Prototype Reviews

The coolest game ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every now and again, I find myself playing a game where my first thoughts are, “This game is pretty awesome.” Sometimes, those thoughts never leave...And other times, like while I played Prototype, those thoughts slowly fade away. I still feel that the first moments of Prototype that I played were very enjoyable...I just wish those feeling stayed with me the entire time I spent with the game.

The story is somewhat simple. You’ve lost your memory and you’re loaded with super-human powers, including the ability to shape-shift, and you have no clue why you have them or why the military is trying to kill you. You spend the game trying to regain your memories and figure out why you became ‘cursed’ with these pretty nifty and useful abilities...and the need to murder and maim. Overall, I found this story to be pretty boring; it had no depth to it and it really didn’t drive me to keep playing at all.

The gameplay is awesome at first. You’ll have fun using your abilities to destroy things and just plain cause carnage. But after a while, you may find yourself asking when the missions are gonna change things up a bit. Pretty much every mission just contains you doing the same thing. There are slight differences, like slightly different goals, or one may ask you to steal a tank...But they’re all the same: kill people, blow stuff up, get bored after doing missions that are way too similar to each other. Yeah, you can purchase new abilities as you advance in the game, but none of them really change things up much. Since the story isn’t something that’ll drive you to play, either, sometimes it almost feels like a chore to just to try and finish the game.

Prototype also boasts that the game is within an open world...And while it’s true that between missions, you’re free to explore, there’s not really anything to do aside from that. There are orbs to find and collect and mini-games where you can earn medals based on performance...But none of them are really anything special. On top of that, this open world really isn’t that fun to navigate in...You’ll probably have a lot of fun at first as you climb buildings and just explore with your abilities, but just like the combat and missions, it gets old pretty quick. The world feels dead. It’s not like a Grand Theft Auto city where each citizen has their own personality to help make the city feel alive. In Prototype, the citizens just feel like an interactive part of the background, making it very, very dull. The open world could have been the saving grace for Prototype, something to keep you playing the game when you got bored from the repetitive missions...But, unfortunately, it’s not.

There are prettier games out there, but Prototype is no slouch in the graphics department, either. Most of the game looks pretty nifty on the ol’ high-def television. My only real problem isn’t the actual graphics, but the art design. I understand that they tried to replicate New York a bit...But I’m sure it’d be do-able to make parts of the city look different from other parts. The only real different area is the park...Every other part of the city looks pretty much alike. It’s boring. Audio-wise, it’s a toss-up. The music, while it generally fits the situation, kind of sounds generic and bland. The voice acting is pretty good, however. Whenever you watch a cut scene, you likely won’t be wondering how the voice actors got their jobs.

Overall, Prototype is a game that starts off very strong...But fails to vary things enough to keep that momentum going until the end. It is a fun game and well worth playing if you’re a fan of repetitive brawlers...But most folks will likely grow bored of doing the same thing over and over by the end of the game. The open-world isn’t fun to navigate in, the missions eventually become tedious, and the story leaves much to be desired. However, the game starts out so fun that even at its most tedious, it’s still a passable game. Just be prepared to get frustrated when you realize that most of the missions you’re doing are essentially the exact same thing.