There are a ton of mini-missions to accomplish, everything from foot-races across buildings to timed fights. They’re fun, especially the glide challenges and the foot races, but the combat oriented challenges are somewhat repetitive. Kill so many Marines with this power in this amount of time, or so many infected in this vehicle, etc. Combat is fun enough, but it takes some getting used to; the targeting system is less than ideal. Supposedly, hitting the left trigger selects the most potentially harmful target in your field-of-view, but most often the enemy that’s “most potentially harmful” is across the city, while the Hunter-beast that’s eating your face is somehow less of a concern. Manually switching between targets is a quick-fix, but you run into the same issue with cycling between “most dangerous” enemies.
The graphics are kind of a devil’s compromise. You can see forever in this game, and most of the buildings are greatly detailed at a distance, and while the character models aren’t finely detailed, you can see a couple hundred of them moving fluidly onscreen at any one time; in short, the broad strokes are well done. The fine details are what’s lacking, but that’s the trade-off; quality versus quantity. There’s a lot going on onscreen, but nothing there, graphically, that makes you stop and say “whoa.”
Well, there is one major negative “whoa;” the cut-scene animations are kind of awful. Everyone looks like a bad plastic-y mannequin, and the dialogue is stiff and short. The cut scenes lack any sense of drama; they’re a thing that happens onscreen that throws some exposition at you, while not giving you any real emotion or characterization. While overall the plot is decent, you come away from the experience generally not liking anyone. All the characters are one-dimensional, which is about what you would expect from most videogames; the down-side is that they all seem to come from the jerk-hole dimension.
The main question, though, is did I enjoy myself, and the answer is, solidly yes, and I enjoyed myself for more than 12 hours of gameplay without bothering to do most of the events. Getting around town is a roller coaster ride, a 3D platformer with a whole city for a playground. Want to know how Spider-Man feels swinging around town? Play Prototype. Want to know how the Hulk feels, tossing cars and helicopters around? Play Prototype. Want to know how Superman feels, saving innocents? Prototype is not that game. Prototype is about the experience of power; plowing through crowds, drop-kicking helicopters, and fighting three-story tall monsters, and it’s those moments, which are not few or far between, but constantly and consistently improve the entire experience. Prototype is a ridiculously fun, but ultimately flawed experiment, its moments of greatness muddied by the details.
B-
Prototype’s gameplay is non-stop super-powered amoral fun, but is held back by nearly every other aspect of the game.
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