6 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 18.2 hrs on record (15.3 hrs at review time)
Posted: Aug 11, 2020 @ 2:38pm
Updated: Oct 13, 2020 @ 10:58pm

★★★★☆
Prototype is one of the best superhero, zombie, and open world games ever made, all in one.

Reasons to Buy:
+ OP Super Powers
+ Dynamic faction wars for city zones
+ Engaging combat, with manual healing, different powers/vehicles for different situations, combination defensive powers, integrated super parkour, and quick stealth escapes.

Reasons to Bail:
- Shows its age

Nitpicking & Biased:
+ Slowmo
+ Ragdolls
+ Last Gasp
+ Dodge roll
+ Interesting lore
+ Superninja flips
+ Tons of upgrades
+ Hide in plain sight
+ Stylish animations
+ Solid lockon system
+ Heal by consuming targets
+ Semi-destructible envoirnments and people
+ Quickly toggle powers, and activate multiple ones at once
+ Instantly lose agro by breaking LoS and changing costumes
+ Dynamic free running; through crowds, over vehicles, up walls
+ Web of Intrigue collectibles are actually interesting, unlike audio logs
+ Divekick sliding on a zombie's face is like top 10 coolest moves of all time
+ Better climbing and gliding than Zelda BOTW. Done a decade earlier. Also copy/pasted by Saints Row 4.
+ Collectibles provide useful exp, and increase in value the more you collect, making it rewarding to mindlessly freeroam
+ Infestations and military bases randomly appear around the city, providing meaningful visual transitions and gameplay variety
+ City streets are densely populated, by both cars and people (and/or zombies), and they serve a gameplay purpose, instead of just background noise.
+ This is the first game I ever remember having inverse kinematics (adjusting legs and feet to actually look like they're standing on uneven surfaces), and to this day, still does it better than most
+ Empowering gameplay. Fight a tank with your bare hands, or use that tank to blow up monsters. Flip over everything in your way, or faceroll through it, depending what powers you have active. Fall 1,000 miles and slam into the ground with an epic explosion, instead of flopping to your falldamage death. Inteli stealth consume. No derps, no doofs, no soggy noodles.

+- NewGame+
+- Tons of challenge events around the city
+- Guns are a thing, only a temporary pickup
+- Can't drive regular cars, but you can use tanks and helicopters
+- Lite transmog system, as you can take on the appearance of any NPC

- No coop
- No music/radio
- No achievements
- Audio is stupid quiet
- GameStop billboards
- Objective markers don't show distance
- Saving during a mission, doesn't actually save
- Graphics aren't especially good. Even in its time, they weren't impressive.
- Anything with knockback is gamebreakingly frustrating, and there's an entire boss based around it
- Collectibles only render from like a block away, and aren't shown on the map, how are you supposed to find them all?
- PC settings suffer from its age and/or port. No borderless window mode, limited graphic options, max effective resolution is 1080p.

* Played with controller
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