Reviews// [PROTOTYPE2]

But attempting to play [PROTOTYPE2] as "Good Cop" is inevitably pointless. Heller is so powerful, and his abilities so difficult to direct that if you go out of your way to avoid hurting civilians, you'll lack the freedom and the power to successfully complete missions.

Your only alternative is to embrace the chaos, and wield your powers indiscriminately, killing military, Blackwatch, scientists and civilians equally. This gives the game an unsatisfying amoral tone. We are habituated, by years of TV, movies and video games, to expect to be wearing the white hat. To be fighting the forces of evil on behalf of the oppressed. Sure, some games have toyed with this dynamic, and tried to introduce the concept or moral ambiguity.

InFamous, which [PROTOTYPE] can most easily be compared to is one such game; you get a choice and the game tied the nature of your powers to that choice. But [PROTOTYPE 2] does not even give you the option, you try and do good, but cannot effectively do so without blithely slaughtering civilians. And if you are slaughtering civilians, who are you fighting for?

Once you get through any moral recriminations and turn to the dark side, [PROTOTYPE 2] starts to pick up. When you resign yourself to the fact that you will have to consume both civilians and Blackwatch operatives for energy boosts, your are freed from a debilitating oppression. You can also stop trying to avoid eviscerating civilians as collateral damage, which makes completing your missions a lot easier to do.

Missions take a certain amount of strategy; Heller can assume the identity of the last human he consumed, and you can use this to bypass all sorts of security perimeters and entry systems. But it also sometimes makes sense to either use stealth, or to commit to a full-on up-front assault to eliminate opposition before trying to achieve your mission goal.

If you find yourself trying to undertake a task, fight opponents whilst under fire from heavy armoury and a helicopter gunship all at once, it can become overwhelming. Eventually, you'll find that, in a straightforward firefight, you can capture and consume opponents rapidly enough to keep your health bar full.

One aspect of [PROTOTYPE2] that has surprised me, though, is how linear it feels for a sandbox game. Unlike other games of the genre, your map is not alight like a Christmas tree with collectibles, objectives and side missions. Indeed, at any one time, you seem to have one active mission - while there are subsidiary objectives and side missions, they do not appear on your map, so finding them feels more like stumbling upon them than hunting them down. And they are not so common that simply wandering the city is an enjoyable experience.

Ultimately, while [PROTOTYPE 2] is enjoyable, the similarity of each of the missions detracts from the overall enjoyability, and the linear nature and apparent lack of side missions reduces addictiveness.

Pros
+ Entertaining world traversal system
+ Awesome and devastating super powers

Cons
- Moral ambiguity removes sense of purpose
- Graphics/Animation not cutting edge
- Gameplay somewhat repetitive

SPOnG Score: 7/10