Dunno if it's just me, but there are very few games that really WOW me Fallout 3 was definatly one of them. As addicitve as the game was I did find it slow paced and very tedious at times... Prototype, anouther sandbox game (albiet a smaller sandbox, this time the size of Manhattan instead of Washington), is by far on the other side of the spectrum. Mass Slaughter and Mayhem side of the spectum infact, where Fallout would be on the bunnies and daisies side of things, comparitivly.To be honest I am very partial to Mass Slaughter and Mayhem I have to confess, but at the same time let me point out that I am not one of those gamers that can button mash and memorise all the "super kill" combinations in a game. But I must hand it to Activision and Radical, they know how to make a keyboard interface, but more on that later... first some of the more important stuff.
The story to Prototype is not the most origional in the world, seen 28 Days Later? Watched Resident Evil (ya, all 3)? Well you pretty much have the story of Prototype right there, big bad zombiefying virus gets set loose in Manhattan rapidly turning the inhabitants of Manhattan into mindless zombies. And you? Well you play Alex Mercer, one of the two people to have not become mindless and instead can do funky things, like turn your arms, and body at times, into a uber killing machine.
That ability is very much needed, because almost everything wants you dead, the military because you are infected and the infected well because you are you. So what ensues is pretty much the Mass Slaughter and Mayhem I was talking about.
Now some might scream about video game violence, and I will agree 100% as soon as I can lift a car and throw it at a chopper I sure as hell will. Not to mention, if I can ever turn my arms into hacky and slashy, stopmy things I will definatly cause more violence than the game could dream of teaching me to do... but alas until I can I'll rather play Prototype.
Well back to the game, instead of my mildly disguised phsycopathic nature...
On the controls as promised, one thing I can say is get very used to 'left click', 'right click', 'E' and 'Space' these are the things you will be wearing thin. Also get very good at pressing 1,2 or 3 while running though your WADS at breakneck, if not panicked speed. Now while this might sound difficult, it isn't it seems to flow quite naturally more so than what I thought was Prince of Persia Perfect... now it'll have to be renamed to Prototype Perfect, evolution at it's finest.
Alas, there are some downsides, most formost being the menu interface, but being a console port one cannot expect perfection. The others being in the gameplay itself. One is if you are hijacking a tank you have a tendancy to sit and stand on it like an idiot giving plenty of others time to blow you off or kill you (which to be honest is a feat in itself but possible with enough rockets).
Nextup is some of the missions, while I might not be the most robotic perfect gamer out there I just don't know if they are possible without the 'checkpoints' in between. Ya there is no Save feature anouther downfall from any game that is ported from a console game but atleast they where nice enough to put in these 'checkpoints' for when things go south... as they inevetibly will, there are times when you just plain bite off more than you can chew.
All in all though I have to say these flaws are while able to raise your blood pressure are not bad enough to ruin a damn good and fun game.
