Customer Reviews

PROTOTYPE

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm guilty of writing long reviews so I'm going to try to keep it short as possible:

What is that thing?
In case you didn't read that long description above, the game is centered around Alex Mercer a guy with a shady past that wakes up a changed man. He has the ability to jump, run, climb, and kill way better than us. He also has the ability to absorb people to gain their memories and their identity.

The game follows his story as he tries to protect loved ones and figure out what the hell happened to him. As you progress and gain "Evolution Points" from missions you can upgrade Alex with new abilities including some crazy attacks that just devastate everything around you.

The setting is Manhattan (seems like everyone wants to ruin NYC) and you can literally run around and up anything. Once you get used to it (it's pretty simple to figure out how to run up buildings), it's pretty liberating. It's what I wished I could've done in GTA IV. You can climb the highest building and jump off of it. Traveling via rooftops gives you that Spidey feeling but without all that webbing. My only problem with it is that your ability to turn and fine tune your moves while sprinting is limited so you'll find yourself flying off rooftops once in a while. Still, nothing beats the almost animal running and leaping style Alex has...it's really fun.

Did I mention Wolverine?
At the core of the game is the combat and you get a taste of just how addictive it can get at the start of the game. You're introduced to Alex's abilities, Hollywood style, in the middle of a climactic battle. You've got access to nearly all of his abilities as you get used to navigating and the like. The story will then take you to the beginning and you start with minimal abilities that you'll have to unlock over time. Still, it's a great feeling when you can just jump into the middle of a huge battle (mutants, tanks, helos, etc.) and just devastate. It reminds me of Wolverine (the game) except on a much larger scale. And, this includes the blood, gore and violence. If you're not into that sort of stuff, stop reading and find another game.

Why You'll Like This Game:
- You feel really powerful once you've developed some of your powers
- You'll get a kick out of leaping around the city, raining devastation on your enemies.
- You liked Wolverine but thought there wasn't enough to do
- You can save anywhere despite the checkpoint saves.
- Learning the story through random bits of memories you grab off people is a pretty damned cool plot mechanic.
- With a large city, there's plenty to do with side missions in the form of races, kill tasks (kill X soldiers in Y seconds), etc. and various markers to grab for EP.

Why You Won't Like This Game:
- Lots of gore, blood and body parts...c'mon, he's a mutant up against other mutants and military out to kill him.
- The crowds and traffic are as generic as GTA's.
- Graphics are solid but they aren't fancy. Lots of fog to ruin those potentially amazing vistas.
- Like GTA, if you're not doing missions or other tasks, there's only so much fun to be derived from destroying cars and killing soldiers and mutants. Also, like GTA, you will end up killing civies so you'd better hope your moral compass doesn't get in your way.
- While there's lots to do, I doubt you'll want to replay this game over and over once you've completed it.

All in all, this is a fun game (it's hard to not say yes to "Just one more mission"). If you loved Wolverine or GTA, then you should definitely try this one out.

So I've been playing this game almost five hours now. I'm no where near done and nor do I hope to be. To be honest, I wasn't hyped about this game when I saw the trailers but now I am. I would say this game is the love child of Spiderman, the Hulk and Assassin's Creed. I'm not talking about rip offs, but the inpiration (and maybe even references) is clear. The GUI, the minimap markers, and design elements come very close to Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed. Much as I'm loving Prototype, there are of course, pros and cons about the game.

I like to start with the cons.

Technical Aspects: This game, impressive as the concept design is--and you'll see plenty during installation--the graphics aren't as up to par. You don't get to see the in-game graphics until a few sequences of cinematic cutscene, and the graphics used in the cutscenes are just mind blowing. But when it's time to start the game, it might come as a little bit of a slap to the face. Of course, this is highly subjective and depends on machine to machine. Be warned though, if you've played Left 4 Dead and your machine lags when the horde is on their way, this game isn't for you (or for your machine rather). There is a lot going on at all times in all parts of the world, so be kind to your graphics card and know how much it can handle. Not to mention you will be expected to provide some complicated moves in addition to the existing chaos of the world.
Another frustrating part of this game is the audio. It's really low. Who would have thought that a game like this would have an audio issue of all problems. But there you have it. You might have to turn the volume all the way up, and yes, even if you have your headphones plugged in. It was frustrating but we'll have to live with it until a fix comes along. If it's still not good enough, there is the option to enable subtitles, but seriously.. poor audio?

Gameplay: The gameplay I've been experiencing so far is pretty decent. I'm working this on a Intel Core 2 Quad with 2.4 GhZ and a GeForce 8400. I preferred to have everything on medium for the smoothness of this game but of course if your system specs are better than mine then you should experience no problems. I just wished that these graphics could have been a little more enhanced, but it's not a major setback.

Also, I like how everything is treated as a quest/mission. Besides the main missions you'll be given (which relate to the plot of the game), there are these mini-events that test your the skills you have acquired and unlocked. This is an Assassin's Creed reference. You collect markers scattered over a small section of the city as fast you can. It's a good way of timing practicing complicated button-combos as you add new moves. However, there are other things you can optionally collect (but will add to your Evolution Points). Kind of pointless really. It's just a way of the game designers and developers to make the player look at (and appreciate, I'm sure) everything they had to put in the world, but it's a good distraction nevertheless.

Perspective limitations: Call it a game that was meant for consoles or whatever, but maybe playing this in first perspective couldn't have harmed the game. Then again there's Mirror's Edge for that, lol :P

Saving/Loading: The game will tell you that it saves and loads automatically but at certain checkpoints. You can manually save before you reach a checkpoint but the game saves your character progression like the Evolutions Points you achieved, and any upgrades that you purchased and so on. This means that any manual save will not save your location in the game but will rather revert you to the checkpoint that you came closest to the last time you played. So be prepared to repeat about 2 minutes worth of gameplay to progress to the next phase of the game. It's very misleading and redundant as this is, it's not painful.

Alex Mercer: This could be just me, but the guy who voices Alex just mumbles most of the time. They need to hire a better voice actor. Strictly biased viewpoint here :P If it helps, he sounds like Tommy/Domasi from Prey.

On to the pros:

The City/World: The mini-map is your friend when it comes to navigating around the world. You are going to be all around Downtown NY. The world has been constructed flawlessly. I have yet to experience any bugs, but play this game and you won't ever feel the need to physically be in New York. The map is detailed in it's districts and every surface is climbable, much like Assassin's Creed. Now if only there was a way to be more subtle when passing through a crowd of people like Altair does.

Also, day and night takes place throughout the game. It's a good concept which adds that extra tinge of reality. Thanks to Fallout 3 and Stalker for the idea, I suppose.

Disguises and movements: Really nifty, these. Anyone can be consumed for health and can be used as a disguised. So long as they are alive, that is. You can also incorporate a little stealth into the game by choosing to maintain a low profile. Again with the Assassin's Creed concept of a yellow symbol indicating that people are observing you and red if you've alerted people. Also, you can throw almost anything at helicopters and at other people. Sprinting takes place at lighting speed (especially when you upgrade). Alex performs a whole lot of other combos. But be sure to practice these in safe areas first. You don't want to make a scene since military personnel are always on the lookout for you. And with Alex's strength it's easy to make a scene.

Memories: Assassin's Creed reference again, but if you remember in the game just before Altair killed an antogonist there would be this out-of-body conversation that they have. While it's not exactly the same in Protoptype, when certain people are consumed (a memory victim, I call then and the game points them out to you) you get to see their memories as cutscenes. Throughout the game, you can connect memories through synapses as you collect more memories from more victims. It's a nice way of "putting the puzzle pieces together" since Alex seems to be a John Doe.

Upgrading: I felt this was unnecessary but I guess there's no harm in trying to better your skills. You can upgrade movement, powers, survival skills and more. I have yet to look into all of this, but the option to upgrade helps. Upgrades can be purchased with Evolution Points.

In a nutshell: These are the main factors that I saw when playing this game. I'm not even going to comment on the plot and other things. This game should be bought for the constant action and the adrenaline rush it gives you. By the time you're done with it, you'll be pretty hyper and crazed. I guess we'll be our own prototypes in a way ;) I hear a lot of people comparing this to Infamous or some game that was bound for the PS3. Much as I'll keep my hatred of console games (and gamers) to myself, just have fun with this game. Keep an open mind and go on the ride it offers you. In other words, treat it like an interactive movie and stop trying to predict what's coming next. Your opinions can get the better of you once you have actually completed the game. As mentioned, Prototype is the combined result of Spiderman, the Hulk and Assassin's Creed. Or maybe just a urbanized version of Assassin's Creed (with superhuman powers). Nevertheless, this is definitely worth a try so do this game the justice it deserves.

Verdict: Highly recommended

Some important things to note about this game:

- You can flying karate kick helicopters out of the sky
- You can elbow drop tanks from the top of a nearby building
- You can ride human enemies around like a surfboard then flip the body into the air and kick it at a nearby target

And just in case that wasn't enough to sell you on the game, you might want to keep reading the rest of this review.

No matter if you decide to run straight from one main plot mission to the next, spend time doing all the side missions/events, scour the city for collectibles, or just run around causing mayhem, there is plenty to do here and I didn't find it to get repetitive or boring in any way as often happens with open ended games such as this. And while straying from the main plot for the various side missions does help you power up, it isn't required at all to make it through the main story.

Another pitfall which sandbox games such as this often fall into is that it becomes a chore to move around. Even if you have a lot of fun doing the various missions, if getting to them is a pain it can get old pretty fast. I'm happy to say that getting around the city in Prototype is a joy, in fact several times I found myself just exploring for the fun of it.

This game is big and immersive, and worth playing. However, the unfulfilled potential of the game makes me sad. To keep the word count down, I'm only including my criticisms, but realize that I did like the game. (This review includes no story spoilers.)

Prototype should have been the next Grand Theft Auto, a worthy successor to the sandbox game format. Superficially, the games are very much alike, with the player free to roam the city and take on side missions in between main story missions. However, some major problems drag the game back down to also-ran status.

Getting around: The ability to fly is awesome. But it wears on you quickly when you have to traipse all the way north and south between missions. You can drive a tank in this game. New York has a million cars. Why can't you drive a car? This is the single thing that in my opinion kills this game's chance to be the next GTA. You can punch cars, throw them, shoot them, do everything but drive the stupid things! Driving around a war-torn New York, like you can in GTA, would have made this game worth coming back to over and over. Maybe you could have driven a car over a ramp into a hovering helicopter. We'll never know.

Controls: This game's console heritage is smothering here. A targeting system is never needed for a PC game, because PC games have the huge advantage of a mouse. Regardless of how you feel about consoles, a mouse is a far more accurate pointing device than a thumb stick, and has certain advantages. The PC versions of Grand Theft Auto don't have the same targeting system the console versions have; instead, they have a well-tuned two-axis mouse look ability. Prototype doesn't have the ability for any sort of precise aim without targeting an enemy. It is a crying shame to have all of these awesome attacks and powers, and not be able to point them exactly where you want.

Plot: The story reads like it was written by a committee who left early to get lunch. As is, it adds nothing to the game, and repeatedly interrupts the game flow. In an attempt to add more "replay value", the huge "web of intrigue" is awkwardly pasted in, but it is little more than a collage of unrelated bits of background, interesting by themselves, incredibly tedious when individually wrapped by the same stupid intro and closing cut scene.

The city: New York is well represented in this game. However, implementation of some parts is wanting. Things like the "landmark collectibles" are nice distractions, though vastly too many are scattered about. But for a sandbox game, you are remarkably constrained in how you can employ your powers. As the game progresses, it becomes well nigh impossible to find a safe place. In fact, almost everyone can detect you through any disguise at this point, and you are forced to stand and fight endless hordes of tanks and hunters, or run and take refuge atop a skyscraper. There is little ability to experiment, to engage and disengage from skirmishes at will, the way you can in other sandbox games while between missions. Also, you can't properly save your game: if you load, you're back with 50% health in the same position you were at last load, regardless of your position at save.

In summary, Prototype is an excellent idea, incompletely executed. When I see what it could have been, the comparison to what it actually became is stark.

Firstly, this is a great port as far as functioning well. Works with the Xbox 360 controller for windows, you'll get on-screen display for the buttons. Vsync is listed as an option in the video settings.

What you can kill:
1. Civilians: Pedestrians
2. Military: Soldiers, Super-Soldiers, Tanks, & Helicopters
3. Infected Zombie Creatures: Infected zombies (weaklings), Hunters (big zombies), Hydras (ground tentacles, somewhat rare), Supreme Commanders (only 2! in the whole game), and one big boss

There is not a lot of diversity in the enemies you face. You can't actually clear an area. Infected or Military keep respawning, it never ends. Even in the "infected areas", there are still military there attacking you. If you want to just kill some pedestrians, you can. However, the military will be all over you and send helicopters ("Air Strike Teams"), everytime you encounter them. Kind of annoying since they usually send 3 or 4 choppers and you can't evade with your disguise most of the time so you have to run away and pick them off.

Even though you can unlock more abilities. Your starting character won't be much better than your end-of-game character; only difference is you have more attacks and a little more health.

I liked the character and his movements and fighting abilities. But playing the game? It is the same thing over and over again. Fighting the military and their helicopters while simultaneously fighting the infected while trying to consume pedestrians all at the same time. Same type of never ending battle each time. No scenery change, little diversity in enemies.

The main missions were monotonous. Consume a target, destroy a target, or defend this object.

Here are some quotes from IGN's review, which was scored at 7.5 out of 10:

"I found several points of the game to be unnecessarily aggravating to the point where I would have turned Prototype off and walked away if I weren't reviewing it. "

"The world itself here is far from the most engaging.."

"It's a design that creates a lot of tension, though I found the action too chaotic at times. Even the policing system is dialed to the max and too aggressive. You can't do something as simple as run through the city while leaping off of buildings without alerting the Strike Teams, at which point you're forced into some shape shifting or combat. This can make the basic act of exploration more work than it should be."

"Even while confined to a relatively small game world -- Manhattan is not recreated to scale -- Prototype manages to have visuals that range from bland to downright ugly."

"Tons of enemies are tossed into the mix, and so the visuals suffer and the gameplay occasionally becomes too chaotic and unfocused."

- IGN (7.5 out of 10 score)

Generic Overview
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Moving around, leaping, scaling buildings and gliding is cool. His different abilities that you can unlock are interesting. Use claws, blades, a whip like appendage, muscle arms, or a hammer like fists. He also has other abilities like "defense shield" and thermal vision. You can take control of tanks and helicopters by hijacking them. And pickup soldier's machine guns or rocket launchers. The Prototype/Alex Mercer, your character, can also disguise himself as pedestrians or soldiers. When you consume enemies you regain health and can take the form of whoever you disguised (soldiers or pedestrians). You can also do special attacks but only when you have full health (you have to be in the blue section), consume people to get your health to MAX.

As far as the game actually plays, it is setup in one area, which is New York City. It is a free-roamer Grand Theft Auto type of game. A bunch of skyscrapers, a bridge or two, and the central park area has trees. You can't enter buildings and explore them, you pretty much just go around from one mission checkpoint to another. The side-missions aren't really worth doing, since killing gets you better EP rewards than the missions. EP are Evolution Points, you spend these to get new abilities.

System Requirements
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OS: XP/Vista
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 Ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 or better
Video Card: All NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT 256MB and better chipsets. All ATI Radeon X1800 256MB and better chipsets.
Memory: 8GB Harddrive space, 1GB Ram for XP; 2GB for Vista

I got this game a few days after it came out, and I'm still playing it. I think that says something about a game. When I bought Left 4 Dead I played it non-stop, and that game is really great. I see some negative reviews and I'm not sure why. I was excited about the game just as many people were, and when I got it and played it, it was everything I thought it would be, well, everything but one: The graphics are not as good as I thought it would be. I play Fall Out 3 and the graphics for that game is superb. If you get up close to the civilians walking in the street they look like dolls or something. I'm not sure why they didn't try to make the graphics even better. Also the sounds is a bit soft, but all you need to do is turn the volume up for the game, and turn it back down when you're out.

Now the game itself is really fun. They advertised the game to be one of total destruction and a power trip for the player, and that is correct. You got different powers, different moves which you can upgrade, vehicles to take over, devastating attacks and lots, lots more. I was surprised at how many different things you can do. yeah the area is not as big as GTA, but still it's big enough to have lots of fun and destruction.

The storyline for the game is pretty long, which is good. I was afraid I would beat the game in a week or so, but it seems like I'm only half way through (I've spent 30+ hours on it). You can get side tracked from your objective and just do fun things like push civilians and military around, destroy or infiltrate bases, and finish a side mission to gain additional "experience" points to upgrade yourself.

Another great part of the game is that it DOES NOT COME WITH DRM or SecuROM. If that is the only thing that might hold you back from getting it, well, you should get it now. I will leave my review here.

I think it is important to know the reviewer's system specs, since it can easily influence the overall gaming experience of the user. So I'll start with that.

My System Specs:
Vista x64 Ultimate
Q6600 @ 2.93GHz
8GB RAM (2 x 4GB)
8800GT SSC (eVGA)
Soundblaster Xtreme Gamer series
Speakers: Logitech Z-5300e
24" BenQ LCD monitor (Native resolution): 1920 x 1200
Game resolution: 1650 x 1050
Anti-aliasing: 4x
Input: Xbox360 controller

Incredible graphics, great sound effects, and overall gameplay makes this title a must for everyone who loves action and a little bit (or a lot in this case) of violence.

Right off the bat, you start with tons of action and as you build your character, you increase the number of moves and special powers that you won't get tired off. It's fast-paced and it'll make your palms drench in sweat, so have towels handy.

If a game comes on multiple platforms, my first choice is PC, hands down. In my eyes, PC has better graphics - if your system has enough power, you can play it at higher resolution with more detail compared to console counterparts.

I stayed up nights trying to beat this game. There are epic action-packed battles that will get your heart pounding. Depending on how smart you are, or your methodology, your missions may range from very easy to very hard. I ran into a tough mission at the end which I had to play over and over and over... I guess that's one thing to complain about. The difficulty range is too wide. But everything else makes up for it. I would love to play this game again, but I have only so much time in my hands... I have to move onto 'inFamous' and see if it's better than this... But this game definitely raised the bar for future PC games that I'll be playing!

Oh, and you'll get your money's worth by doing side missions... There's potential for a very long playtime.

When I told a friend that I bought this, the first thing he said was, "I heard it's all repeatative." I found that it's only repeatative if you only use 1-2 abilities over and over. I loved the fact that as soon as you start, you can already run up any surface and I quickly learned that not all buildings are the easiest to run up because of signs and ledges which makes the person think and maneuver.
There are 200 blue balls to collect all over the city. After 1 week, I still only have 115. Also there are 50 purple balls that are HINT markers. It gives you game hints. Just something interesting to do outside the main storyline.
Task markers (challenges) pop up on the map such as "kill as many enemies as you can", "Run from point to point races" and more. These are designed to improve your skills so the main tasks in the game aren't too hard.
You can hijack tanks and helicopters which really change up the tempo of the game if you get tired of the same old hack and slash.
There are abilities such as blade hands, hulk-smash hands, muscle mass attacks, whip-arm style abilities (my favorite) and more.
Absorbing enemies makes for great stealth attacks. Absorbing certain military enemies gives you cool abilities like calling in airstrikes, improved vehicle accuracy and more.
You gain points (sort of XP) fast and get lots for each task you do so upgrading your skills is NEVER a problem.
Fallout 3 was my "go-to" game for a long time but this really is a great game while in free-roam mode. The story isn't bad, the voice acting isn't bad at all and the graphics are better than I expected. I have a 9800 GT video card so most games look great anyway.
My reviews are usually very hard but this game gets 4 stars from me.

I thought it was my i5 computer but from the reviews, I see that it must be the game itself. The sound is horrible but the game is perfect fun. It installed and played without a problem on Windows 7.

ETA: The mild lagging stopped on a new i5 4gb ram laptop when I upped the installed ram to 8gb.

There ARE subtitles and holding down the "E" key will get you out of a tank.

I wanted a sandbox game, like GTA or Elderscrolls, or Fallout. This game is very similar to GTA in it's look but not it's feel. Yes you can go anywhere, freeroaming the city and completing objective missions like GTA. Doing almost anything will give you points to upgrade abilities, giving you new weapons and combo moves. The combo moves are like a dumbed down fighting game but are much more honed than a game like Fallout or Oblivion, or GTA. There are moves you can chain together, and there is a certain amount of twitch combat, which is good because it makes combat a hell of a lot more interesting. The music is tense, and your enemies can overwhelm you, especially on hard difficulty. The protaganist is extremely powerful, and at times overpowered, and the stealth mechanics take the guessing out which makes you even more overpowered. For example the stealth mechanic is such that you basically know if someone is hostile, if someone is semi-alerted, and stealth kills will only be carried out if no one sees you. If you are being pursued by a human it is a simple matter of running around a corner and shape shifting to evade them. If you are being pursued by a monster it is a simple matter of holding down the sprint button.

The story is enough to keep you playing to the end, and is put together well. It is linear and the only option is to complete it. Once you beat the game you can keep playing or replay it while keeping the powers you earned.

The graphics are what they are. Screenshots don't do it justice though, watch a video to see how fast paced combat is for a better feel.

Most everything else has been covered in other reviews.

The combat in this game is very unique. I have playing nothing like it in my 20+ years of gaming. And it was well worth it to pick it up for that fact alone. It was done well and has kept me entertained much more than your everyday big budget 1st person shooter like Crysis for example, which was actually a much easier game, and much more run of the mill in my opinion. It had better graphics and production value, but not originality. It's hard to undersell the uniqueness of having near limitless control of how you move through the world.. barring running through walls =)

There is something about your character being able to run to the top of a skyscraper in 10 seconds flat and then jump off the top to pile-drive into tank, which explodes upon impact, while a mutant jumps down after you, while helicopters are firing at you, while another tank rolls in, after you consumed 10 people to regain health while you were being fired on, that makes for a very intense and frenzied combat experience, and all the combat and actions are very fluid and controllable. You can't just push a single button and win.