Prototype - FInal Thoughts

Oh dearest Prototype. I want you to know that I want to like you. There are good points to you and I will talk about them, but there are many things I need to complain about first.

The biggest problem this game has is the story. Alex’s quest for revenge makes very little sense, especially after the big backstory is revealed. It has something to do with a destructive virus, sure. But the key players in the drama don’t help to flesh things out. It helps even less that you never get to know any of these guys. Why was Cross able to turn into a Supreme Hunter? Why did Randall try to shut down Gentek in the first place? How much of a role did McMullen have with the Blackwatch virus? Why did Elizabeth Greene wait for Alex to show up before she escaped? What happened to Alex’s sister, Dana? Just how involved was Dr. Ragland with Blacklight? And finally, who the hell is Taggart?!

And that’s only a small portion of the questions that I still have after finishing the game. Maybe the little Web of Intrigue side quest would have answered more questions if I had finished it, I don’t know.

The side quests themselves is also an area of disappointment. There are Events scattered around the town. I never bothered to do them, I just wasn’t interested. All I appeared to get for completing them is a trophy and some EP. I don’t care about trophies and I was never lacking in EP. They were nicely varied so I couldn’t complain about that. I just never saw the point in doing them.

Then there was the ‘territory’ minigame. This one really had my hopes up when it was first introduced. The map would be broken up into Blue and Red circles. In these circles were bases. Blue would have a military base and Red would have a virus hive. Alex could destroy both the hive and base for bonus EP and to control the balance of that particular group. At least, that’s how I thought it was going to work. Destroying a base/hive clears the area of that particular type of enemy for about 10 minutes. I was hoping it would work more like the gang wars from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Virus or military would gain a strong foothold in the area, Alex would come in a clear them out and eventually one of the groups would take back over, that sounded like fun. Sadly it didn’t work that way. Each area was pre-assigned and that group would quickly just take back the area.

This meant that Alex didn’t really influence his world. His actions had no true consequences and that’s why I think the game went wrong by being a sandbox. Prototype should have been more in line with God of War or Devil May Cry. They should have left things on a linear, level based game style. This would have allowed the game staff to control the game encounters better. Instead of Alex being swarmed by 50 troops carrying rocket launchers, 5 tanks, 4 helicopters, and half a dozen hunters, this could have been controlled. This also would have gotten rid of the ‘alert’ meter.

At the start of the game I had no problem running over people and using Alex’s powers on a whim, by the end of the game I was very cautious about when I used them. I didn’t want to get caught, because then I would get swarmed and fighting off swarms was never fun. If the alert meter was gone then I wouldn’t have worried so much. With the sandbox style I knew that enemy troops would never stop appearing. In a level based system I would know that I would eventually kill everyone and be able to move on.

The biggest problem this has for me is that is stopped me from fighting and combat is the area that Prototype really excels in.  At least, for the most part. I liked pulling out my virus weapons and slashing my way through everything. I do wish that changing weapons was more fluid. If I was using the blade and I wanted the Whipfist instead I had to wait for Alex to put the blade away and then pull out the Whipfist. This didn’t make a lot of sense. Alex’s body is his weapon, why can’t he just change to the next weapon quickly so I can mix up my combos some?

Vehicles handle very well in this game however. Flying a helicopter was great fun and an unexpected treat. I really feared that they would handle badly. But stealing a helicopter almost seems out of place. Alex is a living weapon, why would he need to jack a helicopter?

Prototype 2 has been announced. It’s going to have a new protagonist by the name of James Heller. I hope they’re able to fix the issues that Prototype 1 had, especially in the story department because there is a lot of potential in this game.