Review: Prototype

Prototype is an action and sandbox game for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It was developed by Radical Entertainment.

Alex Mercer divebombing a tank in the ruins of Manhattan.

Alex Mercer has woken up in a New York City morgue with no memory of how he got there and the ability to shape shift, thanks to the BLACKLIGHT virus that he has been infected with. Very quickly the military is brought in to hunt him down, and Mercer has to find out why, as well learn how he developed his shape shifting abilities, and get revenge on whoever killed him in the first place. But someone has unleashed a different virus on Manhattan that turns people into zombies and monsters and made Manhattan into a warzone, another problem Mercer will have to deal with in addition to the military.

Mercer’s main missions are to find out what happened to him, do something about the military trying to hunt him down, and deal with the zombies invading Manhattan. To accomplish this, Mercer has to go on missions, which usually involve going to some place in Manhattan, and killing someone; or destroying something; or chasing after someone and them killing them; or eating someone for information.

Thanks to the BLACKLIGHT virus infecting his body, Mercer can change his body into different weapons, and a couple other abilities. In addition to being able to eat people for health and information about the current mission, Mercer can run fast, jump really high, climb up buildings, glide, and disguise himself as the enemy. Most of these abilities are essential for completing the missions, or just getting around Manhattan faster, though not all of the combat abilities are really practical.

The story is rather normal, withlots of evil government conspiracies and the military committing various atrocities, all of which Mercer finds out about throughout the game, a lot of which is found out by consuming people, gaining their memories, and piecing the story together.

What is really impressive though, is watching Manhattan turn into a giant mess. As the story continues, whole neighborhoods become swamped with zombies and other monsters that Mercer can visit at any time. Actual parts of Manhattan get filled with thousand of zombies all running around at once, plus giant monsters and buildings covered in pulsating orange pustules. It makes the whole situation feel grave and important. It is weird though, seeing one half of New York look like the apocalypse and then go to another part of New York and see everyone walking around like nothing is wrong.

The setting is a really big draw. The player is given access to all of Manhattan to do whatever they want. Mercer can run up buildings, pick up cars, glide, and kill hundreds of people in brutal ways without any consequence whatsoever. Eventually the novelty of such reckless abandon wears off, but on the onset it is really novel.

Combat is more complicated than necessary. The player can lock onto one enemy and attack them by pressing one or two buttons repeatedly. Pressing the attack buttons a certain way makes Mercer do stronger attacks. Mercer can also purchase stronger attacks using experience points gained from killing enemies and completing side challenges. Unfortunately most of these attacks are unnecessarily complicated to perform and do not cause enough damage to warrant their execution, especially with the mutants, which the attacks barely slow down at all. Thankfully Mercer can pick up and throw vehicles, or hijack tanks and helicopters, which make fighting a lot easier.

Also, when fighting many enemies at once, it becomes difficult to focus on one enemy. Several times Mercer will focus on the wrong enemy, which is usually the one that is not about to attack him.

The main game is fun. Each mission usually has a new enemy, or a new handicap for Mercer to overcome, or some other type of unique obstacle for Mercer to challenge. Unfortunately the main game is also pretty short. So to pad out the game, there are various side challenges that Mercer can participate in. There are about eight types of challenges scattered throughout Manhattan that Mercer can participate in at any time. As a further incentive, completing the challenges under a certain time limit gets Mercer more experience points, which are essential for making Mercer stronger. While some of these side missions can be pleasant enough, most of them are incredibly tedious. And running up and down Manhattan trying to reach them is never fun.


While several parts of Prototype can be annoying, avoiding those parts will yield a fun, though short, game.