[Prototype] on Xbox 360 mostly awesome

Updated August 23rd, 2009 in Reviews
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Like a cross between Spider-Man and The Hulk, Prototype is a free-roaming smash-em-up available on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

You are Alex Mercer, the Prototype, the ultimate shape-shifting weapon. With no memory and no mercy, hunt your way to the heart of the conspiracy which created you, making those responsible pay!

Game play consists of third-person hack-and-slash, roaming the city streets, optionally taking on side-missions such as races and infiltrations, and watching the infection spread throughout the city’s population.

The Highs

Hijack anything

Like the look of the Armoured Personnel Carrier? It’s yours. Finding yourself out gunned by tanks? Cheekily steal one and turn it against the others. Want to swoop through the city in a helicopter gunship? Climb a nearby building and drop onto the cockpit. A lot of fun can be had cruising the city streets either deliberately running over pedestrians and destroying vehicles or trying to avoid raising suspicion.

Two completely different sets of enemies

The army soldiers and vehicles make a formidable adversary through weight of numbers. During the later stages of the game, it is not unusual to have a tank, a couple of helicopter gunships and soldiers armed with machine guns and rocket launchers all shooting at you with ranged attacks.

In contrast, the Infected monsters are fast and hard, excel in up-close attacks, and often bound at you in pairs or small groups. Watching the Army and Infected duke it out from atop a building is a joy to watch before descending to deliver beats to both sides.

Wide range of moves and styles

From Woverine-style claws to a long range tentacle arm, there’s a body part weapon for every occasion. Some upgrades such as muscle mass allow you to hit harder and throw vehicles further, while others are more defensive such as shield, armour and disguise.

You are also able to grab machine guns, grenade launchers and rocket launchers from soldiers on the street to enhance your ranged attacks and vary the destruction.

Switching between body weapons is handled well through the head-up menu selector, with the action on screen slowing down to help.

Free running

Alex bounds along the street jumping and sliding over cars and lorries with ease. He can run up the walls of the skyscrapers before tuck-jumping over ledges without him ever feeling out of your control. Gliding and falling soon become natural ways to navigate the city, with an Achievement available for hard-to-reach collectible landmarks.

Side missions

There are several different types of side missions to optionally complete for points to level up your powers. Glides practice your in-air abilities, while war sees you taking either the military or infected side against the other. Races time you between checkpoints and killing sprees force you to become proficient with a chosen weapon.

Humanity is your disguise

No modern game would be complete without some kind of sneaky-sneaky stealth action and Prototype has it in spades. From infiltrating military bases as a base commander, to evading a strike squad by absorbing a civilian, to hijacking a tank without raising an alert, Prototype can match your game-playing mood.

Crazy moves = wonderful chaos

There’s not many games where you can run up a building onto the roof, be shot off by helicopter gunships only for you to twist in midair to glide and hijack it before turning its arnments on fellow gunships. Or run along a street, pick up a car and hurl it at a tank. It’s great fun.

The Lows

Mundane story

Wake up with no memory? Check. Secret military plot? Check. Trying to create the prefect super-solider? Check. So typical, so ho-hum. The back story is told through some nice flash-backs, but it’s not generally worth telling.

Weak end of game enemies

Tied in with the story is that the game’s end of level bad guys are not particularly epic and come somewhat as a disapointment.

Slightly fiddly controls

Lots of moves mean lots of controls. As the moves are earnt through upgrades, these do come gradually, but I found that I had to refer back to the controls fairly often. The button combinations are also quite difficult to master e.g. gliding

Lack of multiplayer

Not a biggie for me, but it has become the norm for Xbox 360 games to have a muliplayer component and Prototype is strictly single player.

Ho hum graphics

With near draw distance and heavily repeating pedestrian models, Prototype isn’t anything outstanding. It more then makes up for this with the amount happening at once on screen though.