game review: prototype

well, i've managed to keep myself from writing this review before finishing the game - but now it's done, and here it is:

i've had a pretty good year, gamingwise. fallout 3 was loads of fun, but fairly dissapointing at the end - never make an rpg that limits the level you can achieve, especially when you have all those cool perks to try out.
after fallout i've had this hunger for middle-age rpgs, so i've tried oblivion out for size. although a little bit weird at the beginning (i came from a background of "gothic") i've powered through and kept on playing, discovering the magnificent world of what is probably the best game i've played ever. probably.

needless to say, after finishing oblivion there was this huge void in my gaming life - nothing i tried could match it. and i've tried assassin's creed, nfs undercover, even went back to classics such as serious sam (the first and second encounter). nothing. then i've read some more opinions and tried also mass effect - which did absolutely nothing for me - and also crysis. same bullshit. the fun in gaming was ruined forever.

and then along came this game called prototype. never heard of it. i haven't watched e3, i had nothing to look forward to. i just installed it - and 15 minutes in, i was hooked. at first i did have to work around a pretty serious bug, seeing how it used to crash right after the first mission, but after disabling v-sync everything ran smoothly.

so you're this guy, alex mercer. an amnesiac. and you have these awesome powers like running up walls or such. that's all great. but dull. and along comes the story - fed to you bit by bit, just enough to keep you hungry for more. i don't intent to divulge any of the story bits, just to say that you come across these bits by "consuming" key people. over one hundred in total. and by consuming i mean either tearing them apart in the most brutal ways imaginable, or silently breaking their necks and becoming them (extremely useful when inside a military base, and also makes for some nice bonus points).

you have a total of twenty something missions to acomplish in order to find out what you're all about. among those you'll come across some really awesome boss battles, but you'll also come into some new and extremely fun powers (you can turn your arms into claws, giant hammers, a really awesome blade, you can double your muscle mass - which you will want to do when throwing cars at helicopters - and so on).

this is alex with full armor and the blade - basically an unstoppable killing machine

what you go up against (spoilers):
on one hand you have the military and the blackwatch, plus some super soldiers especially designed for you towards the end. you will learn to drive tanks and helicopters yourself, just be patient.
on the other hand you have the infected hordes, and i will note here the hunters and the leader hunters - extremely fun to fight or to lead inside a military base. these are all except for the bosses.

you do have a lot of upgrades to purchase. you do this by accumulating experience points. with your xp you go to the upgrades menu and buy them. don't worry, at first the list is nowhere near complete. there's a lot to be had.
your best bet for xp are missions, destroying hives and/or military bases, destroying strike teams (this is a favorite of mine) and so on. also, there are 50 "hints" to find, looking like glowing purple spheres one meter in diameter scattered all around manhattan. and also 200 blue spheres, i forgot their name - something to do with exploring.

aside from the main quest, there's tons to be done. you have a great number of challenges which can prove to be quite difficult, and you can always just explore, run and jump across rooftops, kill infected, infiltrate bases and killing everyone inside using your disguise ability, and that's just the beginning.

and guess what - after you finish the game on any level, you've just unlocked the "level+" mode which basically allows you to start over from the beginning, but with all the neat upgrades you've acquired. and that's what i've just done tonight.

so in conclusion: more fun than oblivion.
go play!