Prototype™

The biggest drawback is the camera and your actions do not match each other. Most games have it where your attacks/movements go where your camera is pointing, this game pays no attention to the camera and you have to physically look at where your character is looking to know where your actions will be applied. You point your camera at the guy attacking you, press the attack button, your character picks up a car instead. I love this genre of game where you can jump from building to building, use supernatural abilities, but the mechanics are too frustrating to recommend it. Maybe if I grew up on PS2 or Xbox where this kind of mechanic works with 2 joysticks acting independent of each other it would feel normal, but I didnt, and they dont.

Prototype is a lot of dumb fun. Definitely loved it. The gameplay is a power trip in the purest sense while still giving a tangible feeling of growth in strength as you unlock more powers and upgrades. Alex Mercer's various powers are a lot of fun to use in combat or even to just mess around with, and combat can be fairly challenging at times as you're bombarded with enemies, whether the military or the Infected. As they grow in numbers and strength over the course of the story, it feels very satisfying as do the same and take them down. The mini-challenge events gradually unlocked across the map are fun as well. Even just running and flying across the map is a great time because of how absurdly fast and strong Alex is. Manhattan might not be the most diverse map, but it's a great playground for his abilities. I also enjoyed the story much more than I expected to. It's not groundbreaking and definitely not too much of a focus at times as the game revels in its edginess and mayhem, but the scenario and the way it's presented are pretty intriguing. The spread of the Blacklight virus throughout Manhattan isn't really the core of the story as much as the mystery of who Alex Mercer was and how that's led up to the present is. The main story cutscenes are often weirdly on the short side and a bit of a mess as a result, but the real highlight to me is how history gets pieced together the Web of Intrigue. Even without unlocking every single node, I loved how the story nonlinearly pieced together over time like that. It pairs up well with the main story and left me satisfied when the story and Alex's arc concluded. Prototype is somewhat repetitive and feels totally representative of the tone of late 2000s games, but I got a ton of enjoyment out of it.