Prototype is the story of Alex Mercer who becomes one evil badass “anti-hero”.   I put anti-hero in quotes because that’s what he is supposed to be, but honestly the guy’s far from it, which imo is the games biggest mistake.

Before I get into the Prototype review let me give you some background about the storyline.  You play as Alex Mercer who awakes in the morgue of a government medical facility after a virus is released in NYC and just before an autopsy is performed on him.  As Alex is escaping he realized he’s got some spiffy new powers and once safe he realizes he has no memory of what happened to him, how he died or how the virus got released into the city.  This leads you on a tear through New York City as you terrorize it to learn what happened to you, which is where the storyline falters.

The problem is that you, Alex Mercer, are so evil that it’s hard to see that this guy even wants to save the city.  I mean you go through the game killing thousands of innocent people and military and not once do you see any remorse or regret in what he’s doing.   In fact most of the cutscenes shows him enjoying it or in a blood lust rage.   The games storyline would have played out much better if they made you the villain, which you sort of are anyway, instead of an “anti-hero” with the bloodlust of Hitler.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest on to the review.

The game starts you off, if I remember correctly, on day 13 of the virus being released.  You have all your powers and have a quick 5 min mission to get acquainted with the game.  Once completed it takes you back to day one where you just have a few powers, which is actually good cause there are so many that it’s easier to learn them a few at a time.

Prototype is a sandbox game, so you start off somewhere in NYC and can basically do whatever you want.   There are mission icons on the map and you can choose which side missions you want to do or just go straight to the story-line missions.   There are 6 different types of side missions, with about 30-40 of them in the game, so they do get a bit boring by the end.

Where Prototype shines are the powers which honestly make you feel more like a superhero than in any other game I’ve ever played.  This becomes most noticeable about half way through the game where you’re so overpowered compared to anyone else you feel as though you’re god like.  Later on towards the end the game kicks it up a notch and evens it up where you can’t really stay and fight the whole time, you’ll need to retreat and regen some health before continuing the fight.  Which brings me to another cool power, consuming people.  There’s nothing like grabbing a random person on the street, punching completely through their chest and watching them disintegrate into you.  Alex can basically consume almost anyone in the game which is a quick way to regain health, although some creatures you’ll need to weaken before you can consume them.  Also once you have consumed someone you can shapeshift to look like them which helps when you’re trying to lose the military.

There are so many powers and moves in the game it really doesn’t get boring because you’re not doing the same thing over and over.  Although I did end up using the claws and blade for most of the game just because I couldn’t get enough of slicing people to pieces.

Traveling around the city is also a blast.  I highly highly recommend leveling your movement powers first,  nothing like running up a 100 story building in about 2 seconds.

Apart from having some sick powers, you can also hijack military tanks, choppers or pickup weapons that any military unit drops.  Compared to your powers using a tank or chopper isn’t that great, but you will need to use them throughout the game.    My best moment was hijacking one copter, jumping out of it and hijacking another one of my fall down, it felt like a James Bond moment.

Now that I’ve gone over what Prototype does well there were a few things that did bothered me aside from the fact the Alex should have been a villain.

Bugs (PC Version):

1) When I first loaded the game, the default resolution the game selected off centered the game screen and I couldn’t see the menu.  I had to manually go through the entire menu blind until I found the setting and changed the resolution.  Only had to do it once, but it was worth mentioning.

2) Ultra low sound.  For some reason the volume for the game is very very low and having gone through the forums I haven’t see any workaround yet, so I had to put my speakers all the way up to get some good volume.

3) Controller kept resetting.  I used an Xbox360 wireless controller to play, but the game would never save my setting so everytime I started it I would have to go into the setting and re-select it.

Those were the only bugs I experienced and none were major so I was ok with them, although the low sound was the worst.

The auto-targeting system was a pain in the ass only because there are so many enemy units on the screen at a time.  There were times I wanted to select a unit right in front of me, I’d hit auto-target and it would target something far away.   This was the worst when doing boss fights, I’d keep trying to target the boss and it would just go to some random unit so I’d have to either scroll through all the units or adjust my line of sight and try auto-target again and again.

One thing that bothered me the whole time I played was that people were still going out of their houses and walking or driving around.  I mean there’s a virus thats been unleashed in the city killing thousands of people and there just strolling around like nothings going on.  I’d be locked in my apartment with boarded windows and doors hiding in the closed.   What the hell is wrong with these idiots.  That’s one of the reason I didn’t feel bad when I was running around killing people, they deserved it for being so stupid.

As for the graphic, they were pretty good, some of the moves you do zoom out and go into slow motion which is cool as hell.  But other things like building being destroyed look cheesy.

Overall I loved the game.  I gotta admin I never really go into GTA, I always liked just driving around and doing random stuff and with this game you can just take it to a whole new level of mayhem.

A-