Game Review: Prototype

With several years of hype behind it, it's unsurprising that Prototype was one of this summer's most anticipated releases. It promised so much, boasting free-roaming environments, flowing parkour and highly destructive superpowers in the months leading up to it's release. But has it managed to live up to it's own hype, or is this another ambitious but ultimately disappointing gaming blockbuster?

After kicking off with a brief, teasing sample of the chaos and devastation to come, Prototype rewinds a fortnight and we see the man who was just walking around with swords for hands wake up on a morgue table and realise he's somehow developed superpowers. This man - Alex Mercer - quickly finds himself being forced to uncover a conspiracy to try and discover who he is and exactly what has happened to him. Naturally he does this by walking around New York City eating people who he thinks might be slightly relevant. It's not nearly as complex or interesting as the thousands of random and irrelevant plot elements would have you believe, but it's a good enough staging ground to show off one of the coolest mix of powers there has been in a game for a long time.

Alex starts off with the basic powers, which include enhanced strength, speed, durability and agility. While they're never going to be as efficient as the shape-shifting powers you'll unlock as you play through Prototype, these abilities allow you to traverse New York City however you please and, whether that's pelting down the middle of the road at a hundred miles an hour, leaping between skyscrapers or just climbing to the top of the Empire State building and hopping off into the carnage below, you'll experience a freedom of movement that is unrivalled on the 360 and which will never become tedious.

The other basic ability Alex possesses is shape-shifting, allowing him to blend in with the crowd by taking on a different form such as a pedestrian or a soldier by consuming them. While shape-shifting can be useful early on it gradually becomes obsolete, since as you progress enemies that can detect you through a disguise start appearing more often, meaning that previously stealth-based objectives such as infiltrating an enemy base become mad consume-and-dash missions. It's a decent feature, and tricking gullible marines into killing one of their own is always a good laugh, but it's never going to vary the gameplay like it could have done.

Consuming someone for their appearance is a simple process of grabbing them and eating their face off.

As you play through the story and completely the various side missions, you'll have the chance to unlock and upgrade other powers, most of which revolve around Alex's shape-shifting abilities. However, these powers aren't about blending in with the crowd: they're about literally blending the crowd. Just a few of the powers you'll include giant hammer fists, giant claws and even a long whip (where Radical Entertainment missed a glorious comedic opportunity by attaching it to his arm and not somewhere more provocative) to deal with the hordes of zombies, soldiers, and innocent screaming pedestrians that litter the street. These distinctive abilities allow you to play Prototype however you want, and keep the already slick and hilariously gory combat fresh and varied throughout the game.

And I thought the cheestrings in the adverts were a bit mental.

If the wide selection of highly destructive powers doesn't quite cut it for you, Prototype is more than willing to throw in some more highly destructive toys for you to play with including machine guns, tanks and helicopters, all of which are remarkably easy to use. Using a weapon is a simple case of aiming and shooting - although the fiddly auto aim can be a pain since it doesn't understand that adjacent giant infected monsters are greater threats than a woman flailing her arms half a block away - while tanks and helicopters handle very smoothly, and it won't be long before you've completely mastered the controls for both and are taking them on wild rampages through Central Park. So, unlike other games where vehicles and weapons feel a little tacked on and unnecessary, Prototype has integrated them perfectly, and adds further diversity and chaos to it's already dynamic, varied and totally manic experience.

With the sheer amount of mayhem on screen, you'd imagine Prototype would be constantly suffering frame rate issues, texture pops and other irritating technical issues. But amazingly, it doesn't. Everything runs very smoothly throughout - at least it doesn't if you've taken the five minutes to install it onto your 360's hard drive. The downside to this is that Prototype isn't the prettiest game - the environment is a selection of dull greys and browns, the textures would have looked poor in a later last generation game, and the limited amount of character models are ugly and bland. Then again, if you're stood still long enough to notice any of this stuff then you're not playing the game properly, and should really get back to mindlessly slaughtering people with giant hammer fists and rocket launchers - because while the looks may be flawed, the utter carnage of combat is near enough flawless.

I know it's supposed to look disturbing, but does anyone else think the beastie on the left's expression looks remarkably like the Awesome face?

That said, there are a couple of niggling issues with Prototype. The camera, while fine when leaping over skyscrapers or single handedly re-enacting the running of the bulls in a street full of zombies, isn't particularly good in closer environments, where you'll often find your view obstructed by a piece of debris or a wall. The side missions can be fairly repetitive as well, but since you can dip in and out of them as and when they're hardly a game killer.

Minor flaws aside, Prototype is a mind-blowingly fun experience, and delivers on more than enough of it's ambitious promises to make it worth your while. If you've ever played a game where you sliced something's limb off and your only thought was "Holy shit that's cool", this is something you should definitely pick up. Like, right now. Meanwhile, if you're looking for something a little more complex and involving then Prototype probably isn't it, but frankly if you're going to turn your nose up at the awesome, bloody mayhem because Prototype doesn't have the sophistication or depth of other games then you're a pretentious cock and I don't like you.