Prototype Review

Prototype is one of those games that promises super powers, incredible fun, free-roam and an interesting story. I can say that it delivers on ALMOST all of those.

Gameplay: In Prototype you are a character that, over time, gains more and more power as the game goes on. It is an open-world Action/Adventure game set in New York City.

The basic element of gameplay is getting powers and using them to your advantage. These powers can be things such as a whip, giant fists, super speed, disguises, etc. You don't really gain super powers, you sort of.. become them. You can switch between your powers using a wheel and your powers can be leveled up, and new powers can be gained via a sort of experience system.

The game is a somewhat non-linear campaign game with the open-world aspect included. Your objective is to complete each mission in order to progress through the story, but you can also do side quests to get new story elements or just test your skills.

In New York City, a sort of invasion of zombie-like creatures and the police are the two opposing forces who will also fight you if you're not careful. As the game goes on, the zombie and police presence in the city grows, but you can decide to either stop their growth or favor the growth of one side versus another to sort of change the outlook of the map. The map is pretty dynamic, though, and it actually works pretty well. Battles can range from you vs zombies, you vs police, or just an all-out free-for-all with you going crazy inside it.

I have to say, the gameplay is definitely something unique. It's almost as if you're a comic-book super hero, but you're more aggressive, more insane and your powers are ridiculous. Imagine if they made a comic book hero that could run up walls, throw cars a hundred feet, fly/glide/teleport, absorb disguises from mutilating people... this is the guy.

The biggest problem with this game is the fact that during the gameplay, there's actually very little "free roam", and that sucks because the game is the most fun when you're out causing chaos and throwing people around without consequence. Both the zombies and the police have an array of enemies that pester you CONSTANTLY, and you have to either fight them off or spend several minutes running and hiding until they lose track of you. Imagine you're playing Grand Theft Auto, and then all of a sudden, just for being you, you get 4 stars right off the bat and spend the next 10 minutes running. It seems fun at first, but the entire game is filled with this? Come on! Give me a break!

There are a few instances where you can do things like drive vehicles or sneak around absorbing disguises, making for quite varying gameplay, but for the most part the game is just crazy and out of control. Sometimes a mission will take about 5 times longer than it should just because you got a boatload of enemies on you for no particular reason, and you have to spend time fighting them off while also focusing on another objective. It's fun, but playing the entire game can get really draining... especially the last few hours when the city is almost 100% covered in zombie and police presence.

Presentation: The game is slightly below average of what you'd expect from a 360 game nowadays. The cut-scenes are somewhat unspectacular and can get a little boring.

The animations are the reason it's so fun to play as your character though. Sometimes he's so fast he's out of control, but it's still pretty fun watching him flip around or do a WWF (yeah, I don't call it WWE) style elbow drop from 500 feet in the air and smash down on a pile of cars.

Overall, the audio/visual presentation is decent, but nothing spectacular.

Theatrics: The story revolves around you, a mutated man capable of all sorts of frightening superpowers. For the most part, you don't remember how or why you got those superpowers and they elude to you being the cause of the city being a complete wreck, in some form or another.

The story can be followed through the missions, and bits and pieces of the story can be gained by tracking down particular targets and absorbing their brain (along with their memories).

The story could have been a lot more interesting if they wrote in characters that you actually cared about, and you can tell the story was kind of a back-burner objective of this game. The reason you play likely won't be to figure out what happened to you (and they don't do a very good job of telling you anyway), but rather going nuts on people with your powers (or being annoyed at how much they limit your freedom... whatever).

Controls: The controls are actually pretty good for a game that is wild and out of control a lot of the time. The fighting is halfway decent for a sort of action/adventure button mashing combo style of fighting game, and you can tell based on my description that I usually don't care for games where you press buttons and whirl around beating people up. They at least went beyond that cookie cutter approach to make something cool, and the controls keep up with it, for the most part.

The driving of vehicles is a little bit awkward and they could have done well to simplify a lot of those controls, considering sometimes they just don't make any sense. Driving vehicles takes a big back seat to running around and going crazy, though, so it's not that big of a problem.

Replay Value: It is a single-player game, so don't expect any power-battling with your friends. The replay value really depends on how fun you find being chased around all the time. By the end of the game I was getting really annoyed and actually didn't finish the final boss fight (I hate most boss fights anyway). I wouldn't play it again, so this is definitely something I recommend renting. It's actually a pretty fun game and most of the time you're having fun as opposed to being annoyed. If they make a sequel I certainly hope for some co-op and a lot more freedom. If they had the said freedom and more control during a big battle, I definitely would have played it more, or even a second time through.

My Overall Rating: 8.0