‘Prototype’ a thrilling, twisted game

• By MILES THORPE
• 2theadvocate.com staff
• Published: Jul 22, 2009

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"Prototype” is an anti-hero open-world game in which you play Alex Mercer, a man infected by a gene-altering virus on the island of Manhattan. Uncertain of his past, Alex sets out to exact revenge on those responsible for his mutations.

With several mutations that become available throughout the game, Alex does indeed become a powerful mutant. However, that flair and glory is lost because of his fairly simple vocabulary and his selfish displays. The game felt like it took way too long before Alex finally stopped and realized he wasn’t the only one affected by the crisis.

The gameplay and combat are well-done and feels frantic and exhilarating. Doing things like turning your hands into boulder-like rocks to smash vehicles and tanks makes you feel strong. Also, altering your arms into giant mutant swords and slicing through civilians, mutants and military grunts can definitely give you that “Yeah, I’m bad!” feeling.

There are several different mutations to play with, and I have to say the chain-whip extension became my favorite the instant I figured out how to spin it in front of me, eviscerating any flesh in its path. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Ghost Ship,” just picture the opening sequence on the boat with the wire.

While smashing, thrashing and squishing your way through enemies isn’t the only thing to do in the game, it is probably the high point. I found the storyline fairly generic.

How many times can a virus get released on Manhattan Island anyway?

There are several different aspects that build the storyline, from helping a girl you think is a friend to consuming key people so that you can access their memories for small blocks of information.

Yep, I said consuming.

Unfortunately in most of these scenes, characters tend to overuse profanity, making the game seem more immature than the Mature rating it was given.

Graphically, “Prototype” looks good. It tries to recreate the city of New York with its many buildings, but some areas become rather bland after just a few minutes of jumping around the rooftops.

With that said, the blood and guts always look great.

As for the sound quality of the game, there were some major problems. “Prototype” sometimes hisses through movie cutscenes and even slows to a crawl in many other areas causing the game to crash.

After reading a few threads in game forums, a workaround was found. Someone actually suggested renaming one of the main sound files in the game’s folder to completely disable some of the sound effects. After doing this, the game ran fine for me, and I still had sound effects and voice-overs for the movies.