Prototype performs well as a sandbox game and action game, but when it comes to plot, falls flat on its face
You take control of Alex Mercer, a man who remembers nothing about who he is, and why a the company, Gentex, is after him. You start the game with a short tutorial which opens up all the games powers for you, but then throws you to the 'real' beginning of the game and takes them all away. See, this tutorial is set at the END of the game, so it's pretty understandable if you don't know whats going on. It's a feeling you'll get during the game, questioning yourself, 'What just happened?' or 'Why am I doing this?'
The plot of the game is, you are infected with a virus, this said virus, due to your run away from Gentex, spreads around the island of Manhattan. During the course of said infection, you try to unravel who is responsible for transforming your body into some type of bio-weapon, and bringing them to justice.
The game's plot is told through a series of short cut scenes before and after missions. I don't know if this is nit picking from my end, but, I found it hard to really sink my teeth into the plot, since so little information was given to me in each cut scene.
Aside from the cut scenes, there are also 'Web of Intrigue' targets. One of the Alex's powers is the ability to consume and assimilate any human into himself. Using this power, you hunt down key targets who upon consuming will slowly unravel the mystery behind the virus you're infected with.
Now, how does the game handle? Moving around the sandbox City of New York is fun, though it plays a little too much like Spider-man. This shouldn't come as a surprise, since it is Activision who is responsible for both these games. With that said, moving around is easy as Alex Mercer. You can parkour (for those who don't know, it's very much like what appeared in Mirrors Edge) around town, jump, glide and run at blistering speed. The controls stack up pretty nicely when free roaming. However things get a bit confusing in battle. You have a series of different powers, that can be accessed by holding down the left shoulder button. You then have to move the right stick over the power you want and press A. Or, you could hot-key one power to any of the four D-Buttons. Now, that would be all good, except the powers are sorted in four different sections. One to change your attack power, one to change into a disguise from someone you consumed, one to change into armor, and one to change your vision. Things simply get a bit to frustrating in battle when you constantly have to cycle through the shoulder button menu just to change powers.
The look of the game is pretty bland. The scale of New York is impressive, but since it's such a big large map, it is pretty un-detailed. The look of the city changes slightly as the infection spreads, with the sky turning green and red at certain areas to signify how intense the infection is.
Sound is good. You hear noise from the street even while you leap from rooftop to rooftop. There is a good loop of screaming constantly through the latter half of the game, and the sound effects from battle is also pretty good. On all front, sound and graphics wise, it's all pretty average to me. I feel that in a game like Prototype, it's more about the gameplay than how it looks and sounds.
The Prototype experience can be stretched out to almost 20 hours, if you take the time to complete side events, collection missions and upgrade slowly, while doing the main storyline. This game is fun, and is probably it's only selling point. Even though there are a lot of similarities with last years Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, this is defiantly the better of the two. So, if your in the market for a fun game to keep you occupied, this game is most certainly up the to challenge.
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STORY: 7.0
GAMEPLAY: 8.5
GRAPHICS: 7.5
SOUND: 7.5