Prototype - Air Taxi

Have you ever noticed that the clock on the PS3 is fast? I reset it last night and the clock had been 6 minutes ahead. I wonder why that happens?

So I finally got around to playing a little more Prototype last night. Last time I left off with Mr. Mercer he had to go meet a Contact at a phone booth. Still don’t know where this Contact came from or how Alex knew the contact was even there, but this Contact really messes with Alex’s head.

The Contact gives Alex some background on the Blacklight virus. Alex is told all about Hope, Idaho and Elizabeth Greene. But the contact drops another bomb on poor Alex, he’s not even human. It’s a fascinating concept that they’re going for. When the Blacklight virus was released in Penn Station, Alex died. In the end his body merged with the virus and the virus began animating his body. So Alex is Blacklight. He can’t be cured, it can’t be removed. Alex is just another disguise that Blacklight uses. The only reason the Blacklight virus identifies itself as Alex is those were the initial memories it encountered upon waking up the body. I guess Alex went to his sister’s rescue for nothing.

Alex is told about some new virus killing antigen that the military is going to be brining in and a plan is hatched. Yes this plan is as convoluted as every other plan hatched in this game. Alex gets to play military man for this mission while in a helicopter. Your mission objective is to steal a helicopter and then ferry some military guys from point A to point B and then kill some Copperhead tentacles (which are now being called Hydra’s?) Maybe I miss heard what they were called.

I don’t really get the point of this mission and fighting in the helicopter is pretty boring. It’s slow, cumbersome and killing the hydra’s takes forever. I was super happy when I was finally told to land at a military base for some special meeting. Problem was I tried going to the meeting by following a straight line. That took me out over the bay and I assume I went too far out because I was suddenly shot by a missle and my helicopter went down. What? No warning message or anything? That’s just lame and it’s pretty basic design. Give a warning if you’re entering restricted airspace or something.

Alright, I finally made it to the military base and boy does this meeting go bad. Turns out this virus killing chemical is an airborne gas and everyone at the base has been breathing it the entire time. I think it’s funny how Alex doesn’t react to the antigen until he’s told he’s been breathing it. It’s all in your head Alex! Don’t let them mess with you!

So this blows Alex’s cover and you get to fight everyone in the base while slowly dying. This is a pretty common setup in games. You have to kill everyone/everything before you are poisoned to death. That’s not an easy task when you’re being pummeled with rockets and explosive rounds. To top it all off a new type of enemy, the genetically enhances Super Soldier, is introduced. This fight can be a little tricky. Taking on Super Soldiers directly seems pretty reckless, so I shot him with a rocket launcher. The really annoying this was that there was this parked helicopter in the base. It wasn’t doing anything, but for some reason I kept targeting it like it was a high priority target or something. Talk about making a guy mad.

After you kill the first super soldier more come rushing in to take you down. They’re followed by even more troops carrying rockets and explosive rounds. So I did what any good Prototype player should do, I used the Tentacle Devastator move and wiped everyone out in one shot. That was awesome. This game needs more moments like this.

Alex then wanders outside to where the entire army is waiting for him. You have another “escape the military” objective to pull off. I was expecting the same issues I had after Alex tried to ensnare McMullan. I couldn’t escape anyone and when I finally did get away it was sheer luck. Not this time however. I donned my special armor and quickly ran up a building. That was it. The option to change my disguise appeared halfway up the building so I switched bodies and the mission was done. Nice and simple. That made me a very happy gamer. I’m still confused about how you can lose track of someone running up the side of a building. You would think that would be a dead give-away.

You know, this wasn’t a very long mission; it also wasn’t a very complicated mission, so how did this post get so long?