By combining brutality, freedom, conspiracy, and sick fun into one package, Prototype raised the bar for guilty fun.
User Rating: 8.5 | Prototype PS3
Prototype is the story of Alex Mercer, a shadowy villain with the destructive power to perform acts of extreme carnage at will. Most gamers will approach the story believing that Alex is an anti-hero, and they will use that status to justify all the horrible actions they commit to progress the story. Let's take a moment to look at things objectively. Alex is dead, Alex slaughters military at will, Alex murders and steals the identities of civilians to further his own desires, Alex is driven by revenge… etc. Batman is an anti-hero, Alex is a monster, and that's the driving force behind the narrative that helps this game stand apart from recent sandbox offerings. We could identify with Cole (Infamous) and Niko (Grand Theft Auto 4), and that offered us a conventional type of gaming catharsis. Nobody with any shred of morality can identify with Alex. Thank god for that. Prototype's narrative is told through flashbacks. The games tutorial has you playing as Alex, with all his powers, directly before the final mission of the game. This sort of tutorial allows us an early glimpse at the pure wrecking power we can expect as we push the story forward. After the tutorial the game flashes back to a morgue and we gain control of a significantly weaker Alex Mercer. Alex stands up from the chopping table with no recollection of who he is or how he re-animated himself, and discovers a New York City in the grips of civil and biological unrest. He has gained intense powers, and the government is hunting him, so in turn Alex reverses the roles and hunts the government. The rest of the story is told in two ways. The main storyline is classic linear narrative, you find people who know things, you interrogate/kill them; rinse and repeat. The meat of the story is told through a function known as the "Web of Intrigue". Alex will notice targets on his mini-map that have knowledge of who he is or the situation he is in. Alex can "consume" these targets and steal their memories. These memories are short montages of intense sound and images which fill in the deep back-story. If you are a completist and chase down every target you will have a far better understanding of the story than your lazier friends. The game play is a pseudo-fresh take on the sandbox genre. From the beginning the entire map is accessible, and Alex travels with ease. His sprint and jump functions are smooth and entertaining, and greatly improve on what games such as "Crackdown" (Xbox 360) sought to accomplish. As you kill enemies and gain experience you can upgrade your movement abilities gaining an air-dash, a glide, and a faster sprint and higher jump. While the movement is smooth and flawless, the same cannot be said for the combat. Alex is capable of morphing his limbs into several deadly weapons. He has a whip arm, a blade arm, a hammer fist, some freaky wolverine claws, and a steroid power. Each power is a blast to use, but the targeting system is unnecessarily frustrating. There were times in the game when I would be sprinting through the city toying with the lives of civilians and I would be unable to target individual people. The targeting system seems to be based on perceived threat, which is fine in combat, but can really diminish the joy of non story killing sprees. The lackluster targeting system was also brutal during missions when you needed to consume specific targets while being chased by helicopters or tanks. Alex also has access to weapons and vehicles. In the heat of battle you can steal machine guns and grenade launchers from your victims. Alex has the ability to hijack Helicopters and Tanks. The hijack ability was unusually fun, and I found myself spending hours stealing helicopters and performing strafing runs on city streets. I had my friend in stitches when I was pretending I was a disgruntled Vietnam vet mowing down "Charlie" on Broadway.
Another unique element of game play was the stealth. Alex can steal the identity of any character in the game. Needless to say this leads to the opportunity for mass mayhem. Imagine grandma sprinting down the street faster than a car, grabbing a soldier by his head and dragging him up the empire state building before launching him at a passing helicopter. It's fun, sick, immoral fun. I would think of elaborate ways to torture the populace then yell to my fiancé to run into the room so I could play out the scenarios for her.
The game has a decent mix of side missions to keep you busy when you're not tackling the story. The events are broken down into five categories: war, kill, race, glide, and consume. After each side event you are awarded a medal, and you have the opportunity to repeat events as many times as you wish gaining more experience and trying for a better medal. All of this experience can then be used to further upgrade Alex's powers helping you get higher scores and better medals on subsequent tries. Prototype's graphics are serviceable. The detail levels are unimpressive, and the colors look washed out. The draw-distance is awful and the game suffers from pop-ins when sprinting across rooftops. The saving grace is the steady frame rate. Prototype will throw dozens of enemies at you at once, along with vehicles and civilians, all of which are being brutalized by Alex's weapons, covering the streets and building in gore without experiencing any slowdowns.
By combining brutality, freedom, conspiracy, and sick fun into one package, Prototype raised the bar for guilty fun in games. Creative gamers will get nearly everything out of the experience that they are willing to put into it. If you get confused by spy movies or are a sucker for linear experiences you should probably pass on Prototype, otherwise, snag this bad boy as soon as you can and jump into the carnage
Final Grade: B+ 
