[quote name='Paco'] Here let me list some flaws in Prototype
...City doesn't really feel alive. It's populated, there's a lot of buildings, BUT The bulidings do NOT have any individuality. they all essentially look the same and have rather flat design...
....The only thing varying them is size. The windows look ALL the same and there is no variation in the architecture UNLESS all those gamestop advertisements...
HUGE jump in difficult for no reason rather then an actual curve. There is no curve where you gradually get better and are equipped to handle the challenges. Prototype starts off as too easy then TOO HARD out of nowhere.
NO STORY. Prototype's story is minimal at BEST. To even get some grasp of the story you have to go out of your way and absorb the proper people to fill the web of intrigue. But not even really going with the story in the actual game is rather stupid.
[/QUOTE]
Let me address some of his complaints first before I tell what I thought of it (just finished it 2 days ago)
The bland city, well it is Manhattan in a 1/7th scale, but still it is based off of a REAL city, for better or worse, so not really there fault for taking some liberties with it, but not jazzing it up and making it more exciting, plus I was almost always in the air gliding or in a chopper so that was almost a non-issue to me, except when I was doing landmark or hint missions I was very rarely on street level for very long.
It all depends on how you play the game.
Same thing with the advertisements, unless you spend an inordinate amount of time in Times Square those signs are pretty rare to see (or I just didn't notice them too much since I was airborne most of the time, but they weren't as jarring and in your face as say the billboards in Bionic Commando (right in the beginning of the game no less)
To me the difficulty only ramped up to hair pulling levels in the last few missions (especially when you are being attacked non-stop and are trying to find some breathing room and there is none to be found, or when trying to power up) otherwise I'd say that it was tolerable, the only thing other than the end boss fight (get to that in a second) that was virtually impossible for me to complete were the military consumption missions on hard.
Especially the web target missions that I didn't need to do (I had completed the web except the last two story targets) and it was useless for me to do them other than to have them complete, the time limit coupled with the large amount of area to cover along with being attacked consistently by the military over and over on occasion was too much for me to take and after 10-15 tries I said to hell with it and moved back onto the story missions, but considering that isn't mandatory to do (unless you're gunning for platinum, I wasn't) it really isn't a major issue.
The final boss fight has to be one of the most single most irritating things I've played in awhile (no spoilers) but between him activating cheap mega attack moves, being on my @$$ keeping me from powering up and having to use one very specific devastator move to kill him (one I didn't use much in the main game, and discovered by trial and error until I saw how well it was working) and the artificial time limit on the fight as well, it felt more as a war of attrition than a big bad brawl.
On an aside if I was going to complain about something it would be the super soldiers and hunters / leader hunters. Alex gets all of these cool powers (power bomb) and I can't use them on any of them since they require grapple and only on regular hunters can you grapple, and only then to body slam. That was something that made me more mad, the fact that only regular enemies were affected by his powers gotten later in the game. And the one blade move became my overly abused power late in the game to kill those enemies as well.
The story, look below.
My gripes:
They could have used more variety in the consumption missions / skill missions. The infected missions were mostly destroy the hives, I mean 80% of the time I was doing the same thing, the two sight powers could have been used to give those missions some variety like a find the infected (ala the one story mission) of something else like that, same with skill missions, instead of use this (fill in the blank) to kill the enemy couldn't we have had something else to do.
Collect 250 glowing orbs, this....
I collected so many useless things in games it isn't funny, but I'm glad I did this in the first 3-4 hours of play (plus it gave me points to spend) but still almost four hours to collect little light balls, and I still ended up missing one landmark ball, they could have done better on that.
Ok my last gripe is the story, but not for the same reason Paco complains about it, I believe Prototype had an awesome story, problem was how they went about dispensing it, the fact you had to go around and find over 120 people (approx. 132 total some are gotten through story elements) and then sometimes they were hard to find and got killed when trying to consume them, now that was a stupid way to delve into the story.
Awesome idea, but there were just too damn many people to kill to get all the bits and pieces, I know they were fleshing out the world with all of the military grunt story bits, but considering about 20-30 of those were virtually the same they could have easily trimmed them down, or condensed a few of them, I think 80 people to consume would have been a much better number and it could have been 80 specific people, not 80 random (other than the story specific consumes) people you found accidentally when flying or running around (or using a guide/map in my case) to get them.
So I can see the complaints about how the story took too much work to get to see, and I agree, but there was a really good story there to be told, if you bothered to find it, and they leave the game open for a sequel which is cool, but hopefully they strengthen up some of the weak points in the game.
On the comparison end I liked how I had more control over Mercer, then I did of Cole (didn't like how he latched onto things I didn't want him too)
I don't really like comparing them both, and frankly, I'd just get both if you have any interest in sandbox type games they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Prototype is what you'd get it GTA, Mercs, and the Hulk were all put into one game, and while not perfect makes for a pretty fun time.
I think they're both worth playing on their own merits and I am glad to own both. Not much more to say other than that.
I've only played Prototype for a minute, but i'd have to say that infamous seems like the better game. I got my platinum on infamous, and while I enjoyed the game itself, I didn't care for the characters at all, or the story. The missions weren't as repetative as say... Assassin's Creed, but it's still a valid complaint.
