[PROTOTYPE]

[capt_weasle]

Ugh, this game is beautifully frustrating as fuck. Some moments playing this game I really want to walk over to Activision and punch someone in the face. If they had held onto this game for at least another year to fine-tune it and completely re-work some of the graphics, it would have been an amazing game. For the moment it's extremely entertaining, but the instant I'm done with story mode, I will never play it again. Sure, I'll spend days playing in Game+ mode (free roam mode with all of the powers), but the storyline was fucking irritating as fuck. Never has a game made me swear and throw the control around the room as often as this game has. Many of the animations are quite intricate and aesthetically appealing, but I don't want to have to sit through five goddamn minutes of animation when there are hundreds of assholes around trying to kill me, when all I want to do is hijack a fucking tank (especially when a single rocket can knock you off mid-jack and you'll have to start to animation thing all over again). I think if you want to play the game, it's better to just free-roam Manhattan. There are numerous glitches and moments within the game that could use a makeover. It makes me sad to hear that Activision has already completely abandoned the game and moved on. That's one of the things about game developers that pisses me off sometimes. When you have a game with so much potential on your hands, you shouldn't just leave it.

Anyway, here is a mini-breakdown:
- Graphics: 2/5. This is a big letdown. I know you're in a huge city, but InFamous rendered a beautiful version of Manhattan. This is just laziness on the developers part.
- Story: 1/5. Often the story is my favorite part of the game. Honestly this game just made me not give a shit. I sat through all of the cutscenes, but they just didn't do it for me. Especially since you have to sit through three minutes of loading screens to see a two second clip (seriously, one clip was just a guy turning around). I saw a preview of the graphic-novelesque story-telling in inFamous, and it got me all wet.
- Gameplay (Freeroam) - 5/5. I had to include two categories for gameplay because of the very different aspects of free roam versus storyline. In free roam you get to do whatever the hell you want, and fight whomever. With a whole city at your disposal, often I'll just screw around with some military personnel until they call in a strike team, and then have some fun. It's quite the ride, especially because you can create combos out of all the different powers and abilities.
- Gameplay (Story) - 2/5. It's fine initially, but towards the end there are just too many enemies fighting you at once. All of the previously mentioned animations just get in the way. It takes forever to charge up "devastator attacks," which only last you a short while because of the health system (you can only perform these attacks when in "critical mass," which just means you have more health than the maximum)\, and by the time you get one ready, either you get hit by something to where you lose it, or all of you enemies have moved elsewhere and fall out of range in regards to the attack. One of the other things that always pisses me off in any game is that often when you get hit, before you can get up you'll get hit again, which just leads you to a mess of bobo doll shenanigans.
- Overall: 3.5/5. I really wished they had fine-tuned the game, because then they would really have had a masterpiece. The free running parkour is a blast, and all the abilities to choose from - while sometimes a mess of random button pushing to get the right combo - is fun as well.

VERDICT: I still highly enjoyed the game. There are many aspects to it that make for a great experience. However, with the combined frenzy of irritating enemies that become more of a hassle and an annoyance than a challenge, and the numerous bugs, glitches and aspects that could really use some more work, I sometimes wonder if it was worth it. Ah, fuck it, I just love flying around Manhattan wreaking havoc. (I think I'm going to buy inFamous and see how it is. I heard that is a beautiful game)

[Spawn of Yanni]

Played it for the first time at a friend's place yesterday, who got both this and inFamous. We didn't really go through much of the story, but the freeroam was pretty entertaining. Possibly more so than the story, but that tends to be what I feel whenever I play a sandbox game. What we did notice of the story, though, is that the cutscenes seemed like a bunch of disjointed videos that you just had to accept as the story. It didn't quite feel... completed, in terms of going from one scene to the other.

Some aspects of the combat were fantastic - I'm not sure how long it would take for me to get bored of throwing one army dude at a guy who's about to call for back up - but I felt like the close combat needed some tweaking in some way or another. It was too easy to break the flow of everything once you got close and ended up punching air for a while.

I'm also not sure if the dynamics of the enemy changes once you get further into the game, but I hope there's more to it than the two stages of army-sees-you and then dude-calls-for-backup about three seconds later. They could even take a page out of GTA's book in quite a few areas, considering picking up a car and chucking it at an old lady in front of police only makes people "slightly suspicious" according to your disguise-o-meter.

I've read around that inFamous is a better game (although ZP claimed neither is better than the other); I'm yet to see how inFamous shapes up, freeroamwise, considering I've only played the first couple of minutes or so, but Prototype's freeroam'll be hard to beat. And what makes me keep playing the game once I'm done/bored with the story is the freeroam, so it really plays a huge part when it comes to judging sandboxes.

[SlappyMcGee]

InFamous is better, but I'm a PS3 fanboy.

[noops]

InFAMOUS, coupled with MGS4 and Motorstorm, make me want a PS3 REALLY REALLY BADLY. Judging by your review of Prototype, and places I've heard elsewhere, I think I Might have to reconsider my renting of the game.

Also: From what I've seen, it really does look too... chaotic.



~Hrm.

[PALEMOON]

I had a blast playing Prototype. I thought it was exceptionally well made and fun to play. The combat is indeed ridiculously chaotic and overwhelming at times, and i found myself enjoying every second of the explosion-ridden battles. (except for fighting Hunters, holy asdfkjhsgdldlrgaj those are frustrating.)

The story totally, totally stupid, but it reallly didn't bring down my experience with this game. I was having too much fun wrecking shit to even care about whatever the hell was going on in the story.

I haven't played InFamous, but i'm going to use my sweeping generalization powers and assume it's basically the same only with a better story and lots of lightning. That's totally cool too.

[Luminaflare]

Do you guys all suck or something? Prototype is freaking easy (Or at least not overly difficult apart from getting gold medals).

Tips: The whip arm (With or without its upgrades) and the jump and Y upgrade of the blade arm are EXTREMELY overpowered. The only bosses that gave me any major trouble was the last one and the huge one. For the huge one get some hunters to follow you behind a building, on top of one, whatever just out of the attack area for the green orbs, beat them down and consume them and then use the air ground spike devastator on the boss (Rinse and repeat).

I shall be playing hard difficulty after I've done with Oblivion. (Also only played the infamous demo, seems fun)

[sheganican]

too many combos to master if you ask me, but i dont have an xbox of my own to practice on.

i think the game is badass. love the kills you can make. i especially love throwing people and cars and sniping military dudes.

[Luminaflare]

Um, the combo consists of mashing the X button and interrupting with Y some times. (360 controls).

Seriously, all you need to know to beat the game: Hammer X till you get the whip. Then X, X, Y (Hold if you want). Get the jump and Y upgrade for the blade arm to take down hunters for health. Get the air ground spike devastator to kill buildings/bosses.

[PALEMOON]

Body Surf is the best attack in the game. You cannot deny this.

[Luminaflare]

Body Surf is the best attack in the game. You cannot deny this.

Correction, body surf is the coolest attack in the game. The Whip and Blade are overpowered (With the whip offering decent damage and a huge AOE and the blade offering huge damage to single targets).

[squibbles]

Body Surf is the best attack in the game. You cannot deny this.

I agree completely with that.

I think the opening cutscene is the best part of the game. That's unfortunate.
Having said that, it was a very cool cutscene. :/

[capt_weasle]

Do you guys all suck or something? Prototype is freaking easy (Or at least not overly difficult apart from getting gold medals).

Tips: The whip arm (With or without its upgrades) and the jump and Y upgrade of the blade arm are EXTREMELY overpowered. The only bosses that gave me any major trouble was the last one and the huge one. For the huge one get some hunters to follow you behind a building, on top of one, whatever just out of the attack area for the green orbs, beat them down and consume them and then use the air ground spike devastator on the boss (Rinse and repeat).

I shall be playing hard difficulty after I've done with Oblivion. (Also only played the infamous demo, seems fun)

Looking back on most of the missions, they weren't really all that difficult - except for the two boss battles you mentioned - but it's just that I hate missions where you have to protect someone while they do whatever or transport ____ from point A to point B. It's just tedious, especially when it starts to feel like the waves of enemies will never stop.

[kai]

[quote="squibbles"][quote="PALEMOON"]Body Surf is the best attack in the game. You cannot deny this.[/quote]

I agree completely with that.

I think the opening cutscene is the best part of the game. That's unfortunate.
Having said that, it was a very cool cutscene. :/[/quote]

now thats harsh.

[Donfuy]

I like to compare this game to Postal 2.

Also, cutting people in halves is my favorite sport in prototype.

[capt_weasle]

So Prototype 2 has been confirmed, and hopefully we'll get to see some of it at E3 next week. While the graphics and game play mechanics were less than stellar, the games free-roam is one of the best around. I love open world games, but I think such games are only as good as the methods used to get around their maps; Prototype dominated in this aspect. Often I would open up the game just to run around the city. I really hope they keep this the same for the second game.

[squibbles]

So Prototype 2 has been confirmed, and hopefully we'll get to see some of it at E3 next week. While the graphics and game play mechanics were less than stellar, the games free-roam is one of the best around. I love open world games, but I think such games are only as good as the methods used to get around their maps; Prototype dominated in this aspect. Often I would open up the game just to run around the city. I really hope they keep this the same for the second game.

See, the problem that I had woth the first game was that it was one giant repetetive grind-fest. You grinded and grinded to unlock new abilities, the purpose of which seemed mostly...to grind further. It was built as the kind of game where the story was meant to be the highest point of it, and narrative would be your reward for the tedium, but, well, as was mentioned above...the story was horrendous.

That said, I did finish the game, and because of that I have the contextual knowledge to say that the new game has an interesting premise. While I won't just leap in and get the game before hearing opinions on it as I did with the original, the potential for something interesting and fresh certainly has turned the game from a "hell no" to an "I'll consider it". I'm quite eager to see if the game can surpass my expectations of it, and really, I hope it does, because it really does have quite a bit of narrative potential.

Also, the glide challenges in the first were quite fun, retrospectively. I hope they come back, and hopefully have more of them.

[kai]

why was this on top? what the hell happened to the forums?

and squibbles, you might not like the second if you didnt like the first.... its prolly gonna more of same.

personally, im looking forward to it. not a "i cant fucking wait :D" kinda excitement, but it looks promising.

[Impulse]

Fun stuff. I thought the overall execution of the game could have been better, though.