Prototype 2 Review

It’s been three years since the anti-hero Alex Mercer prowled the streets of New York during the first outbreak of the Blacklight virus, and now another outbreak has happened. Taking place one year after the first biological disaster, Prototype 2 allows you to openly explore the remains of New York while introducing a new protagonist, a story of revenge, and advanced powers.

Prototype 2 isn’t a moving experience and doesn’t answer all the questions that arose from Alex Mercer or the new protagonist, James Heller's story, but it was fun to play from beginning to end.

Prototype 2 has you in the control of James Heller, a sergeant who survived the first viral outbreak only to discover that his wife, Collette, and daughter, Amaya, have died. Heller has become focused on killing the man who caused the outbreak, Alex Mercer. In the opening scene, it’s clear that Heller will go to great lengths to avenge his family, even traversing through an army of infected with just a knife.

It isn’t long before Mercer infects Heller and ends up being on the same side as the man he blames for his family’s death. Heller also finds that Blackwatch, the defense contractors put in charge of containing the situation, are conducting bio-weapon tests and research and using the civilians as test subjects.

An initial desire to learn about Blackwatch, Gentek, and Alex Mercer drives you forward, only to fall into a predictable pattern. You’ll encounter a series of old and new characters that drive the story forward, but rarely offer any reason to care for them other than driving the story forward.

Heller himself is a bland and angry character whose only characteristics seem to be sarcasm and rage. Alex Mercer, however, does an excellent job of portraying the anti-heroic attitude found in the first game. The story and characters of Prototype 2 are forgettable, and other features provide means for the amount of carnage you will cause.

Richly created sequences between each mission provide you with information towards your next objective. Each cutscene is beautifully rendered with an eye-catching artistic style as Heller angrily conveys his opinion.

The dialogue itself is well-written and provides a natural conversation for each character to provide a personal stance in each meeting. Every cutscene is designed with a high contrast of black and white while highlighting certain colors, such as red and blue, and also appears in-game when your health is low.

Prototype 2 is an open-world game that allows you to explore New York Zero three zones without barriers impeding your progress. New York Zero has been separated in three zones green is safe, yellow a testing area, and red being the completely taken over with infected. Like the first game, New York is wonderfully detailed, and sprinting throughout the once great city, gone to ruin, is empowering as movement is quick and precise.

You can run on the side of buildings, while jumping hundreds of feet into the air, and gliding over buildings to look for valuable collectables that include VIP members of Blackwatch, reports on the corpses of dead soldiers, hidden lairs, and teams of field operatives. Using these in battle requires precision, but rarely is there a situation where moving becomes an issue.

Combining your agility and speed with the large assortment of combat abilities and powers is what makes up the majority of the fun in Prototype 2. Like the first game, you shapeshift and assume other identities to sneak into bases and gain new intelligence. However, in order for you to take that person’s identity, you have to find him using your sonar.

By pressing down on the left thumbstick, you activate your radar that allows you to locate your target, tackle him to the ground, and choose to eliminate him. You can choose to consume, infect with an exploding virus, or throw him away. Most of the time, you will be consuming most of your targets to gain their memories and forms to access restricted areas within bases.

Although sneaking has been improved from the first Prototype, it has also become overpowered. Unless enemies are in direct line of sight of one another, you can easily clear an entire room without being alerted. When you are spotted, the military acts quickly, but escaping is quick and sometimes ridiculous.

Simply running to another location, breaking the line of sight, and shapeshifting into another person causes you to lose your pursuers instantly. Enemies don’t search once you lose them and won’t care if a scientist just leaped a fifty-foot wall to get into a secure base.

Sometimes sneaking is out of the question, and Heller will have to resort to brute force, probably how he would like it. Your arms can assume the form of murderous tools such as a single-blade arm, claws, a chain whip, and hammer hands. You can assign two of these powers at a time and use them in quick succession to perform combos of both heavy and light attacks.

Some targets can be weakened enough to trigger sadistic attacks that dismember the enemy, consume the body, and make you more powerful. Prototype 2 wants you to feel like an untouchable deity and succeeds in doing so. Enemies rarely offer a challenge, and when you level Heller enough, you can easily decimate massive amounts of enemies with ease.

Exerting your power offers much excitement, but after your second playthrough, you’ll find most of the fights you encounter to be filled with weaklings who should beg for their lives instead of acting like cocky children.  Even on the hardest difficulty, it would seem only the final boss is a formidable foe.

With the freedom to travel throughout the city and kill your enemies in an array of gruesome ways, you would expect some unique missions, unfortunately, Prototype 2 lacks creative objectives. Most of the missions require you to kill, escort, or defend, and don’t require much planning.

The side missions follow the same formula and can only be accessed by consuming certain Blackwatch members and then accessing a //BLACKNET terminal. Some bonuses are given for completing certain objectives within the mission to provide extra experience.

Completing missions and consuming special enemies nets you experience that can be used to upgrade Heller. After gaining enough experience or consuming special enemies, you can use talent points to upgrade powers, skills, abilities, and mutations to give you more options to destroy your adversaries.

Leveling up is common through Prototype 2, and you will probably end up gaining a new trait every other mission. Leveling up and gaining new abilities provide enough initiative to tackle the same type of missions over and over again. Although Prototype 2 makes you feel like a god, it does offer challenges in controlling the camera and lock-on system.

You will encounter many enemies at a time, and killing them provides a type of brutal fun, but when you want to target one enemy, things become vexing. Quick movements and tight spaces make the homing box move fast from target to target. This can make you grab the wrong enemy or lose track of a specific target. These moments rarely end in death, but tend to arise during intense moments.

Prototype 2 is a fun sequel that doesn’t do anything new and attempts to place a touching story in order for you to sympathize with Heller. Completing missions to level Heller and causing incredible amounts of mayhem was undoubtedly fun, especially when looking for the hidden collectables within the decaying city.

It’s disappointing that the story doesn’t share the same level of interest as the gameplay, but you are presented with well-crafted cutscenes. Prototype 2 isn’t the emotionally gripping title that was promised in the “Power of Revenge” trailer, but an exciting rollercoaster ride that will keep you entertained from beginning to end.