Open world games seem to be popping up more and more these days. In the development world, they are probably the most exciting things to create. No matter what kind of world you find yourself in, it’s always fun to explore it and that’s what every gamer does when they first throw in an open world game, you explore it and climb to the highest building in the area like you own the world. That’s the case with Prototype, the newest open world game from Radical Entertainment. In many ways, some compare it to Sucker Punch’s, inFamous, which is an interesting topic for conversation but not one we’ll delve into much here. We’re here to talk about Prototype a completely new IP in the industry and something that actually manages to do things differently for once. Let’s take a look.Gameplay
In the case of Prototype, a viral outbreak has the city running rapid. The military is doing its best to control the situation but things just get out of hand before they get better. The game opens up on Day 18 of the viral outbreak with 100% of the population infected; however that’s not where you actually begin the game. This is where the game fails before it even begins.
You play as Alex Mercer as he tells the story of the events of the breakout as it happened 18 days ago. He is a man with no memory and wakes up in a morgue wondering what the hell is going on. You find yourself holding a power that you have not yet realized the potential of. Alex is unfortunately at a loss as to how he got these powers. His mission? Find anyone who had an involvement in creating the monster that he is. The game teases you into thinking you’re beginning as this powerful antihero on a revenge plot to find out what and who you are. You are dropped into the game with all of you’re powers in tact giving you the chance to mess around in the world before taking them away like taking candy from a baby, cliché phrase but it’s literally how the game works.
If you manage to get a hold of the Xbox 360 version of the game, you will be mighty pleased by the controls and how easy it is to control Mercer. In the beginning it’s easy to control your character because you only have so few moves to learn and remember. However, as the game moves on and you start to upgrade and purchase new abilities the list just keeps getting bigger and bigger and it becomes more of a challenge to keep up. The game, however doesn’t force you to remember every move, this is why the radial sub-menu is there to help you select which move is the right one for you and the mission you have on hand.
New moves are earned from using experience to purchase them and upgrade your abilities. If brought up, a radial menu by pressing the right bumper; slows the game down allowing you to make your next decision on which move you’re going to use next. Outside of using your own abilities to wreck havoc you can use conventional weapons like machine guns and rocket launchers dropped by enemies as well as eventually hijacking helicopters and vehicles for even more damage points.
The biggest selling point of the game has to be Alex’s ability to “consume” or absorb anything in his path. By pressing a specific button combination you can easily regain your health and the memories of unsuspecting victims to give you the advantage in your mission. You’ll be doing a lot of this as you reach deeper into the game and find yourself in an overwhelming position. There are times where the difficulty is sneakily bumped up a bit to keep you on your toes once you start fighting more and more infected enemies. Consuming also has its benefits by allowing you to take the disguise of the person you just consumed. This will help as you sneak into military bases and try to uncover the secrets of the viral outbreak and where you’ll need to head next.
Another big thing that you’ll notice about the game is your detection-meter. You are obviously a target that the military is trying to search for and kill. If you get anywhere near a military presence, your meter will turn yellow and if you do things that get their attention the meter will build up and if it hits red be prepared to be pummeled with gun fire and rocket launchers from every possible angle. The only way to escape it is to run away as fast as possible until the meter drops and you’ll hear on the radio that military has lost track of you. The game certainly doesn’t get any easier as time passes, and the city starts to become a rather perilous place to be.
The game is described as an open world title; it isn’t exactly as open world as you might think. Manhattan has about 200 orbs flowing around specific landmarks that will end up unlocking an achievement if you manage to collect them all. The city unfortunately ends up looking the same everywhere you go, and outside of those landmarks nothing else looks very desirable. Outside of that there are optional side quests like timed missions allowing for races on top of buildings or consuming a certain number of pedestrians before the time runs out. The game isn’t shy about exposing its “Mature” rating, the language and blood throughout the game is quite pleasing and something that harkens back to Gears of War.
It will take around a good 10 hours or so to complete the core story for Prototype. After the ending credits, however, the fun doesn’t stop there. You can easily return to Manhattan with all of your upgrades and abilities in tact. You can either play through the main story again or stick with the side missions and optional objectives. Mercer is a nicely designed character that manages to take to the parkour adventure of the game and it feels good. The game surprisingly manages to hold up pretty well framerate wise with all the crowd’s enemies running around onscreen. Crowds and enemy animations don’t collide much with each other. Enemy AI is ok for the most part and despite jumping up in difficulty a few times on certain boss battles.
Graphics
Prototype is a hard game to judge on the graphics front. It isn’t exactly astounding or a graphically powerful game to look at. Manhattan itself is nicely designed and all the landmarks are there and replicated with much detail. The city itself is pretty detailed as well and although it doesn’t differ much as you explore, you probably wouldn’t care to take a gander at anything once you get your glide ability and find yourself literally surfing around the city. The game has its own style and because of that you get a feel for the viral outbreak that’s going on and why the art direction is the way it is.
The game’s physics engine is something I would scratch my head at. If you watch a building collapse for the first time, you would notice that it practically looks like your playing on the Playstation 2. A little more effort could have gone into making things a bit more realistic at least for a game that has you destroying everything in its path.
Sound
You’ll manage to hear everything as usual here. Voice work is rather bland and doesn’t exactly capture your mind if you’re looking for something mind blowing. There isn’t much emotion other then the fact that you know you’re in it for revenge and pretty much the script sticks to a one string emotion that carries throughout the rest of the game. Radio chatter lets you listen in to what the military is doing and lets you keep track of when they’re calling in for a strike team and you’ll have to remember to kill the person calling in before it happens. Mercer himself is nicely done but again a rather bland character that doesn’t make you feel involved in the storyline.
Plasma Factor
The bonus for the game? The ability to consume your victims, the fact that you are stuck with being the bad guy helps in this situation. Consuming anything in your path allows for health regeneration and memory regeneration essentially. It’s what keeps the game moving and what hopefully keeps you happy.
Unfortunately, combat ends up feeling like a button mash contest to see where you’ll end up in the end of it all. As you learn new abilities you’re going to be learning new button combinations once the situation presents itself. This is where the feeling of being overwhelmed comes in after being attacked by waves and waves of enemies before you can manage to run away from them. The military certainly doesn’t make any qualms about hunting and killing you.
Conclusion
Prototype manages to keep one word in mind, satisfying. While it will manage to annoy some at times, especially when the difficulty ramps up, the option to just explore the world will ease your mind from the trials and errors of the main campaign. You will die a lot, especially once you start getting overwhelmed and have no idea what you’re doing. Prototype has enough unique abilities and missions that it’ll keep you busy and interested for the time being while waiting for something else to pop up. In the long run, Prototype is an interesting new IP and is certainly welcomed in an industry that always seems to lavish in the sequel realm.
Operating System: Windows® XP (with Service Pack 3) and DirectX® 9.0c or (Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2)
Video Card: 256 MB 3D hardware accelerator card required - 100% DirectX® 9.0c with Shader Model 3 support*
Processor: Pentium(R) Intel Core® 2 Duo 2.6 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ or better
RAM: 1 GB of RAM for Windows ® XP / 2 GB Windows ® Vista systems
Hard Drive Space: 8 GB of uncompressed hard disk space (Plus 500MB for swap file.)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 –compliant sound card
DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM
Peripheral:
100% Windows(R) XP/Vista - compatible mouse, keyboard and drivers
100% Windows(R) XP/Vista - compatible 4X DVD-ROM drive or better (600 K/sec sustained transfer rate) and drivers
Supported Chipsets for Windows(R) XP and Vista:
All NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 256 MB and better
All ATI® Radeon™ X1800 256 MB and better chipsets
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