3 hours with Prototype on PC

Image by Wikipedia.

I was excited when I first heard about Prototype many months ago. Alex Mercer, the hooded figure shrouded in mystery and intrigue, is able to change his genetic code at will, making him pure devastation walking on two feet. You feel like an absolute badass morphing hands and arms into claws, blades, mallets, and tendril-like whips. Let’s not forget the devastator attacks that include Alex shooting jagged spikes from up the ground and flailing tendrils that project out of his body. The videos that I saw for Prototype were action packed and got me hyped up. I’m about three hours in and here are my thoughts so far.

Installation was a breeze. It took about 45 minutes for the game to install. As soon as I booted up the game, I immediately checked the options. I was a little disappointed to see that the game didn’t include a 1360x768 resolution, since it’s the only widescreen resolution that can run on my HDTV. So I had to play on 1280x1024 with the annoying black bars on the side. I hope this issue can be resolved in a patch.

As soon as I created a profile, the game just throws you right in the middle of action with most of the cooler powers unlocked. It gives a taste of what Alex can have later on in the game since the story will eventually revert back to 18 days in the past. From there, you’ll gain evolution points by doing various missions and challenges to unlock your powers.

I must say that the videos don’t really do this game justice. Alex’s character model looks great, as well as some of the Blackwatch soliders. The building textures range from being pretty sharp to others looking a little bland. But in the long run, this doesn’t really matter when the chaotic and frenetic mayhem starts surrounding you. There are so many bullets flying, helicopters swirling above, and civilians running around to even notice. The engine does a good job of keeping the frame rate smooth for the most part. I had some issues where there was some slowdown because of so many things running across the screen, but it didn’t detract from the action.

Image by IGN PC.

Controlling Alex is really easy. About 20 seconds in, I was already running up walls with ease, kicking pedestrians in the face, and sucking up the bodies of the unfortunate ones I consumed to stay alive. Once you actually start to get better powers, they are easy as bringing up a radial menu by pressing ‘R’ and mousing over to the one you need. It’s the overall simplicity of the controls that really make it feel like you have total freedom.

I have to say though that this game got merciless when I started fighting the infected creatures. These things are insane. There’s one mission where they keep coming down from above and they are so fast, it’s hard to even catch your breath while you try to pick up a weapon. To make matters worse is that the mission takes place in a confined space. And if you get cornered by 3 of 4 of these creatures, it’s really hard to get out sometimes. Though I died a bunch of times trying to beat this level, I never once got frustrated. It makes for an awesome challenge.

So three hours in and I’m pretty happy with the purchase. It looked cool watching Alex rampage across Manhattan, but it’s a totally different feeling when you actually step into his shoes. So far, this game is just loads of pure, destructive fun that makes you feel like the most powerful being ever.