Prototypical

I've had Prototype for almost a month now. I haven't really been playing it for a month though. There has been all kinds of other stuff going on so I haven't had as much time for videogames as I'd like. Come to think of it, the only time I can remember having enough time was winter break in college. Ah...a whole month of nothing to do.

While I was jumping from rooftop to rooftop and running up buildings I got the sense that I'd done this before. It reminded me a lot of Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction from a few years back. That's not a slam. I loved that game. It made more sense once I learned that the same developer worked on both.

Prototype has an impressive array of stuff that it tries to accomplish. It's successful at most of it. The combat is varied, you can go anywhere, and there's even some stealth elements if you choose to play that way. Every once in a while I'm reminded that it's an open world game though. The only time you're ever allowed to control your character indoors is in one of several identical stadium-sized military complexes. Otherwise it's a cut scene.

The story isn't anything special but the video flashbacks you get when you consume another character and their memories are well done. Something about a huge military conspiracy with a crazy virus. It doesn't matter. Oh, speaking of the military, they're very early on painted as the bad guys. It's you and the virus versus them. Not you against all the crazy zombie mutant things, but you against the evil, lying Black Watch military dudes.

I'm not entirely sure how far into the game I'm in. Day 13 of 18 if that matters. But I'm starting to get bored with the repetitive missions. Go here, consume this person. Go there, kill that person. And I'm not even doing any of the non-story side missions. They give you experience points to spend on upgrades for your character, but there are so many you don't really need all of them. I spent mine on running and jumping upgrades since the complete freedom of movement was my favorite part of the game.

Part of the reason for this post was to help me decide if I wanted to keep chugging along on the story or send it back to GameFly and start on Saints Row 2. And Shadow Complex. And my new copy of Mario Kart Wii to replace my unplayable scratched one. Ok, so...to the 360!