With extra special hidden message.

I got Prototype on Xbox 360 this week. I’ve got a fair ways in now and it’s not as much fun as I had hoped, but still decent. As I said before it is Radical’s previous game, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, but less fun. The combat is quite similar, but scaled down somewhat and I think this makes it less fun. In Hulk, you could leap huge distances and start chucking tanks around instantly, and then the combat built on this and got more and more creative, up to the point where you could launch yourself at a harrier, grab on to it’s cockpit, kick it at another harrier, then land on a robot and do multiple body slams on to it before chucking it at an even bigger robot to take out a missile pod so you can land on that robot and start head-butting it into submission. This doesn’t seem to have that same destructive creativity. Oh sure you’ve got these freaky powers but you can’t have as much fun with them so you essentially just slice/whip/punch things until they explode. True you can nick tanks and helicopters in this which makes up for it somewhat, as well as the stealth. Admittedly I haven’t got tired of quietly sneaking in to enemy bases to acquire powers and skills, before revealing myself and going ape-shit on the troops. I also like thw ay it tells you how much damage you inflict on a certain area in casualty and monetary terms. Most I’ve done so far is $3 billion.

One thing this also seems to do better than Hulk is create absolute clusterfucks of enemies. If you played Hulk, you’ll remember towards the last few missions you had a few missions (essentially the ones before the final boss) where the military throws absolutely everything at you. Now imagine that in Prototype, but 2 hours in. There have been a few missions where I’ve had to retreat a few times and then make my way back to the staging area simply because I was too busy being blown about the screen I didn’t have time to attack.

Still, pretty decent but I don’t think I’ll be hanging on to this like I did with Hulk. In fact once I’ve finished this I think I’ll go back and play through Hulk again rather than start this with the “New Game Plus” thing.

But you know what this game reminds me of? Spider-Man Web of Shadows. Set in New York, there’s an infection turning people into infected Mutants… even the symbiote had similar powers to Alex in this. I bet you this in development beforehand as but Treyarch managed to get theirs rushed through first. Probably why this feels that familiar.