First Thirty: Prototype (PC)

By Joe Haygood | November 10, 2009

I am a little late to the Prototype party, but after seeing it on sale for $19.99 at GoGamer.com, I decided to jump on the deal.  After playing through thirty minutes of Prototype, I am kind of conflicted as to where I stand on the game.  I do like the hardcore story that is being presented, with a security team that takes no survivors or prisoners back.  Watching them gun down several innocent people gave me the understanding that Prototype is going to tell me a story that will not be pleasant, or have a nice ending for that matter.

Prototype started off with a nice intro movie that shows off a rather devistated New York City.  All the streets were emply and military/security were sweeping through the streets.  One would assume they were looking for either survivors or whoever caused the destruction, but your thoughts will are proved wrong shortly into the trailer.  The team saves a woman from death, only to then execute her with a bullet to the head.  Our protagonist, Alex Mercer shows up and proceeds to dismantle the strike team, including one person getting cleaved from head to groin.  Yeah, Prototype is a bit more gritty than Infamous, the game it was compared to over the summer.

From the trailer, we are launched into the gameplay, which sets the clock back 18 days, where the same Alex Mercer is apparently dead on a coroner’s table.  Of course, they go to cut Alex open, and you spring to life.  You are then sent through a series of tutorials that show off all the different powers and moves that you can use in the game.  Using claws and blades, you can chop and cut your way through soldiers, and the populace alike.  It appears that there is no penalty for killing innocent civilians, at least this early into the game.  You can also get charged attacks, but holding down a button before attacking, which is great for taking out hardened enemies like a tank or helicopter.  You can also defy gravity as your powerset allows you to run up the sides of buildings, allowing for some rather creative attacks on flying enemies.

By the end of the tutorial, I had already killed 44 enemies, complete with several decapitations, and dozens of limb removal.  The game tracks a host of stats that track your progress throughout your playthrough.  The game looks good, but not great, and the action feels like more of The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.  The model almost seems the same, but I could be wrong, as I only scraped the surface of the Hulk game, but the similarities are the same, including the fact that Radical was the developer on both.  I look forward to continuing my play of Prototype, but I am not feeling the wow that I was hoping after reading some of the reviews out there.  Look for our review sometime in the future, as I have a stack of games to finish before I can finish Prototype.