Prototype (2009) (PC) (Radical Entertainment)
2I never played Radical Entertainment's Prototype when it was released three years ago; opting instead to buy developer Sucker Punch's similarily themed PS3 exclusive Infamous which came out almost at the same time. The latter game turned out to be an excellent open world game with a morally complex super hero story, and by contrast Prototype's more mixed reviews and humorless, unimaginative theme (involving zombies, militaries and a vengeance plot device) turned me off just enough to not get around to it. However, I did finally pick up Prototype in a Steam sale at some point, and now that the sequel is just around the corner I decided to check out Radical's darker anti-hero title to see what I'd previously missed.
My first impression of Prototype is that it provides a relentless, almost exhausting third-person action game experience. The developers consistently throw an absurd amount of enemy soldiers, tanks, helicopters, giant mutants and infected citizens into the mix of standard open world activities; making effective management of Alex Mercer's impressive range of supernatural abilities absolutely necessary to survive for more than a few minutes at a time. The angsty protagonist's effortless mobility is virtually unmatched even by the standards of super hero games, and traversing through the environments thankfully becomes an exhilirating, satisfying activity right from the get-go rather than the time-consuming chore it could have been. Games such as Infamous and Batman: Arkham City arguably had more measured and balanced movement controls than this but there's definitely a case to be made for Prototype's reckless, over-the-top approach; by which the player character is fully capable of running on the walls of skyscrapers with an alarming speed even before buying any upgrades. And yes, there's a staggering amount of incremental power increases to purchase with experience points gained during main and side missions, so Radical got that open world trope covered as well.
While I can already see why Infamous was by most reviewers considered to be the better game of the two, Prototype's core gameplay formula feels distinct and even sophisticated in ways I had not quite anticipated.