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Destruction on a City-Wide Stage
Prototype, the latest offering from
Activision and
Radical Entertainment, has a large view of things, but does it fall short?
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| Release Date: June 9th, 2009 |
| Platforms: PLAYSTATION 3, XBOX 360, PC |
| Publishers: Activision |
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Prototype is the latest sandbox game to hit the market, and has brought with it a wave of destruction. The game is a "power fantasy", set in a sandbox environment, allowing you to control exactly what the character does in the open field, and how you'll choose to approach the tasks assigned to you. Whilst the game is rather short, it's open-ended sandbox gameplay, side events, and collectibles extends the gameplay long after you've finished the main story.
You play as the Prototype, Alex Mercer, as you hunt down the truth about yourself, and making those responsible pay for what they did along the way. However, amidst your kicking ass & taking names, a viral outbreak hits the city, eventually spiralling into a state of martial law. Of course, throughout all this, you're still the military's Primary target. Helped along by BLACKWATCH, a secret branch of the military designed to handle this kind of problem, they intend to bring you in, dead or alive. Utilising several offensive, defensive and sensory powers, you must fight your way to the truth. Your body is a weapon, with the ability to change form in an instant. Use claws, blades, and whips to devastate your enemies, turn your skin into armor plating to protect yourself, or just consume someone and disguise yourself as them to infiltrate enemy ranks.
Storyline
The storyline of the game is presented in a rather unique way. Along with finding out core information through the main missions, you can also find high priority targets roaming the city. Consuming these people will reveal a small portion of information about your origins, the conspiracies, and everything that's happening in the cities through a system called the "Web of Intrigue". The more targets you consume, the more you find out about the story. What makes this such a good feature is that each target gives you enough information to answer some questions, but at the same time makes you want to ask more, fuelling you onto finding more WOI targets.
The general storyline of the game is great, and it's very fulfilling to find out more as you progress through the game. It is a tad on the short side however, leaving players wanting more.
Gameplay
Prototype's gameplay is incredible, from the simplicity of the controls, to the free-roaming sandbox world that you're dropped in.
In Prototype, you're given five Offensive powers, two Defensive powers, two Sensory powers, and a Disguise power. Each power grants along with it, many different abilities that can be used whilst using that power. These abilities require EP (Evolution Points) to be unlocked in many cases, although some can be obtained through missions.
With close to a 100 total upgrades, you can upgrade Alex in numerous ways. You can slice and dice on the move, perform epic aerial combos, sling forth huge masses of your self across the way, and impale, whip, smash and crash your way through the game however you see fit! The abilities are well animated, making it very pleasing on the eyes to use all the fancy abilities this game throws at you. Everything from more health to more agility, mighty devastator attacks and body splitting finishers can be obtained, and unleashed on the world.
Whilst the game is designed to be a "Power Fantasy", there are no abilities that truly make you feel invincible, so there's always a reason to keep on the move, avoid tanks and strike teams, and so forth. You're given an immense amount of power, but to compensate, the game throws pretty much everything it's got at you.
The controls are a little bit difficult to get used to at first, but once you've worked out how everything works, it turns out to be a very well designed and fluid system. Many movements are controlled by the game in order to help facilitate players, such as running through traffic. Alex will automatically jump over cars and obstacles as seen fit, in order to provide you with the most streamline and fluid gaming possible. The same is also true in combat, with a very easy to learn combat system, which is controlled largely by targeting. This makes it possible for someone to buy the game, and immediately get into the "power fantasy", without having to jump through thousands of hoops just to be able to climb a building.
Graphics and Sound
From the gorgeous blues and greys of the populus and harsh greys of military zones, to the deep reds and oranges of the infected areas, models, textures, meshes, details, particles and rendering quality are all fantastically done.
The detail of the world, with the tone and feel of the atmosphere, breathes life into the city. The massive amount of gore and blood, the fire, smoke and explosions, the cars and people, and even the plants and bushes, all add to the world that you're playing in, making it an enriching experience for the players.
Throughout all this, the abilities you gain in the course of your missions look amazing. Everything has been amazingly animated, right down to the ground destruction and the shockwaves as you hit the ground from the tallest buildings.
The audio for the game is also stunning. The developers have taken actual recordings from the city on separate different channels, and fed them all together to create an absolutely surreal Audio environment when walking around the city.
The musical score is a bit lacking, but nonetheless adds what it needs to into the atmosphere of the game. It gives the game an eerie feeling in the infected zones, and can provide an overwhelming sense of urgency in fights, or when trying to escape.
Length/Replayability
At first glance the game seems very short, and a little linear, with only 31 story missions to keep you occupied. However, because of the nature of sandbox games, the life of this game is greatly extended thanks to the opportunity for exploration. The game provides players with 250 collectibles in the form of landmarks and hints, all of which award precious EP.
On top of this, there are many, many side events with different goals for you to explore. Events may require you to kill a certain amount of enemies in a time limit, or reach waypoints in a time trial, or even help out the military or infected to take down a base. Once again, all of these reward you with EP, which means more abilities to play around with. Once you've finished the main story, you can also play through again on New Game+, keeping all your old abilities from the start.
Despite all this however, the game seems to have a limited replay value. Once you've played through the story once, it seems tedious to go through it again, as there's no longer the intrigue that was in the first play-through, although, you do see some things that didn't make sense the first time, and they make much more sense the second time.
All in all, this is a very well designed game, with an impressive and intriguing storyline that will keep you enthralled from start to finish.
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Storyline: 9/10
An enthralling tale, with a Web of Intrigue that extends through the government will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Gameplay: 9/10
Fluid controls and a sandbox environment make for an amazing and easy to learn experience that will have you jumping tall buildings in no time.
Graphics & Sound: 8/10
Stunning graphics, incredibly accurate background noise, and an appropriate soundtrack make for an amazing audio-visual gaming experience.
Length/Replayability: 7.5/10
Replayable events and a sandbox environment extend the gameplay, but the short story and lack of end-game content let it down.
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Overall Score: 8.5/10
[Review] Prototype -
06-15-2009, 04:26 AM
Linear Mode
