Friday 3 October 2014

Prototype 2: The Breakdown

So I was going to do Prototype, but I figured that the second one is better and now I can give the story of the first one as back story. Win win. Made by Activision I can say right now that this game is maybe the most gory and adult game I've ever played.

*MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PROTOTYPE*

So to cover the second game's story, I'm just going to recap the first. In the first game you played as Alex Mercer. You were a scientist working for Gentek, a genetic research company. Alex gets exposed to the virus and gains mutant superpowers and the ability to consume people and take their form. Manhattan has become infected by the same virus that gave you bad ass powers, except to normal people it is near deadly and mutates the populous to zombie creatures and giant mutants. You go around and find your sister and beat up bad guys and kill people. You then go head to head with the military and cause them try and blow up the city. You take the bomb out over the ocean Dark Knight Rises style and you end up regenerating back on the shore. 

The opening cinematic to Prototype 2 is all I will cover so as not to give any major spoilers. You play as James Heller, a marine bad ass who served in some war that no one cares about. Your wife and young child live in Manhattan, which is now recovering from Alex Mercer blowing everything up. As it turns out, while you were off fighting in a war no one cares about still, the virus from the first game gets released again and everything goes to hell. You find out your wife and child were murdered and you blame Alex Mercer. You then work on a special op to take over a part of the city, which is now a complete war zone, when Alex Mercer shows up. Mutants take out your entire squad and you chase down and try to kill Mercer. You manage to "hurt" him, but he ends up saving you from a mutant and giving you the virus. You wake up in a government laboratory with people experimenting  on you and putting you in an arena against other mutants. You kill them and break out of the laboratory. Have fun killing everything!

Game play wise, the Prototype games have never been revolutionary, but they have made some cool mechanics. There are two forms of game play that blend quite well together. The modes are normal walking around mode and Blow Everything to Hell Everything must Die!! mode. The first mode consists of your abilities to run up walls to get places, glide through the air, and to disguise yourself. The disguise or "consume" ability actually has a lot of uses and is a very cool mechanic. The mechanic consists of you grabbing an enemy, having the option to consume them to regain health, to take their form and look like them, straight up turn them into a bio-bomb and football punt them, or to gain their memories and use those memories to get new missions to do. That's about all of the one portion. The second, more fun portion, is combat. In combat, you can morph your body into weapons that include a giant sword arm, claw fingers, or even a whip arm. You can also pick up weapons (Though with a whip arm why would you) The best part of any combat situation is hijacking. In later in the game you can choose to ride vehicles and choose to either rip the weapons out and wield them, to kill the driver and take the vehicle for yourself, or to straight up rip the cannon off a tank and smash it into the tank, evidently blowing it up. The third option is my favorite

As for the missions in the game, Prototype has the standard open world system. There are the story missions, which progress the story. There are also a plethora of not very good side missions. These involve such creative works as: Find and kill target, Kill multiple targets, Hack computer (James Heller hates computers for no real reason), or my favorite, storm military base and kill everyone inside. Another mission-like thing to do is to enter hives where the mutants are born, and from there if you can kill all the mutants inside, you can absorb the entire colony and gain new powers.

Speaking of powers, this game also has a vague skill tree system. You gain powers and forms during story missions, but you can gain new abilities such as advanced glide, or more melee damage. There are also perks tied to completing side missions. If you complete a small gauntlet of missions, you can gain a perk that helps in combat or with health.

The last aspect of the game is the art style, which is fantastic. The game's art style is very much reminiscent of Sin City, with the cut scenes being black and white and the blood and mutant glowing stuff being bright red. It looks very good and helps to give the game a vibrant life that plain grey's and brown's would not do. I personally love it.

After having owned this game for a while and nearly 100% completing it, I have to say this game is pure fun at  it's finest, from the grand epic story missions to the pure chaos of stomping around the overworld.

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