A hearty, thrilling, unrestrained feast of blood-soaked carnage 9/10 Opening In 2009, Activision's landmark game Prototype was released. It attracted countless players with its brilliant, creative, and playable game design, delightful and hearty combat experience, fragmented yet complete closed loop, and deep yet reversed plot. The protagonist Alex Mercer's hooded sweatshirt outfit and charming personality of being cold on the outside but warm on the inside have become a classic image in game history, too. This work has deeply influenced classic open-world action game IPs such as The Amazing Spider-Man(Video Game) series, Marvel's Spiderman series, and Batman: Arkham series regarding combat and map design. Even today, it is still a considerable outstanding game. Regrettably, due to compatibility, optimization, adaptation, and other reasons, it is very difficult to experience this 2009 work smoothly on the modern Windows operating system. The game also has problems such as uneven operation, low volume, and rough modeling that extremely damage the player's gaming experience. Strength The story of the game takes place in Manhattan, New York. After an unknown virus breaks out, the player needs to play the role of Alex Mercer, an anti-hero who was infected and resurrected constantly exploring his lost memories and his duty in this infection. The game's movie-level camera movements and performance effects in the cutscenes are still considerably acceptable even today. Through the highly immersive game system known as the " Web of Intrigue", players can gradually understand this closed-loop, deep, reversal, and charming game world through fragmented memory flashbacks. As the plot progresses, the world of Prototype will undergo corresponding changes, creating a strong sense of immersion. In addition, the player's interactions with the scene are rich in realistic details, such as the broken glass marks when running on the building, the different operations when falling will affect the character's landing action, etc. As a game released in 2009, Prototype also has a certain degree of scene destruction effect, which is truly excellent. The player's combat abilities in the game are quite diverse, the character's body movements and actions are extremely agile and swift too, giving the player an excellent and smooth map-running experience. In addition to being able to devour and transform into others to disguise oneself, or using blades, claws, hammerfists, musclemass, whipfist, and other biomass abilities unique to the infected to fight, players can also drive tanks and planes like in military games, use rifles, grenade launchers and rocket launchers to assist in combat; since the restrictions on ammunition are relatively loose, players can enjoy the pleasure of venting firepower. Compared to the Grand Theft Auto series, which also offers a high degree of freedom but constrains players' actions to a certain extent, the moral constraints and punishments for evil deeds in Prototype are almost non-existent. In this crazy world where every battle in the middle and late stages is extremely grand, dazzling, and multi-party melee, players can act recklessly, trample on life and human rights at will, and experience the pleasure of being able to do anything. The powerful and striking character movements combined with the game's blood-splattering effects and rich details of severed limbs bring players a hearty and refreshing violent aesthetic experience. The difficulty of most of the game's mission and challenges is also extremely balanced, to serve the core purpose of "making players feel refreshed". When switching locked enemies, the game will slow down like bullet time. Using this mechanism, players can easily pass through some more chaotic and time-limited scenes. Weakness It is extremely difficult to experience the 2009 Prototype smoothly on a modern Windows operating system nowadays. Whether it is the frame rate performance, optimization, filters, or volume, the game has serious problems. Without various player-made patches and software assistance, it is even impossible to play normally. Even so, the optimized game still has certain unsolved problems with volume, operation, and viewing smoothness. The main storyline of the game is quite short, and side quests like challenges occupy most of the game content. In addition, the cost of upgrading in the game is quite expensive, so if you don't complete these challenges, you will not be able to experience the full capabilities of the character due to insufficient evolution points. Although the game's overall worldview and plot are excellent, the main story is extremely poor and sloppy in many character building and detail processing. The lack of foreshadowing and the overly fast pace of the plot can easily cause players to miss key details and fail to keep up with them or even have misunderstandings. Whether it is the main story mission or the challenge, the game does not have the option to restart or quit midway. You can only choose it when the mission fails or the player dies, such a design is quite inhumane. There is also friendly fire between enemies, players can even cause damage to some mission targets. The health of ordinary enemies and civilians is generally low, any contact with the player could result in their death, which is a bit too exaggerated. There is always an indescribable strange distortion in the volume, other problems such as extremely rough character and scene modeling, slightly stiff character movements, weird enemy locking logic, and the lack of smooth character operation feel and camera movement smoothness also have a serious impact on the player's gaming experience. Conclusion As a game released in 2009, Prototype inevitably has a variety of problems in terms of image quality, optimization, operation, and even plot narrative. The problems of the main storyline being too short and the challenge occupying the vast majority of the content mean that only those players who extremely enjoy the game's combat design can have enough fun. Still, simply relying on its outstanding combat, map design, and worldview building, as long as you can accept its shortcomings, Prototype is definitely a work that any video game enthusiast cannot miss. Even if it takes a while to experience this 2009 work, you will eventually find that the quality of the game is worth it. Find my reviews valuable? [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/justgamecurator]Click here to join my curator group. Your support is my greatest motivation!
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