Prototype really opens up about halfway through, once you've unlocked all the basic abilities and vehicles and the game starts throwing in little twists. In order to breach military installations or hijack certain vehicles types, Alex has to locate the proper persona for the task. If he intends to fly a helicopter, for instance, he'll need to find a military grunt, "consume" him away from prying eyes, infiltrate a military compound, then perform a series of further "stealth" consumes that unlock the identities necessary to penetrate the military installation and pinpoint the requisite chopper pilot. If you want to drop artillery strikes, you'll have to find and consume a particular type of commander. And if you consume special military scientists, you'll reveal the location of key figures who'll unlock aspects of the game's tangled narrative web.
Detection challenges are cleverly diffused throughout, keeping you on your toes, from the horrified panic that ensues if you shape-shift in view of someone, to the blinking viral sensors that can detect your infected presence whether you're disguised or not. Disabling the sensors is possible, but takes speed and the ability to press a series of buttons in perfect sequence. If you're caught out, you'll have to scurry for cover, then switch to a temporary alter-ego to get the cavalry off your back.
Minor touches add a dash of drama to otherwise conventional goals. Anytime you're detected by the military, there's a chance one of the soldiers will radio for a strike team, meaning in this case helicopters. Lots of helicopters. Enough to turn a nearly-won battle into a loss, in fact. If you can take out the radio op quickly enough, you're golden. But if you fumble, you'll have to elude the chopper squadron, or when you're powerful enough, spend several harried minutes strategically squaring off against and blasting them apart. Here's how I described choice number two last week.
...leap off a skyscraper, glide like a skydiver, fling a tentacular barbed cord from your body like a ropy black tongue, tag a nearby helicopter, then reel yourself up to pry open the door, consume the pilots inside, and man the controls. If you're fatally hit while flying, just leap from its plummeting wreckage, glide to within striking distance of the bird that got off the lucky shot, set your tentacle flailing, and repeat.
Scattered amongst the populace are "web of intrigue" targets, random citizens who stand out on your radar, popping up in downtempo moments, but also as risky temptations during uptempo ones. If you pursue and consume them, you're treated to a slice of narrative illumination that plays like a psychedelic music video with bits of background story filler. The game packs in over 130 total potential targets, and if it means anything, by the end of the game I'd only collected half. They're actually pretty important if you want the broad picture, so they're one significant reason to keep playing--since you can--after the finale.
Another would be the sheer number of unique "events," aka optional diversions littering the map. You'll unlock these as you go in categories that range from straightforward acrobatic challenges to more sophisticated strategic ones. Depending on your performance--bronze, silver, or gold, generally derived from time-driven or running total factors--you're awarded a commensurate number of evolution points, which you can then spend on powers, moves, and abilities. It's worthy noting that many of the challenges are ridiculously (though never quite unfairly) difficult, something I personally loved, but which some of you may not. The good news is that you can finish the game without drilling too deeply on most of these, and still secure all the most salient upgrades.
Occasionally awkward design issues or glitches manifest, say if you need possession of a specific vehicle to complete a rescue mission, but you lose the vehicle just as the mission transitions past a checkpoint. The mission then reloads from that checkpoint, but now you're without a vehicle or--because of circumstantial parameters--a way to get one, ergo no way to complete the mission short of abandoning it altogether. The game's also not without at least one "just kidding!" moment, where you've just finished smacking around a major opponent, and then a cutscene trots out an infuriating "Nope, you lose." There has to be a better way to carry off scripted challenges without having all your hard work arbitrarily undone.
But--to invoke the classic qualifier--now I'm nitpicking, which is all you can do when a game's as well designed as this one. Do you want to race around an urban jungle gym the way you'd expect a fairly potent comic book superhero would? Prototype's your game. Not even Treyarch's Spider-Man free-roamers offer this much super-powered physical leverage over Manhattan's overgrown skyline. Just remember while playing: If someone ever says there's nothing else they can do to hurt you, trust me when I say there is. Most definitely.
PCW Score: 90%
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