Okay, so I know there's been a lot of videos and probably written reviews on this game, but after finishing the game just the other day, I thought I should add a nice little contribution to this forum.
Okay, So... Prototype.
Graphics/Interactivity
You start the game and the graphics look amazing, the cut scenes are extremely well done and they give a real sense of the game and the darkness involved. Then... BANG! Gameplay. Straight away tone down of graphics and given a shitty feeling in my stomach. I mean, yes, they can't keep those graphics throughout - but it would be very nice to see a game which does. But enough of that - the game's graphics is still really well done. The buildings are well structured and have a fairly real destruction feature (windows smashing when running up walls, dust when sliding and cracks in the floor when falling.) The only problem I saw with this, was the sheer amount of dust found on Manhattan's' ground! He runs for one second and kicks up a huge amount of dust! But oh well.
Also, the feature of indestructibility to a certain amount is good, but when you can bend cars by walking into them when they're moving - it's kind of strange. And cars such as army transport vehicles which cant be picked up... But helicopters can -_-.
Oh well!
The graphics for wounding and damage is fairly realistic even though it feels like your enemies and civilians have enough blood for one body and have just drunk an entire bottle of HEINZ Ketchup. Another thing that annoyed me was the caving in of bodies, such as when you threw a body - it went head first. BUT, when the body smashes into the wall and practically explodes and the body is inspected, the head is perfectly intact with no blood signs. But with the amount of civilians going around in Manhattan - you wouldn't bother with that kind of thing would you?
Overall = 8
Good use of graphics, interactivity has its flaws but nothing to get your panties in a twist over.
Storyline
Okay, so the story starts with Alex Mercer doing his everyday job - you know, jumping off buildings and making impossible jumps around the city. And explaining to everyone HOW EVIL HE IS. Surely this is not the way forward to get us to empathize Alex? Why not just say "I'm A Dick" and tattoo a stamp to your forehead?
Well, it's not that simple. You start off thinking he is an absolute nasty person. But as the story goes on you kind of empathize with the pain he must be going through and the loss he is feeling. No memory, no job and no woman. And you kind of think... "If I had these powers, and I had nothing to lose, I wouldn't waste time being nice - I would completely do what he is doing!" (Although I'd probably use it to attack a lot of people that annoy me.)
Overall: 5
An interesting storyline, kind of evil, but you get immersed and stuff. The memory stealing seems slightly strange and gets boring after a while. Nothing to knock you on your ass.
Gameplay
Gameplay is good. That's all I'll say for that. It's fun and entertaining to use. The quick power selection is well done with the 'Power Circle' activated by holding Left Bumper or L1 and choosing the power with the right stick. To help with this, the game also slows down time to help you choose with a delay... But not for too long or you'd take advantage.
The powers have a good choice of moves... If you can afford them that is. And if you pile all your points into Movement (like Me) you end up with a shit-hot-fast character that can outrun anything but takes forever to beat stuff up. And also, the default attacks are same-y and boring most of the time. And the second you have all the moves for the whip - all the things that flew that you thought were hard... turn out to be stupidly easy.
Choosing from the claws, power fists, muscle powers, whip and sword. You can make awesome combos in battle combining them - but the change is too slow and hard to control so you'll probably just end up using the sword for close combat and then fucking up the aerial targets with your whip.
The running around the city doesn't get same-y surprisingly... Sometimes you want to get there faster and stuff but with the right Movement upgrades, you should be there in no time (You can worry about time crossing the city when you get onto consume events.)
And there's always the satisfaction of running up the empire state building, grabbing your super-huge-massive fists and throwing a nice elbow drop off the tip.
The Upgrade system is smart and very useful even if being slightly overpriced at times for simple moves. Fortunately the CORE (necessary for missions) are fairly cheap to buy so you can get awesome moves pretty cheap. The upgrades are accessible at all times so this was very good - since you could run into a mission unprepared and end up fighting a LOT of tanks or some stuff and you can just upgrade by pausing and beating the hell into them. Rather than reloading. So well done, Prototype - you saved me time and made me happy.
Overall: 9
Thoroughly enjoyable and well designed format for gameplay. A nice variety of forms and stealth to combat switches.
Events
Okay, so events are the little side-quest type things that you can activate when you're looking for more Evolution Points or if you want to show off to your friends about how amazing your times are, how high your kill count is or even how close you are to a target.
They hold no real reference to the storyline but they offer a nice little reward for stuff you probably would've done anyway (especially the killing rampage events.)
War events are annoying as HELL. You fight for either the Military or the Infected and help them defeat the enemy threat in the shortest amount of time. The only problem is that the most effective attacks end up killing your guys as well! So you have protect their stupid asses and fight away the horde of incoming things. And the opposing side always has the advantage, i.e. fighting for the Military will cause about 40 hunters coming but fighting for the infected causes about 40 tanks to come. Although they seem pretty impossible - it can be done... apparently.
Consume events are a kind of solo event that relates none to the others. The idea is you consume a dude from Infected or Military and use their knowledge to carry out a task (such as destroy a base, destroy a hive, kill some scientists or even kill some other Military personnel to gain information for the Web. Even if they are annoying on Hard mode where you get hardly any time on the Military events.
BUT the infected ones are so boring - a decent military outfit and finding the nearest tank to the hive and you've done the mission. When you are Alex or a Military on foot - the hunters absolutely bumrape you until you run out of time. But in a tank, they don't care.
Overall: 6
Interesting and stuff, but no real importance or relevance to the story. Didn't do much for me.
Achievements (X360 - Unsure on PS3, Sorry)
Story mode.
Killing.
Events.
Consuming.
End of.
Most achievements can be unlocked with a single play on Hard and if you take the time out to read them you can pick up the extra ones such 'The Butcher' - Kill 50 people in 5 seconds.
Which can be fun and slightly more rewarding than other achievements.
If you fancy going for Gold in all Events - go for it as long as you're good enough.
If you're going for platinum... Then at least do it for me cause you must be insane.
Conclusion
A very interesting game with a lot of good GTA style feelings to it and just with super-powers rather than guns and helicopters... Actually, there's both of those so it's just GTA with permanent super jump and 'morph-limbs.' Prototype was a thoroughly enjoyable game with a lot of fun moments and is great to play with people encouraging you to be the old lady and beat the hell out of everyone.
The free roam aspect is brilliant and well worth what it claims - easily accessible places and very quick movement throughout the city.
The storyline is slightly lacking in feeling but you can understand why.
The gameplay is very good and can be extremely good at times - but sometimes lacking in moves or choices in what to use.
Overall Rating : 8/10
Best game I've played in a while. Would definitely recommend to friends and others.
Okay, So... Prototype.
Graphics/Interactivity
You start the game and the graphics look amazing, the cut scenes are extremely well done and they give a real sense of the game and the darkness involved. Then... BANG! Gameplay. Straight away tone down of graphics and given a shitty feeling in my stomach. I mean, yes, they can't keep those graphics throughout - but it would be very nice to see a game which does. But enough of that - the game's graphics is still really well done. The buildings are well structured and have a fairly real destruction feature (windows smashing when running up walls, dust when sliding and cracks in the floor when falling.) The only problem I saw with this, was the sheer amount of dust found on Manhattan's' ground! He runs for one second and kicks up a huge amount of dust! But oh well.
Also, the feature of indestructibility to a certain amount is good, but when you can bend cars by walking into them when they're moving - it's kind of strange. And cars such as army transport vehicles which cant be picked up... But helicopters can -_-.
Oh well!
The graphics for wounding and damage is fairly realistic even though it feels like your enemies and civilians have enough blood for one body and have just drunk an entire bottle of HEINZ Ketchup. Another thing that annoyed me was the caving in of bodies, such as when you threw a body - it went head first. BUT, when the body smashes into the wall and practically explodes and the body is inspected, the head is perfectly intact with no blood signs. But with the amount of civilians going around in Manhattan - you wouldn't bother with that kind of thing would you?
Overall = 8
Good use of graphics, interactivity has its flaws but nothing to get your panties in a twist over.
Storyline
Okay, so the story starts with Alex Mercer doing his everyday job - you know, jumping off buildings and making impossible jumps around the city. And explaining to everyone HOW EVIL HE IS. Surely this is not the way forward to get us to empathize Alex? Why not just say "I'm A Dick" and tattoo a stamp to your forehead?
Well, it's not that simple. You start off thinking he is an absolute nasty person. But as the story goes on you kind of empathize with the pain he must be going through and the loss he is feeling. No memory, no job and no woman. And you kind of think... "If I had these powers, and I had nothing to lose, I wouldn't waste time being nice - I would completely do what he is doing!" (Although I'd probably use it to attack a lot of people that annoy me.)
Until you find out that there is no Alex, it's just the virus keeping the body animated. And the whole killing-spree thing was just the virus taking a bit of Alex's emotions.
An interesting storyline, kind of evil, but you get immersed and stuff. The memory stealing seems slightly strange and gets boring after a while. Nothing to knock you on your ass.
Gameplay
Gameplay is good. That's all I'll say for that. It's fun and entertaining to use. The quick power selection is well done with the 'Power Circle' activated by holding Left Bumper or L1 and choosing the power with the right stick. To help with this, the game also slows down time to help you choose with a delay... But not for too long or you'd take advantage.
The powers have a good choice of moves... If you can afford them that is. And if you pile all your points into Movement (like Me) you end up with a shit-hot-fast character that can outrun anything but takes forever to beat stuff up. And also, the default attacks are same-y and boring most of the time. And the second you have all the moves for the whip - all the things that flew that you thought were hard... turn out to be stupidly easy.
Choosing from the claws, power fists, muscle powers, whip and sword. You can make awesome combos in battle combining them - but the change is too slow and hard to control so you'll probably just end up using the sword for close combat and then fucking up the aerial targets with your whip.
The running around the city doesn't get same-y surprisingly... Sometimes you want to get there faster and stuff but with the right Movement upgrades, you should be there in no time (You can worry about time crossing the city when you get onto consume events.)
And there's always the satisfaction of running up the empire state building, grabbing your super-huge-massive fists and throwing a nice elbow drop off the tip.
The Upgrade system is smart and very useful even if being slightly overpriced at times for simple moves. Fortunately the CORE (necessary for missions) are fairly cheap to buy so you can get awesome moves pretty cheap. The upgrades are accessible at all times so this was very good - since you could run into a mission unprepared and end up fighting a LOT of tanks or some stuff and you can just upgrade by pausing and beating the hell into them. Rather than reloading. So well done, Prototype - you saved me time and made me happy.
Overall: 9
Thoroughly enjoyable and well designed format for gameplay. A nice variety of forms and stealth to combat switches.
Events
Okay, so events are the little side-quest type things that you can activate when you're looking for more Evolution Points or if you want to show off to your friends about how amazing your times are, how high your kill count is or even how close you are to a target.
They hold no real reference to the storyline but they offer a nice little reward for stuff you probably would've done anyway (especially the killing rampage events.)
War events are annoying as HELL. You fight for either the Military or the Infected and help them defeat the enemy threat in the shortest amount of time. The only problem is that the most effective attacks end up killing your guys as well! So you have protect their stupid asses and fight away the horde of incoming things. And the opposing side always has the advantage, i.e. fighting for the Military will cause about 40 hunters coming but fighting for the infected causes about 40 tanks to come. Although they seem pretty impossible - it can be done... apparently.
Consume events are a kind of solo event that relates none to the others. The idea is you consume a dude from Infected or Military and use their knowledge to carry out a task (such as destroy a base, destroy a hive, kill some scientists or even kill some other Military personnel to gain information for the Web. Even if they are annoying on Hard mode where you get hardly any time on the Military events.
BUT the infected ones are so boring - a decent military outfit and finding the nearest tank to the hive and you've done the mission. When you are Alex or a Military on foot - the hunters absolutely bumrape you until you run out of time. But in a tank, they don't care.
Overall: 6
Interesting and stuff, but no real importance or relevance to the story. Didn't do much for me.
Achievements (X360 - Unsure on PS3, Sorry)
Story mode.
Killing.
Events.
Consuming.
End of.
Most achievements can be unlocked with a single play on Hard and if you take the time out to read them you can pick up the extra ones such 'The Butcher' - Kill 50 people in 5 seconds.
Which can be fun and slightly more rewarding than other achievements.
If you fancy going for Gold in all Events - go for it as long as you're good enough.
If you're going for platinum... Then at least do it for me cause you must be insane.
Conclusion
A very interesting game with a lot of good GTA style feelings to it and just with super-powers rather than guns and helicopters... Actually, there's both of those so it's just GTA with permanent super jump and 'morph-limbs.' Prototype was a thoroughly enjoyable game with a lot of fun moments and is great to play with people encouraging you to be the old lady and beat the hell out of everyone.
The free roam aspect is brilliant and well worth what it claims - easily accessible places and very quick movement throughout the city.
The storyline is slightly lacking in feeling but you can understand why.
The gameplay is very good and can be extremely good at times - but sometimes lacking in moves or choices in what to use.
Overall Rating : 8/10
Best game I've played in a while. Would definitely recommend to friends and others.
