PROTOTYPE - Playstation 3

Graphics:Let's get one thing out of the way. While the graphics in this game are not bad (A little better than Grand theft auto 4) they don't compare to titles like uncharted or Arkham asylum. And the reasoning behind this is quite simple. A large portion or your PS3's processing power in working in the HUGE environments since you're pretty much free to go wherever (or as high) as you want.Gameplay and Overall feeling of the game:Mind-blowing. Imagine being in a GTA / sandbox type of environment where you can do almost anything. Leap buildings, run across walls, Hijack armored tanks, glide above a massive (very accurate) replica of New York City (Mostly Manhattan) and unleash pain at will when you detect foes below you, I could go on and on. Weary of battle? low in health? help yourself to an innocent bystander and literally suck the life out of them. Possibilities are endless. Oh, and by the way, how do you actually "suck the life" out of them? Well, just the way the T-1000 used to do it in Terminator 2, you can replicate people on contact and become them while sucking their life energy and making it your own in the process. It's a win-win. (Maybe not for the poor basterd you snatch off the street but it works pretty well for everybody else, a.k.a.....You. - In game jargon you're technically "consuming them"). And not only you can alter your appearance to look like your victims with the push of a button. You also own their knowledge. You know everything they knew which slowly but fascinatingly unravels the plot of the game via the "web of intrigue": A living organic map that connects your victims with each other, with special emphasis on the characters that have knowledge of the mystery behind your powers and maps their previous interactions with each other before their met their doom at your hands.So, when military choppers with enough firepower to start world war 3 come after you, they quickly realize that's not such a good idea, when you catapult yourself into the air, storm the cockpit and do to the pilots things that one day you'll tell your therapist about. And guess what: you just "consumed" a military chopper pilot along with all his life memories including his ability to fly military choppers which is now.......yours. Without even landing it, guess who is flying the chopper now! (Just the way trinity used to do it in "The Matrix" but with LOTS more blood involved).Becoming people is just so much fun I found myself spending hours just infiltrating military bases, and consuming weapons specialists, fighter pilots etc. And the more you do that, the more your skills in that particular discipline are refined.I had a blast while being chased through the city by military squads just to turn around the corner, push a button, become one of them and seeing them run right past me and then get all confused. It would be right there and then when I would resort to one of several methods:1. Use the Assault rifle now in my hands (comes with the body of the poor soul you just consumed) and shoot everybody in the back while laughing like a maniac.2. One of my favorites, with a simple button command ACCUSE one of the soldiers of being ME in disguise resulting in the rest of the team shooting him, execution style, no questions asked. HILARIOUS.or 3, reveal my true self and impale everyone in the vicinity with lethal spikes, blades, claws or whichever one of my mutant virus obtained powers I fancy at the time, just to see everybody scream for their lives in despair.Most people compare this game to InFamous, which was released about at the same time and to my surprise is rated higher. I also own InFamous. I played InFamous for about 2 hours and it was OK. Both games are indeed very similar in it's concept but in my opinion Prototype is vastly superior. The InFamous guy was really slow. He climbs buildings and runs at human speed. The Prototype guy leaps buildings, glides to the point of almost-fly and runs at superhuman speed. Playing InFamous, was OK, but at times it felt a bit like a chore. Like I had to play through an annoying not really fun part, just to get to the fun parts people raves about on the web. Playing Prototype was an absolute blast of non-stop fun which I wasn't able to put down since the first minute I played.

Perfect

Have you ever read a comic book where the hero or a villain can turn their hands into stuff? Carnage from Spider-Man, Warblade from WildC.A.T.S., that kinda thing. Have you ever really wanted to be able to do it yourself? Thats what Prototype is. Basically, the player character can re-shape his body into weapons, armor and disguises, all of which he'll need because apparently every soldier on Earth and every parallel Earth in which everyone still thought 'give peace a chance' belonged on bumper stickers and not in politics is after him. And why are they after him? Well, thats pretty much the only interesting plot point. I won't say it in case you're one of the people who'll end up caring about the story, but most of the plot is pretty 'meh'.A lot of people compare this to InFamous, and I can see their point. They're both good games and I hope are pioneering a genre I like to call "Super-Sandbox", in other words, GTA with super-powers. Its a great idea and has potential as massive as The Hulk. While I think the electric powers in InFamous are more versatile and allow for more control over who you want him to be, they're also less active. Its sometimes difficult to survive being surrounded if they know you're there. Not so in Prototype. You can butcher blocks and blocks and blocks of guys with guns, helicopters, tanks and monsters without much trouble. Maybe not as strategic, but it has a certain visceral quality to it InFamous lacks.The other big difference is morality. In InFamous, you can be a hero or a bad guy (sort of). Prototype's...uh, player character Alex is under no illusions about his alignment and I find being truly chaotic neutral to be very interesting. Alex' weapons are easy to use but if you care about not killing pedestrians, good luck. Everything but bare fists are going to catch someone you may not mean it to. But the only reason it matters is if you want it to. There is no punishment or reward for doing good or bad acts so it really doesn't matter how you play. Blend into the crowds, kill all of them, whatever. I like that. The only downside is that, as far as I can tell, you can't be a good guy and I'd kind of like the option. Theres no pleasing me.Disguises are good in theory but they don't really work when I need them to. If I just want to walk around and see the sights, its fine but sometimes I need to infiltrate a base, which is done in a weird way. You have to grab a soldier of mid rank, consume and become him, go into the base, disable the machines that can see through disguises except the flying ones, which give you away instantly even if nobody sees you destroy it, then grab the base commander. Hes always accompanied by other soldiers, so the second you grab him, the whole base is on alert and an attack team is en route. Then, you have to escape with him, unless some dumbass enemy kills him before you escape which they often do unless you're decent with evading while running up walls, get out of sight of aerial units, eat him, become him, go back and enter the base. I've observed the commanders for ten minutes and they never have times where they're alone, meaning you have to do all that for every base. Not a huge deal, despite this paragraph, but a pain, especially when the strike team are in top form and you can't shake them. But once you're in that base, its pure Prototype fun. Maybe fifty guys, all just waiting to be slashed, cleaved, bashed, sliced, eaten alive, shot or splattered against the wall. Its really fun, and its a lot of the game if you'll let it be.The military is really a pain in this game. Even when you're fighting basically zombies, in a disguise that hasn't been seen through yet, sometimes they'll just go ahead and fire on the crowd you're in. Its in line with the opening cut-scene in which some soldiers are shown as cold-blooded jerks who kind of like killing civilians, but that doesn't mean its fun to deal with them. And they never leave. You can destroy base after base, but some form of them is always ten steps away and anxious to break up your zombie-slashing flow. Basically, they make everything more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. Not harder. Tanks and helicopters are easy to deal with and soldiers are just made for taking apart. In armor, getting hit with shells and missiles doesn't even hurt much. Its just annoying to be knocked back every three seconds when all you want to do is indulge in some innocent carnage.Should you buy it? It would be pretty pointless to say I would since I already did. But I don't feel cheated and thats pretty good.