Prototype 2 PC Review – Prototype 2, at its heart, is an ultra-violent playground of destruction with a story conjoined onto the side. Sgt. James Heller, the protagonist, is a soldier on tour when his family is killed. He comes home as the Mercer Virus, returning from the first Prototype game, is breaking out again. Before you know it, Heller is bloodthirsty and looking to kill anyone who gets in his way. Alex Mercer becomes Heller’s main target.
Prototype 2 is centered around the concept of extreme amounts of power forced into one place. Heller becomes a destructive super weapon with a strong motive pushing him. Nothing’s going to get in his way.
And that’s how the game feels. Heller is basically invincible, even on the hardest difficulty mode. All battles are a cinch given the mobility, strength, and durability available to the player. The only real nuisance is rocket launchers which lock-on and become the only thing between the player stabbing a pilot in the face. There’s a specific easy-to-pick-up pattern to combat which makes it easy to come out without a scratch anyways.
While playing, the player will encounter five different powers. They’re a bit similar to each other and each has their individual pros and cons. Some are good for ripping zombies in half, some for slicing or pulling enemies to pieces, and there’s one for throwing everything around you into the air (including cars, people, and enemies). Heller can jump over buildings, onto people, or leap into a slicing attack. It’s fun, oh yeah, but at times the camera and controls make what should be simple combat into a nightmare that can cause death on occasion. Once the player levels up (which didn’t even seem important while playing, I completely forgot there were levels after a few hours) a couple times and gets some of those permanent bonuses and stat increases, combat becomes a joke.
The game has a stealth aspect to it which is enjoyable. You can steal someone’s identity and walk around as them, allowing access to that persons memories. This proves very useful in infiltration, getting into places, opening doors with hand scanners, or discovering important information. While in either Heller’s skin, or someone else’s, that identity will have its own alert level attached to it. While being hunted down during an escape, the enemy will be looking for that one identity, so switching identities or eating another person is an option to hide.
Once you get rolling in the campaign, be prepared for repetition and a lot of it. There are missions that are separate from the main storyline that can be completed in pairs or trios to get permanent bonuses. Although, only a small handful of those bonuses are worth the time. You’re more likely to end up ‘consuming’ people, (absorbing them to get their identity and memories) sneaking around, consuming more people, and making bombs out of people for the majority of the main campaign missions. The player could of course go berserk, killing everyone for a quick, easy, and very messy solution.
There are a couple combat and stealth concepts that are introduced into this game that I haven’t encountered before. Those are interesting and fun to see. In case you haven’t played the first Prototype there’s a video you can watch in the main menu that generally describes the plot of the first one so you have a better understanding of at what happened before. Even then, the first game’s storyline wasn’t even that important.
Final Verdict
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Graphics
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Gameplay
Summary
Pros:
- Fun with exciting, deadly, and diverse combat.
- Cut scenes are very well animated.
- Story is motivating.
- Fun optional missions
- Characters voices are solid, with a few exceptions.
Cons:
- Controls are a mess. Especially when using guns and flying.
- Movement is fast and running away/grabbing the right enemy is tough.
- Textures are a mess on anything having to do with vehicles or signs.
- One dimensional main character with excessive expletive language.
- Not all weapons are useful and some are pointless.
- Missions are repetitive.
