Prototype (PC) Video Game Review

The game Prototype (reviewed for PC) follows the story of a man named Alex Mercer who wakes up on a morgue slab with no memory of his recent past. He escapes the lab to find that his body has been altered by a genetic mutation giving him a wide range of powers including super strength and agility along with the ability alter his body into various weapons (such as turning his arm into a giant blade or whip). He is also able to consume people and doing so allows him to take their form and memories. With these abilities he sets out into New York City to piece together his past and along the way he will have to deal with many monsters resulting from the spread of this genetic virus and with the military who are trying to control the outbreak.

The game play mechanics of Prototype are amazing. Alex's parkour moves allow him to run across buildings and even scale walls with the greatest of control and ease. And jumping across the roofs of cars couldn't be any easier or fun. The game developers really took the time to make sure Alex had a wide range of animations and as a result Alex moves in enough ways that his parkour never gets repetitive and you'll never have to watch him make the same jump animation over and over again. The combat is also well done with it being easy to pick out important targets from huge crowds and every opponent has strengths and weaknesses that specific weapons can exploit. And when I say huge crowds, I mean the crowds are HUGE. At any given moment there can be hundreds of people running around on the street desperately trying to stay out of the way of your blade as you swing at a monster or run away from a car that has just been thrown from a block away. It is very satisfying to pull out your whip and spin it around your body ripping all the infected civilians around you in half and flinging them into the crowds. The fighting is so much fun I can literally spend hours just taking on waves of infected and not even touch any of the missions.

The missions in the game are what you would expect. You got your straightforward go here and destroy this missions, your protect this VIP missions, and once in a while you'll have to use Alex's ability to take the form of the last person he consumed in order to sneak into a military base undetected. The missions are on a good difficulty curve with most of them not requiring more then two attempts to complete which makes the objectives challenging, but not frustrating. The mission types are also evenly mixed so you'll never get multiple stealth missions in a row (for example). And when you complete the game you can start over again from the beginning on a new difficulty and your allowed to keep all the moves that you have already unlocked. The only real complaint I have heard from people is that the main story is too short, but I never noticed because half the time I was having fun slashing down waves of enemies or destroying key structures.

There are a lot of mixed opinions about this game, but overall I really enjoy playing Prototype. I have played it for over 20 hours and I still play every day. The only major thing to consider when picking this game up, if your getting it on the PC, is to make sure your computer is up to par with the recommended hardware requirements. This game has slightly higher standards than most games on the market right now and if you try running it on a computer with an out of date graphics card or processor you will experience lag and the cutscenes will not play right. Other than that it is important to note the game is only singleplayer, but the singleplayer is a ton of fun.