MaTrIx has 15 chronicles

1. Alex Mercer Is It? Nice To Meet You!
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Jun 17 2009

   Last Friday, I received Prototype in the mail and embarked on a 25 hour bloodfest. Beating the game in about 3 days and now I offer up some thoughts (bear with me, its 2am) and include some ratings on a 1-5 system with 5 being the highest...
   
   Graphics - 3
   Yes, I am being cliche and starting with this and unfortunately I would have to agree with a reviewer from IGN.com on that the city felt rushed. Meaning that they delievered in other aspects but rushed NYC. An example would be that Manhattan is only 70% accurate. At most though this a minor annoyance. For a sequel though it would pay off for Radical Entertainment to upgrade their engine and go for something like Rockstars' RAGE engine for a sandbox game such as Prototype.
   
   Gameplay - 5
   A perfect 5?! Some people may not think this is worthy of a 5 star rating, that the gameplay is too repetitive, if it gets too repetitive for people then THEY are not doing something right. There is always something to do. Whether its consuming WOI (Web of Intrigue) targets, practicing your parkour skills, stealing helicopters to destroy military bases or infected hives or just going postal in an infected area with your blade (my favorite)
   
   Some things are tricky with the automatic parkour though. When trying to run up a building I wouldn't notice that there was an overhang on the side and instead of running up I would run upside down alerting the military. Which brings to mind, running upside down alerts the military to engage you and they start attacking, yet gliding right past them has no effect....odd.
   
   Further into the game the military become too much of a pain in the a** to deal with. Say they engage you, you try to run up a building but the tanks, helicopters and troops are IMMEDIATELY onto you. Tanks appear to have a homing device on you because even though you are sprinting up a building they still hit you dead on. Once you are out of their range you have to deal with the helicopters. Sometimes you have 5 or more attacking you so its best to use the "Whip Grab" to sky jack one and get out of dodge. So once you're running in the chopper you have to deal with the homing missles. These usually always hit you because they are almost impossible to shake, even with fancy flying. Although I will say it is a blast to bail out when your helicopter is almost ready to go down and jacking another while still in mid air (I freaked when I pulled that off the first time).
   
   Part of the marketing for Prototype was, "become the ultimate bad a**." Then how can the ultimate bad/good guy be killed? Something I know about all to well, especially on missions around the end of the game when the military becomes unbearable. Instead of dying, how about a temporary loss of powers until you consume someone? Or get somewhere quiet to let your health regenerate. That is if you can call it regeneration. Health regeneration is REALLY slow even seeming to be nonexistant. Next time lets speed it up some, ala Gears of War or no need for it at all like Prince of Persia.
   
   Missions - 4
   This was already touched upon in gameplay but I say again, I HATE THE MILITARY! The game starts out simple enough with simple missions and fairly linear difficulty but later it gets insane. Don't get me wrong, all the mission are great, its also great that most missions have checkpoints you can reach so that if you die all you have to do is restart from that last checkpoint. Since this section is on the missions of the game I won't go into much detail so there are no spoilers. I will say that later in the game you need to really plan how you do things and keep an ever watchful eye on where the military is.
   
   Side Missions - 4
   Side missions are nice. Most in Prototype are things such as go kill these people, consume that person or infiltrate this base. There others though like gliding from a rooftop and trying to get as close to a set point as you can. Another can be found in a park called, Battlefield. In this one you have to help the military fight off an infected invasion. Which is a pain since there are ALOT of Hunters involved and as soon as you shape shift to your blade to fight the military starts attacking you! How about something like co-op? Such as the military sees you helping them and you hear them saying something like "OMG, Mercer is here! WTF?! he is helping us!" What better way to make you feel like the Ultimate B.A.?
   
   Other than that other side missions are the usual kill as many people as you can or waypoint timed races across rooftops. But most all of them are fun and are a great way to build up your EP for upgrades.
   
   Little Things - 3
   What are the little things you ask? I'll give an example. You use your blade you tear through an entire city block, one thing, after the massacre there is no blood on the blade. In fact, its perfectly clean. These are the little things. This little annoyance does come actually come down to graphics so I won't get into it anymore.
   
   Bottom Line - 5
   Thats right, a perfect 5 star rating. I know I did some complaining in this review but I also said those were minor annoyances and lets face it, someone who complains about graphics and draw distance (you reading this IGN?) in a game where you can diveroll from over 30 stories up and blow up/send cars flying with your impact or go on a city wide killing spree or sky jack a helicopter in mid air just doesn't seem to have their head on straight. Lets look at the big picture here. To me this is the first game of its kind and RE (Radical Entertainment) is onto something. Lets look at the positive here: Shape shifting, armor. claws, blades, automatic parkour, sky jacking, "The Patsy" which btw is one of my personal favorites, cutscenes, which there are alot of but they all have to do with the game. You never watch one and think, "WTH was that about?" Now some cons. Graphics, military (my only major issue). Yep, thats it. I just sat here for 10 mintutes drinking my coffee and only came up with two cons. I already predict this game will be a best seller but if RE can address those two little things, graphics and military (its more apparent in the last mission) In the last mission and at the end of the game you do find out that Alex has a "soul" by what he is saying. Maybe they can write that into a sequel if there is going to be one but they already have solid gameplay and a solid idea to build on but with better graphics and a not so psychic military the next one could be legendary.

   
   

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MaTrIx has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. MaTrIx
   Posted On Jun 18 2009

   I say so. Its really an awesome game with a good storyline. The Web of Intrigue bits take the story even further though. So far I have 88 of the targets and you need 131.

2. BEN
   Posted On Jun 17 2009

   Wow, what a game review! Thanks for your insight and after such excitement you had for this game, I think the million dollar question is...did Prototype live up to your uber-expectations?
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   Review Rating: 4.75
   (sorry, have to give you some room to improve )