Despite some repetition, Prototype is an amazing experience, selling it's premise better than most games I have played.
Hell no! Prototype is one hell of an experience!
It's open world, fast moving, chaos ensuing, divebombing, tank hijacking, car throwing, life consuming fun!
The game starts off small. Guy with amnesia trying to find answers, who inadvertantly opens the door to a viral outbreak of Manhattan. And, with every passing mission, you see manhattan erode step by step, from a civilized place, to a military occupied self contained outbreak quarantine zone, finally completely eroding into an all out, chaotic **** storm or people screaming, mutants chasing, ammunition firing, claustrophobic nightmare of all hell breaking loose, and being caught in the middle of it, with no option but to keep seeking answers, watching the world around you get worse and worse with every passing second.
The presentation is flawless. You feel like it's devolving right before your eyes, from pedestrians running screaming from the military as they shoot down the newly infected, to the mutants who slam tanks with their oversized bodies at 90 miles per hour, to consuming humans along the way who know about your past, so your can learn their secrets, their skills, hijack a helicopter, and carve your way through the nightmare you're as responsible for as the people who invented it.
Prototype suffers from some needless repition, but unlike say Assassin's Creed (the original...as AC2 was a work of art!), the repition is not forced, and neither is the pace. You can plow through the game, cause some additional mayhem, put some hurt on the military just cause they've made your life hell for the last 10-30 hours, or run around looking for hints about your past. It suits any of these styles, and unlike alot of games, any road can be abandoned at a whim if you want to do something different, or just move along with the game.
And, the game is where it all comes together. The missions are fantastic, feel chaotic, often pit you in a three way struggle as you fight the military AND the mutants, and they fight you and eachother, all the while trying to save someone from death, or hijack a tank of consume a target in the process. It throws the occasional curveball, and despite the open worldness, keeps you on track and moving forward through the game, seldom feeling lost, and able to break away and chill at any time you like.
Also, it must be said, that Prototype has a trait familiar from Bayonetta, that many games lack these days...it's EASY FOR ANYONE TO PICK UP AND PLAY!
It sounds trite, but for a game to succeed, it's a sadly overlooked component to our ability to dive in and enjoy a game, because we can absorb it completely, instead of cursing our joystick, trying to remember the button combination to activate the move to dropkick someone into a wall. It's a fourth wall breaker, when controls are more difficult than they need to be. Prototype is perfect, and the controls work seamlessly, for newcomers to the style of games (and I dare say, this game has a style all it's own), to people who are hardcore players looking for a challenge.
I almost didn't buy this game, because of all the mixed reviews, but I'm glad I did! It's throughly enjoyable, easy to dive into, and immersive in the manner it presents itself to you. Your character truly feels like a tank throwing god at times, without ever making it too easy to complete missions.
Combat offers a decent amount of variety, with an insane arsenal of moves at your disposal, of which you're likely to select a handful of favorites to get you through most of it.
What really makes this game special to me is it's presentation. Surely, it's no Half Life 2, and it's not a perfect game, but it's far more engaging, more immersive, and more fun than most 'perfect' games out there.
In a race to create challenging, unique, or innovative gameplay to the table, I feel alot of developers lose sight of the first priority with games...they're supposed to be fun to play. The best games do this. I've maintained that Half Life 2 is the most perfect execution of a game selling it's own premise perfectly, even though the premise is thin on the surface. Playing the game, it certainly didn't feel thin. It felt AWESOME! And, guess what, it was easy for ANYONE who was intersted to play.
Prototype just feels awesome! And often! It rewards your time with an amazing package. I'll take games like this over most anything any day of the week, and am genuinely surprised that it received such mixed reviews, especially from reviewers who in the same breath could write "GTA4 is as good as gaming gets!" or "Final Fantasy is back on track with lucky 13!" or "Halo 3 is the best of what makes Halo great!" which are only three of many examples of repetitive, slow paced games that get in their own way, but assure sequels because of marketing hype and misguided reviewing. I wish more games felt like Prototype when I played them. I wish more developers had an understanding like this team did, that people just want fun, and I wish reviewers would stop tripping over their own feet while playing games, trashing what is new and fun, easy to pick up, and amazingly engaging, but most likely not the game THEY wanted, instead of just seeing something really good for what is, while finding salvage in anticipation, praising the beautiful presentations of new graphics on said aformentioned games, while doing nothing better than before, with their 'innovative mechanics' simply taking what was fun out of said franchises away.
And, mostly, I wish gamers would give this game a chance. It's very much worth your time, and presents itself better than most games I've ever played. It deserved better than the fate it got, but I imagine there's some universe my eyes just don't see, where something like this is repetitive, but watching fake tv in a video game while you wait for your virtual girlfriend to call before you start shooting up manhattan is cutting edge sh*t!
Cause to my eyes, this is the open world New York game I always wanted.