Story
It's been fourteen months since the events of Prototype. The entirety of the virus that Mercer was blamed for has been cleared out and Manhattan had begun to recover. Then that darn virus just had to go and show up again. This time it got so bad that the city has been split into three zones with varying levels of infection. The main character, James Heller, comes home from Iraq to find that his family happened to be in the Red zone and can be easily assumed dead. While hunting down Mercer, whom he blames for everything, Heller is infected and has some extremely resistant DNA so instead of dying he gets super powers. New powers acquired he sets out for his revenge.
Hated
I'll be honest with a story game that is based around letting you cause as much havoc as you wish it can be a little hard to find a few things to truly hate. In the end, most of these issues all had to do with an immersion factor of the game or simply game play mechanics that led to some horrible unwanted events in the game.
First, while I get you want to have the main character on screen as much as possible, it just seems ludicrous to force me to shape shift back into the form of a wanted man in front of a large group of the authorities just so he can answer the phone. I can't fathom a reason this was needed at all. There was even one instance near the beginning of the game where I was suppose to stealth move to my target, I showed up in hiding, was forced to answer the phone mere feet away from everyone and after the cut scene was left in my Heller skin instead of my hidden pedestrian skin. For a man that can change his arms into big ass blades, you'd think he could control his voice enough to keep his form but answer his phone.
Now this isn't were this kind of issue ends. Not only will the game shift you back at inopportune times but it will also turn off your ability to even move for these events. For instance, after causing a bunch of mayhem and needing to escape the area to safety I began a nice jump and glide away to get away from the platoons of men, tanks and helicopters trying to kill me. Halfway through my flight Heller gets a call to lead to the next mission and falls out of the sky like a sack of potatoes to answer his contact. This of course led to all the NPCs chasing me to be able to surround me and while they couldn't attack while I was on the phone you better believe that once I hung up there were rockets shoved in every orifice.
While there were a few other immersion issues I found with the game, I will move onto some of the actual enemy/combat issues I found with the game. There are a variety of new enemy types to the game, but even when playing on Insane mode they really boil down to the same kind of combos to beat with very little need to change things up. Up until I got the Hammer Fist, I found a simple dodge and then single button counter can be used to kill almost all of the buffer enemies of the game. After the Hammer Fist it can even be boiled down into Jump then Slam with little worry of taking any actual damage. It just seemed too easy for anything but the actual bosses of the game. I shouldn't be a god falling from the sky to untouchable badass from the start I guess is the real point here.
Lastly I was not all that happy with the changes to the targeting system for the game. It worked amazing once you locked onto your target if you ever could at least. I don't know how many times I targeted the wrong enemy in the game or just downright couldn't. Not because they were un-targetable but because the controls wouldn't let me cycle to them or even place the target over the enemy even if they were the only target on screen and right in front of me. It was quite bothersome and lead to a lot of alerts being set off since I'd find myself targeting the wrong person when executing something that was supposed to be stealth.
Loved
With all of that, what did I love about the game? Well for starters, it kept to the core of what I've always felt Prototype was about. That being of course a GTA feel while being pretty much god like the entire time. Plainly it is a game that when I have a bad day I can always pop in, grab any number of random game NPCs and do horrible things to blow off steam. There was a Penny Arcade comic that nailed the game on the head as a selling point and that is you can do anything including karate kick a helicopter if you want to. Granted anything is a bit of an exaggeration, but the amount of different actions you can do will quickly put all your real world issues aside for hours. That is really what this game does best.
To build off of that, while the targeting was a bit clunky, I do have to say that the combat system for the game felt a bit tighter as well as having a real feel to need to swap between all of the powers more often than before. Everything just felt so fluid and it only got better as Heller evolved and mutated. Unlike the first game, I never felt bogged down with too many crazy powers or combos even though it sure felt like I had the same number of options I had when I originally played as Alex Mercer three years ago. I could be mistaken, but that doesn't change the feeling of how fluid the combat felt.
The combat wasn't the only thing that felt like it had a bit of an upgrade though. The movement and traversal of the game also felt a bit tighter in the controls. I found myself being able to get around town without accidentally falling or flying into the wrong thing with ease. Let's face it too, just like I mentioned before this is another part of the bread and butter of the franchise and it only seems to have gotten better since the last iteration. I am completely satisfied with how well this has been improved.
For my final part of this section I am going to have to go with the addition of Radnet as an extra and not being forced in the game. If you played P1 you'd know this better as just 'challenges', which is exactly what it is in P2. The big difference is that you don't need to beat any of these challenges unless you want to. They do offer up more 'XP' to level up Heller with as well as special mutations, but they are all purely extra to the game. I hated needing to beat specific challenges in the first game just to fully get the story and all the upgrades for Mercer. These new challenges are fun and add a great mix into the game and end game. I am so glad they are not required to fully experience the core game.
Overall
At the end of the day, do I think it is worth paying hard cash for the game? I'd have to say I would totally recommend buying it over just a weekend rental. While you can most likely hammer through the main story in about 6 hours or so and all of the side missions over a weekend, that isn't what I see this game's big selling point. At the end of the day it is all about being able to load the game when you've had a crap day and taking it all out on a powerless populace. That is where the game prevails and just renting it over and over when you need some mayhem would quickly add up to a full purchase.
Don't get me wrong, the story of the game and challenges are worth it as well, but having the option to take "your boss" to the top of the Empire State building, throwing them as far as you can, flying after them so you can slam their body into the ground and then ride it like a blood skate board for 20 feet is the real fun of the game. If you say you don't have that desire sometimes you'd be lying to yourself and the world and Prototype 2 let's you do all that without the fear of the cops knocking on your door. Once you try it you'll be hooked.
Prototype 2 was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Activision on April 24th 2012 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 (July 24th 2012 for PC). It currently retails for 59.99. A copy of the game was supplied by the publisher for review purposes. I played through the main game on Hard mode and partially on Insane mode as well as all available Radnet events.
