated the hell out of me.
A moment ago I mentioned how Alex is often completely overwhelmed with enemies, usually military, that attack relentlessly. That much is fine, and it makes for a hell of a show on screen because there is so much action going on at once it’s really quite amazing — and that the framerate stays fluid is also damn impressive. That said, the action is often too intense, leading to much frustration when you have to restart a Checkpoint over again because you couldn’t finish the objective because wave after wave after wave of respawned enemy kept attacking. And, like a lot of these type of sandbox games, all of this constant action makes the whole experience feel very repetitious in a short time. Prototype didn’t really help itself much in this regard in that you are exposed to almost all of the enemies the game has to offer very early on, with only a few exceptions saved for the second half of the game. You’ll slaughter thousands of nameless, faceless, constantly respawning enemies including infantry man with rifles, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, attack helicopters, tanks, Hunters, and some basic “throw-away” Infected foes. When the action starts, it’s often unrelenting unless you complete the objective or Evade, making not only health regeneration a chore, but building up enough health for Critical Mass damn near impossible a lot of times (read: way too many times).
I should mention that you get health by Consuming, and you can Consume all civilans readily, as well the weakest military and Infected enemies. One issue with that is that Consuming requires you to stop and stand still momentarily while you watch a brief death scene where Alex rips apart and Consumes his foe; a lot of times, this required stopping action gets you setup for a blast from a tank turret or a heavy attack from a Hunter, Super Soldier, or worse. Many times, even with Consume Health Bonus Upgrade maxed out, I would lose more health in Consuming than what I got from Consuming — making it pointless. An included running grab technique is available early on, but this only allows you to grab something while running, not Consume it.
Grabbing objects is actually another point of issue for me with Prototype. Getting Alex to grab a weapon, like a rocket launcher, that is on the ground can be a pain, especially when running or when there are other objects in the nearby area. Trying to grab something while Sprinting can be a hassle too; trying to slow down too much can cost you when you’re under attack though, because many enemies use attacks that send you flying in the air. About the only real problem with control responsiveness comes into play with grabbing objects. Many times I pressed to grab and object or character, didn’t get an immediate response, pressed again, only to discover in that next second it was a delayed response. So instead of grabbing the person for me to then Consume, Alex grabbed and then threw the person (which is what happens if you press Circle twice).
Getting back to enemies now, some enemies like the Super Soliders and Hunters are even more relentless than the others, as they can track you and sense you, even when you’re disguised. They are of course a lot tougher than the normal foes too, yet they yield more health when killed. That said, it’s not completely uncommon to lose more health in fighting a couple of these things than what you earn back in defeating them, especially if you kill them outright instead of Consuming them, which can be a small problem as it requires grabbing (see above). Given the potentially lose of health after battling the numerous Hunters and Super Soliders, it’s easy to see why achieving Critical Mass and thus Devestator Attacks is often very hard in the heat of battle; your best bet is to Consume until you have full health before going into battle.
One final point about the enemies that I want to mention is how some missions require you to help the military and others requires you to help the Infected. This is a pretty neat aspect of the game because Alex is truly in the middle of this heated ordeal that has the military wiping out infected civilians. Sometimes you need the military to win, other times you need the Infected to win, so your objectives revolve around these needs and it can be pretty cool to see the outcome. One sore point about this however pops up during two particularly hard boss fights; I don’t want to spoil these, so I won’t elaborate on them, but suffice it to say that the military is supposed to help you, informally, defeat the common enemy, the Infected. Despite having tanks, helicopters, and dozens of troops on the ground, all firing madly at the Infected boss, little to no damage was inflicted. The military were really just props during these boss battles and while they helped make the whole scene more intense, it also really made the game feel hollow, because here you have this massive military force with endless reenforcements unable to put a single dent into a foe.
Anyway, switching gears now to the tracking devices (which detect infected people, i.e., Alex). You can watch out for tracking devices, including the types of enemies that track, as well as mobile and stationary military tracking hardware, by looking at the mini-map. On the mini-map, you can see circles around the tracking object, indicating its range. Whenever you are spotted, you normally have a brief amount of time to get out of the circle before a full on red alert goes off and suddenly everyone knows exactly who you are, even if you’re disguised. While you can, and actually have to sometimes, play it stealthy and avoid being detected for short periods of time, actually staying stealthy is intentionally impossible and being detected is inevitable. Strike Teams are another inevitability you will face; much like in Radical’s previous title, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Strike Teams are special assault groups compromised of multiple attack helicopters that harass you at every chance. You get additional EP for taking these out, or less points for evading them, but they often add just another layer of chaos to the already frantic action. I could have sworn I faced and defeated like sixty of these Strike Teams by the end of the game, but according to my stats, I encountered only like half of that — it just felt like so many more because they were always a nuisance.
Prototype’s stealth and disguise elements (which are done via Consumption) are used in several ways including to infiltrate a military base to help you get a better start on the action that is forthcoming. You also use stealth to access doors, learn abilities (like how to drive a tank and fly a helicopter), and to advance the story. Certain characters are part of what is known as the Web of Intrigue, this interesting web of interconnecting nodes in the Pause menu, where each node represents a person in part of the overall story. As you Consume these people, who are marked on your map with an orange icon, you unlock their memories, and a brief cutscene plays upon Consumption, showing you what this particular person’s role is in the story. These cutscenes are basically a series of fast paced, picture-quality slideshows that are interesting and nicely done. I wish Radical made it more convenient to capture all of the Web of Intrigue particpants, there are some 130, but instead it’s up to the player to explore the city, outside of the main campaign (in Free Roam mode) to try to find most (about eighty) of them.
Using disguises is also helpful to avoid alarms amongst military personnel, although as mentioned they have devices and Super Soldiers who can detect you regardless if you enter their perimeter. One nice thing about being disguised amongst military is that you can normally take vehicles without arousing suspicion, and then suddenly use them to start a fight. Stealth Consumes are also possible and well done — you simply have to have to right conditions for a Stealth Consume and then you press R1 and Circle, it happens, no questions asked — I’m glad that Radical didn’t try to incorporate some kind of less-certain system to determine when Stealth Consumes were possible (and when you would get caught).
Normally, you’ll take vehicles while being detected and under attack. Hijacking helicopters is made tough in that you have to get very close to the helicopter with a jump to bring up the momentary “Get Vehicle” prompt, while tanks are easier to approach, but harder to get into. When you hijack a tank, you have to wait for Alex to get on top by the hatch, and then a button mash prompt appears (same button every time, Triangle); a lot of times, you’ll get blown or knocked off the tank before you can enter, but you’ll want to keep trying — tanks often work far better against the enemy than Alex’s own abilities, due to their power and range. Also, no matter how damaged a vehicle is when you hijack it, it’s at full health whenever you take it over, but you cannot do anything to heal the vehicle when you take damage while driving it (although after checkpoints it seems to come back with full health). Furthermore, Alex’s health is protected and separate from the vehicles’.
Targeting is one other aspect of Prototype I wanted to talk about. You target with L2, and normally this automatically targets the most threatening foe on screen. You can switch targets with a flick of the right analog stick. One thing I did really like about targeting, especially with military weapons, is that you lock on target, fire, and forget — you’re almost certain to hit the target, and when you’re trying to destroy a certain enemy amongst a massive swarm of enemies, that’s comforting. About the only issue with targeting is when you’re trying to target a certain foe and you have to step through (with the right stick) a bunch of other weaker enemies to get to him — but normally when that happens the quickest bet is to re-target after adjusting your view.
Presentation
Prototype will impress any gamer with the amount of action and destruction on screen at once, and at how well the framerate holds during these times. As far as pure aesthetics however, Prototype isn’t jaw dropping, but it still looks pretty good. I thought the character animations, as nice and fluid as they are, and the smooth framerate were really the best parts of the visual presentation. On the other hand, a lot of the textures that make up New York, especially those for buildings, are bland and repetitive; they’re functional and get the job done, but they aren’t impressive. In short, the graphical experience in Prototype is mostly tame and uninspiring, but the amount of action on screen coupled with the smooth framerate is definitely notable.
As far as the audio, it too gets the job done but little more. The sounds I heard the most? The constant chatter of military personnel talking, saying the same things over, and over, and over again — “Tornado 5, coming in at vector zero niner” or whatever it is that the helicopter pilots said over and over. No matter how many times I killed Tornado 5, that bastard would always come back even just minutes later as part of yet another Strike Team. All of the military chatter gets very old, fast — and that their radio chatter is what I remember most clearly from the the game just seems wrong. Voiceovers are basic and other effects aren’t very memorable or outstanding. The quiet, generic soundtrack does okay for itself, but literally, the radio chatter is ever-present.
As far as other presentation elements — Prototype does well. Earlier I mentioned the ‘memories’ cutscenes that you see whenever you Consume someone in the Web of Intrigue — those are cool. Otherwise, load times are short, your objectives are clear, the HUD and enemy lifelines are easy to use and very functional, even the box art is cool.
Conclusion
Prototype isn’t a bad game; in fact, it’s a very good one, but with a handful of serious flaws that keep it from reaching greatness. On the negative side, thoughts like repetition, frustration, contrived, and unimpressive enter my mind, while on the positive side ideas like fun, addictive, deep, and frantic come to mind. My recommendation? With no demo to judge by and enough concern about the game to keep me from outright recommending it, I would suggest a weekend rental.