There's so much wrong with this game, but the one thing it got right was the most important of them all: Its fun!
I noticed two things first:
One, the game looks like an end-of-gen PS2 or Xbox game. Well it looks a 'little' better than that. I'd say if there was a gen between this one and the last that would be where Prototype was born. Anyway, there's pretty much no texture on the buildings, people, vehicles, etc. Explosions and fire are a joke. There are no particle effects or anything of the sort. The lighting is horrible and actually throws off the entire mood of the story. The story and the main character are supposed to be dark and menacing, but New York city looks all bright and happy. It really looks like GTA3 with the Predator as your protagonist. Makes sense, right? No. Anyway, I understand why they had to sacrifice so much in the way on graphics: There are TONS of cars and people on the streets at all times. The whole fun of the game is death and destruction, and the more innocent victims the merrier.
Second, the controls are amazingly.... horrible. There's no redicule of any sort. If you want to shoot or jump kick anything you have to have it targeted with a trigger button. Want to hit someone else? Flick your stick to scroll through the targets. And since there are SO many people and the game randomly picks your first target its can be quite a chore to get who you want. YOu actually almost never will. Luckily if you are in a battle in the crowded streets the game ignores the civillians and only targets your attackers. What's crazy, though, is if you are not using the targetting system and are simply slaughtering folks at random with a ranged attack it seems Alex always goes for someone to the right or left of him. He never goes for people right in front of him. What's with that? You're only real chance of camera-style aiming is gone.
Anyway, the real basis of the combat is melee attacks. This game is pretty much a hack -n- slash. Don't let anyone tell you differently. What's sad is its not even a good one. You have two buttons like most the others, but the combos are weak and serve no real purpose. Just keep hitting one button or the other and you'll do fine. Also, Alex lunges forward about six feet with every punch and in the direction of random victims. So you may want to attack the soldier to your left but you'll most likely hit the one to the right. Basically, even with melee you HAVE to use the target system to hit who you want. Its a good thing you need to kill them all. But you can see where this game throws skill right out the window. Its just a random button-mashing gore fest.
The real good stuff here is the movements. Run fast (probably another reason for bland textures), Jump high, leap from rooftops, and soar. I'll admit its crazy fun. I can tell you how many people I snatched up from the side walk, carried up the highest building, and launched out over the city. Lol. Its not all that great at first, but once you start to upgrade you abilities like air dash and speed... It gets better and better. The controls still fail you here, too, though. Running up a building can be a mess unless you run straight up. If you try to maneuver to the left or right even a bit you'll find yourself losing control with no chance of correcting yourself unless you drop back down to the ground and start over. Much like the combat its quite frantic and chaotic.
Now, for all those who say "OMG Alex Mercer gots teh moves!" I say nay. Though his list of moves is quite long its pretty much just upgrades and variations of the same things. Hammer fists, blade arm, claw hands? Yeah, they're all crazy melee weapons that serve just as much purpose as the other. A lot of the upgrades are only necessary because a lot of the abilities start off shamelessly weak. He does a lot, but its all pretty much the same and a lot of it you can really do without. I hardly use most of it myself.
The abilities remind me of a spruced up version of Crysis's. Jump high, run fast, punch hard, stealth, and armor. They just took those and added some crazy variety to it. I'm not knocking it, though, I like it.
So there's a whole lot this game lacks, and its actually pretty pathetic seeing as how they had so much time to polish it up and make it even better. But what makes it so darn fun?
Picture this: You're running at like 60 mph through the crowded streets, you snatch up some poor sap without stopping, you run straight up the side of a skyscraper, and you launch your struggling victim through the sky above the city. Then you leap forward and glide ahead until you spot a crowd of helpless people below. YOu fall to the streets below and the impact launches the unexpecting people around you into the air. You morph your arms into razor-sharp claws and start slicing away at the crowd. Your victims hit the ground in pieces. Arms, legs, torsos, heads, halves of bodies all land in the giant pool of blood trailing down the NYC sidewalks. Oh, yeah... ultra violence. It's pretty much all This game has going for it, but its certainly fun enough!