PROTOTYPE

by Activision

• A deep, conspiracy driven storyline set in a realistic recreation of New York City that delve into the true nature of Alex Mercer's power and his part in a conspiracy 40 years in the making.
• Fast & deadly shape-shifting combat that allows players to reconfigure body parts into offensive and defensive items like claws, blades, hammers, whips, shields and armor.
• Use of advanced sensory powers like thermal vision and infected vision to track your enemies and keep the action going.
• Fluid, over-the-top locomotion & agility based on real-life Parkour movement styles that allows you to bound from building to building, run up walls, bounce off cars and everything in your path.
• Unique disguising abilities derived from Alex's ability to "consume" characters, and in doing so acquire their appearance, memories and special abilities.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000WQWPP0
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches ; 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: June 9, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,010 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PLAYSTATION 3 | Edition: Standard

Amazon.com

Prototype is a single player, open-world action game where players take control of shape-shifter Alex Mercer. In this gameworld you literally are a genetic prototype hiding in human form. You step out onto the streets of New York with no memory, but limitless potential power. As a terrifying viral epidemic sweeps across Manhattan, top-secret Blackwatch Special Forces move in, transforming it into a war zone. Delve into the mysteries of your origin, the true nature of your power and your part in a conspiracy 40 years in the making. Battle through an infected NYC. View larger. Turn your body into a weapon. View larger. Consume abilities, memories and physical form of others. View larger. Combat or join special forces units. View larger. Story Alex Mercer was once a scientist for the prominent medical research corporation, Gentek, but one day he wakes up to find himself a shape-shifter with absolute mastery over his genetic structure, but no memory of how this came to be. Taking to the streets of New York City in search of answers, he quickly encounters a web of lies and vows to rip the truth from those who have hidden it from him and the world. A few other things that Alex also learns quickly is that he is not alone in possessing amazing abilities, that there is a secret war brewing in New York City and he is on its front lines. A deadly infection has spilled out of control and the government has seized the media to stop the spread of information and has placed New York under quarantine as martial law is instated; igniting a firestorm of combat, carnage and death. As he roams the city, he faces an ever growing army of infected creatures warped and changed by the virus. As it spreads, the virus overwrites the genetics of those it infects, warping and changing their form into something else, something that seems to have been planned. The answers he seeks appear to be tied to the virus, so he rushes to discover the truth behind it, but standing against him and his goal is Project Blackwatch. An elite army specialist force, they are tasked with halting the spread of the virus at any cost and are eager to bring Alex in dead or alive to determine his connection to it. It would seem that they are potentially both enemy and ally to Alex's cause. Will Alex assist Blackwatch in its hunt, or join forces with the virus and subjugate humanity, pushing his powers to the limit as the genetic shackles of humanity fall by the wayside? That choice is up to the player in Prototype. Gameplay In Prototype players engage in 'Deceive or Destroy' gameplay. This allows gamers the choice to either blend in with the population and covertly progress through the story, or fully unleash Alex’s powers, and move through New York City like a walking slaughterhouse, taking control of military vehicles, and causing destruction at every turn. Although Alex is literally strong enough to fling people and large objects around easily, his most intriguing power is his ability to 'consume' people. In doing this he acquires their memories, abilities, and their appearance. New memories help him to solve the mystery of how he got the way he is, while new appearances allow him to shape-shift into new useful forms at will and abilities allow him to maneuver in parts of the game requiring specific skills in specific situations. In addition, Alex's consumption of people also facilitates his ability to transform his physical body and manipulate his senses. Most weapons acquired in this way are outgrowths from his appendages like exaggerated blades, shields, whips and claws used for brutal close combat, but consumption also allows for powerful abilities like thermal vision, which provides for vision through smoke and obstacles, as well as 'infected vision' with which Alex can detect hotspots of viral infection throughout the city. Key Features: Fast and Deadly Combat - Shape-shift your body to the situation at hand ... from claws to blades to hammers to whips, as you choose the right weapon for the situation. Change to shield or armor for defense or use advanced sensory powers (thermal vision, infected vision) to track your enemies. Over-the-top Locomotion - Seamlessly and fluidly bound from building to building, run up walls, bounce off cars and everything in your path. Adaptive parkour lets you move freely through the open-world environments of New York City. Unique Disguising Abilities - Consume anyone at anytime, take on their appearance and assume their memories and special abilities. Deep Conspiracy Driven Storyline - Wake up with no memory of the past ... just mysterious powers and a link to a town in Idaho. Delve into the mysteries of your origin, the true nature of your power and your part in a conspiracy 40 years in the making. Parkour Inspired In-game Movement - Alex Mercer's movements are inpired by Parkour, a mostly urban activity bordering on both art and martial arts that aims at moving the human body from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible. Recent examples of it gained worldwide attention in chase scenes in the 2007 film "Casino Royale." PlayStation Trophies - Add to your collection of PlayStation trophies as you play.

Product Description

You are Alex Mercer, the Prototype: a shapeshifter with amazing powers of combat, destruction, and deception. Consume targets for their form and memories to assume a perfect disguise, or instantly transform your body into an array of deadly biological weapons, cutting your way to the heart of the conspiracy forty years in the making.

Stalk the streets of New York City, searching for the life you lead before. Take the form of anyone in your path, using an arsenal of identities to confound, exploit or annihilate your enemies. Mankind is your mask.

Wage a secret war against factions with complex agendas of their own, out to capture or kill you. They are your greatest threat and the key to the secrets of your past. Confront them, find those responsible and make them pay.

Features:

• Play as a powerful and dynamic character created with shapeshifting powers and parkour locomotion movement
• Shapeshifting - Attack with brutal and devastating powers; instantly triggering hundreds of power combinations (Attack, Defensive and Sensory)
• Disguise - Assume the perfect disguise by transforming into any character and assuming the victim's powers, skills and abilities
• New York City is your hunting ground. Jam-packed, vibrant, fully interactive city filled with thousands of people and enemies out to destroy you
• Delve to the bottom of a conspiracy that has haunted the American government for decades

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Be a weapon of mass destruction and have a blast! July 3, 2009

By evercreed

Platform for Display:PLAYSTATION 3|Edition:Standard

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

A big smile popped on my face within minutes of starting up Prototype, the latest open world action thriller from "Radical Entertainment", the developers behind "The Hulk Ultimate Destruction", and the "Scarface" video game. This game is incredibly fun, whether you are in a huge battle with explosions and bodies flying all over the place, or just simply jumping from building to building, taking in the scenery, I enjoyed every part of it, and I'll tell you why.

Story: The game tells a story that takes place over an eighteen day period in Manhattan. It is about a mysterious virus that has infected the population, spawning zombies,and monsters, and is slowly but surely taking over the island. You play as Alex Mercer, a man who has been infected with the virus, but instead of turning him into a mindless zombie, has given him powers that he upgrades throughout the game. He begins not knowing who he is, but over the course of the story, he will learn who and what he is, as well as unravel the mystery of what is going on.

The story is well told through cutscenes, and a feature called "The Web of Intrigue", which is Prototype's version of audio logs and journals. Throughout the city there are certain individuals, well over a hundred, that when you consume them, more on that later, you will gain their memories and see some of the things that character has done and how it relates to what is going on. This is a neat mechanic and you can get a lot of background on the story with this. For example, during some of the story cutscenes you will hear characters mention a 1963 incident with the virus in a place called Hope Idaho, but it is through the Web of Intrigue that you will get the real details of what happened there, so it is worth getting these Web of Intrigue targets to flesh out the story. You'll also find out interesting tidbits like Alex's clothes arent really clothes, but are actually a part of his body. The virus mimics the clothes. That is cool.

Graphics and Sound: The graphics are great. While they don't meet the graphic quality of games like GTA 4 and Call of Duty, they are still fantastic. Manhattan is very detailed, with cracks in the sidewalks and streets, graffiti on the walls, as well as trash and discarded furniture in alleys. The character models aren't the most striking, but they are still very good and get the job done. When you are in an infected part of the city, everything gets a red coloring over it during the day, and green at night. The effect makes you feel like you are in another world.The explosions were beautiful and some of my favorite looking explosions I've seen in a game. As for the sound, well, I wish I had a surround sound system. Just walking around the city, you'll hear the people walking around, cars going here and there, honking at other cars, but it is when the action heats up that the sounds get better. Explosions will rock your room, people screaming, monsters roaring, helicopters flying overhead, the scream of rockets coming at you, it is absolute chaos, and you can hear every sound, nothing drowns out the other. It is great. The voice acting is good, especially from Barry Pepper who does a great job voicing Alex.

Gameplay: The game is a third person open world action game. You have thirty one story missions,and a lot of fun side objectives you can complete for evolution points. Evolution points are what you use to upgrade Alex's various abilities, and there are a ton of them, well over a hundred, and you are unlocking new ones all the way till the end of the game. There are also 200 landmark orbs to collect, which are blue, as well as fifty purple hint orbs, that give you hints when you collect them. Pretty much anything you do in the game gives you evolution points. When you complete a mission, destroy a military base or infected hive, complete a side objective, or collect an orb, you are always getting evolution points.

There are various methods that you can use to kill your enemies. You can use the powers Alex has, hijack tanks and helicopters, when you learn to use them, pick up cars and different objects to throw at your foes, and you can use machine guns and rocket launches which are very fun. You can pick up people and use them as weapons also, either throwing them at others, or slamming them into the ground, causing a small shockwave. It never got old encoutering a military squad on top of a building, and picking up one of them and throwing them at their buddies, knocking them off and sending them screaming down to the streets below.

There are six kinds of side objectives you can complete to get a bronze, silver, and gold medal, as well as evo points. They are "Movement", which are check point races that I actually enjoyed, I usually don't like checkpoint races. My favorite, "Glide", that has you jumping from the top of a building and gliding to a target. "Kill", where you kill as many enemies as possible in a time limit. "War", which has you fighting on either the side of the military, or the infected, and trying to take the other out. "Military Consume" has you consuming certain military individuals or scientists in a certain location, as well as attacking a military base. And "Infected consume", where you consume an infected and learn the location of a hive and then destroy it in the time given. The side objectives are very fun and I spent a lot of time just doing those.

I was really impressed with the story missions, each one is fun and the game keeps the objectives fresh. Sometimes you have to go to a location and kill the enemies, others has you trailing a character to a certain point, and one had you chasing a beast, only to then have it chase you, while making sure you keep it's interest in you. Through to the endgame the story missions never got boring or repetitive. There is also an epic boss fight in Times Square.

Another aspect of gameplay is the consuming mechanic. Alex can consume, literally absorb them into his body, any civilian or military in the game, and take their identities. If you are being chased by the military and find a hiding spot, quickly change, and you'll hide in plain sight, giving the military the slip. You can also consume most of the infected. Also, you get health back from consuming individuals, so don't try to be a good guy and not kill civilians because it is impossible. They will always be around a battle, so kill with impunity and consume them when you need health.

Controls: The controls feel good and natural, and within minutes of playing I was hacking away, and leaping around with ease. It controls like your typical third person game, left stick moves, right for the camera. X button jumps, square button is your standard attack, triangle for you special attack, circle to grabe things and enter vehicles. The R2 makes you sprint, the L2 is your lock on button. The L1 opens up your powers menu, putting the game into slow motion so you can easily pick your power during a fight and not worry about having to get slammed in the middle of it. The R1 button will fire a weapon when you have one. Overall the controls were great and I never had a problem with them.

Alex Mercer: Here is my favorite part of the game, the player character. Alex Mercer is without doubt the most powerful video game character I've ever played as. When you begin the game you only have a few abilities, but as you upgrade you will turn him from an already powerful character, into a weapon of mass destruction. He will be able to change his body into various weapons. The ways Alex spreads death is awesome. He can use his plain fists for starters and do damage that way, but you can also turn them into different killing tools like huge razor sharp claws, rock hard small boulder like fists to smash fools into the ground, a whip that can kill from far away as well as hijack helicopters from afar, muscle mass which gives you extra strength, and a giant single blade. Each weapon has a use and you will use all of them depending on the situation, and when you kill somebody, 90% of the time they will be cut in half. The game is very gory and bloody so keep the kiddies away from this one. Alex will get what are called Devestator attacks which are super powerful attacks that clear the area of enemies. He also has a shield ability that deflects bullets back at the shooters, and eventually, full body armor that slows him down, but reduces damage, and it's cool looking to boot.

Getting around a city has never been so much fun. Alex can walk, run, and sprint, and it is the sprint that is the real beauty. Pull and hold down the R2 button to make him sprint, and NOTHING stops him. He'll leap over or off of cars, leaving them dented. Trees will break apart and not slow him down. He'll run up the sides of buildings and if there are fire escapes in the way, run right through them, he'll knock them off, sending them falling to the ground below. Crowds pose no problem, he'll plow right through them, knocking them down. Alex can also jump really high, and glide around the city. It is so much fun climbing the Empire State Building, then jumping off and gliding over the city. Also, no fall hurts him in the least bit, indeed, the only ones getting hurt are the poor fools unlucky enought to be around where he lands. Jump off a small buidling and he'll land leaving a small crater in the ground. Jump off a skyscraper, and he'll land with a thunderous boom, leaving a big crater where he landed, as well as knocking back cars and people with a shockwave.

Closing: There is a lot more I could write about this game. There was so much I enjoyed doing that didn't really involve any action from me. Read more ›

68 of 81 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Prototype and Infamous July 21, 2009

By michael markus

Platform for Display:PLAYSTATION 3|Edition:Standard

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

As ridiculous as it is to pay lip service to this ongoing grudge match between these two very different games, I thought it might be useful, now that I've played both, to address this question of game comparison through the lens of extensive gameplay experience.

I own both of these games on the ps3. I've completed Infamous (as the Hero Cole) and I'm probably 20 hours into my first playthrough of Prototype.

I purchased Infamous first because I wanted to support my platform exclusive, and because I was fairly confident that it would be worth playing, which it was. However, that said, once I started into Prototype, I can say with absolute certainty that, at least for me, there is no comparing these two games, but that if i am to compare, then Prototype beats Infamous hands down in terms of pure fun and playability.

The combat and pace of Prototype is unbeatable. They could not have designed the game more to my taste. A constant stream of EP (or Evolution Points) keeps the upgrades coming, and with new upgrade options making themselves available as the game progresses, there are countless ways to increase your skills.. most of which are both incredibly satisfying and essential to the gameplay as it gets progressively more difficult.

The controls, which take some getting used to (as with any involved control scheme) are totally solid, particularly considering the range of incredible the abilities your character has access too. I found that simply traversing "manhattan", once you've acquired the basic sprint jump, air dash and glide upgrades, is easily the best fun i've ever had getting around in a video game. ever. there is nothing quite like charging up a jump and gliding over the city.. using air dash to dodge and zigzag through the air, and then, coming down hard on an unsuspecting helicopter or just perching atop the city and surveying the action below. In my experience, no game has ever provided the player with such an intoxicating feeling of power, and certainly, Infamous is no exception.

While each mission is made up of several objectives, and dying during any one will restart you at the last completed objective, saving and quitting the game will unfortunately start you from the point before you accepted the entire mission, potentially costing the player some of the time they put into the game. At first this bothered me, as some of the mission objectives are difficult enough to warrant multiple attempts, but once I got rolling, I found that this design decision did not detract from the game.

While the graphics for Infamous are more stylized and refined, particularly in the cut scenes, the action, particularly during targeting and fight sequences actually looks better to me in prototype, perhaps simply because there is nothing even remotely as exciting, either in look or feel in all of infamous. Even at the peak of Infamous (ie: the very end of the game, when you acquire the skill to call lightening from the sky) the feel is still more measured and the fighting is just less exciting, often substituting spamming you with enemies over raw, adrenaline pumping action. While the story in Infamous, even with the nice comic-styled cut scenes, is hard to stay interested in, Amazingly, the story in Prototype, while hard to care about at first, becomes more enthralling as you get increasingly caught up in the action.

When I bought Infamous, I was sure that I'd made the right decision, and bought the superior game, and yet, as I played through it over the course of a few months, it felt more like work than play. I thought it was interesting, and kind of fun, but not addictive. That said, I bought prototype as an afterthought, on sale.. and after less than 2 days of playing it, there could be no question as to which I preferred. Prototype is just more fun, and this is not meant as a dig at Infamous, which I thought was a good game.. In fact, I can say without question that Prototype is my favorite video game ever. Period.

Prototype is fun. 100% action fueled fun. Get it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An experience that's both wicked and awesome July 9, 2011

By Steve Madden

Platform for Display:PLAYSTATION 3|Edition:Standard

Fun: 4.0 out of 5 stars   

I'm surprised to see so many bad reviews. I took advantage of the PS+ for a month and downloaded some trials for games I was interested in. Prototype was close to the top of my list. I had just downloaded InFamous for free and found I had more fun in an hour with Prototype than I had in three hours with InFamous. When I saw it for sale for $20, I picked it right up and haven't regretted it since.

The intricacies of the game system have been explained in better detail elsewhere, but for my money, it's hard to beat Prototype for sheer bad-assery. At one point, my wife turned to me and said, "Did this game ruin other (sandbox type) games for you?" I can't say it has completely, but I sure wish InFamous would let me run up the side of a building, jump off and glide several hundred feet, before crashing down on an unsuspecting populace.

Some people have complained about the graphics, but I think they're perfectly serviceable. I can climb to the top of an immense building, look down and see the street, along with several of the collectible orbs. What else do we need? Really, if I have anything to complain about, it's that I often get so caught up in the mayhem, I lose sight of what my mission is supposed to be. It irritates my wife when I'm supposed to be all stealthily making my way into a military base, and instead I go running in at 45mph, set off a detector and blast off into the air before the military even knows what hit them. Oh, did I mention you can kick helicopters out of the sky?

Look, I haven't completed the game, so it's possible it'll run out of steam before the end. But I often don't finish these open-world games. So far, the story-line is interesting if not mind blowing, but the real draw here is the fun factor. This is my current go-to game when I have a few minutes to cause havoc. Of course, those few minutes often become hours, until my wife wakes up and asks me what time it is and I'm forced to recognize it's well past my bed-time. That, to me, is the mark of a great game.