This is one prototype that needed more time in QA

I'm all about running around virtual cities destroying things, so one would think that Prototype would be a great game for me.  Sadly, this is not the case.

Prototype tells the story of Alex Mercer, a man who wakes up in a mysterious morgue on Manhattan island to find his memories gone and his body infected by a strange virus that gives him superhuman powers.  He then embarks on a quest for vengeance and answers in a Manhattan plagued with a horrible viral outbreak and a military struggling to contain it.

There's a lot to not like about this game.  First of all, your powers make you feel incredibly awesome, but by the last third of the game you find yourself constantly restrained.  The game forces you to play much of the ending third stealthily, which means you can't use any of your powers for fear of detection and must spend a great deal of time casing every single mission before you act.  It makes for truly frustrating gameplay when you are handed an amazing set of tools and then told not to use them.

Also, the game's AI seems very up and down.  In some missions, I could avoid the military by walking around a corner, and in others I had to run halfway across Manhattan island to escape one helicopter.  Along with the AI fluctuations comes diffficulty fluctuations.  On normal difficulty I found that many of the story missions bounced back and forth between “so easy it almost plays itself” mode and “I hope you're a masochist because this is gonna hurt a lot before you're done” mode.  This all happens in such a random fashion that I'm inclined to believe that it was not intentional, and instead was just bad game design.

There are a couple really creative things in this game, however.  You discover much of the backstory of the game through the “web of intrigue”.  Basically, you consume targets on a DNA chart that are amongst the civilian population.  Every target consumed unlocks a short 30-second cutscene that illuminates more of the game's background.  This makes for an inventive set of unlockables, and actually motivated me to seek some of them out.

Prototype can be fun if you're willing to deal with its shortcomings.  Just bring your patience along, because you're going to need it.

	System:	Xbox 360
	Genre:	Action
	Experience:	Finished the game on Normal Difficulty

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