Radical Entertainment is a video game developer who formed in 1991, and is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They are not well known at all, and usually they make movie games where they’re confined by what takes place in the said film. Fast forward 18 years from 1991 and they are bringing out there first big original IP. Will this bring them out of the “here’s a movie make a game” level of game development or bring them to the forefront of original IP developers.

The Good

Prototype’s overall game play is the strongest part of the game. Not since Spider-Man 2 back in 2004 have I had more fun flying around Manhattan. Prototype is the type of game where you could not even start the story (of course you have to) and just have a blast exploring the city. The run, wall walk and jumping mechanics all work great and don’t distract you from the environment around you. The ability to consume every living thing for health and humans for disguises is awesome. I never imagined a game where a mechanic like this would exist, it also added some moral choices in the way you played. Do you kill only soldiers and infected or do you have such a blood lust that’s you kill everyone. The huge amount of combat moves and abilities are great and fun to use. Combat moves and abilities are easily unlock-able and you can have every upgrade possible half way through the game. My personal favourite is whip fist, as soon as I got the upgrade I used it virtually for the rest of the game. The sound in this game does its job if you’ve ever been to Manhattan or have seen videos you will recognize the same city sounds. The time trial mini game is good fun and will really test your parkour skills within the game. If you achieve gold on all these mini games you can rightfully call your self a Prototype master.

The Bad

The story line is something that definitely sets back the game for me. Alex the main protagonist isn’t even a like-able guy or a bad ass he is just a lame scientist who gets infected with a disease. Now that would be fine if it felt like you were him, but you don’t. The game doesn’t bring you in and you feel like your watching from afar. The combat mechanic is also a set back. The way the game plays you feel the need to use the targeting system, and man is it ever terrible. It seems as if there is no good A.I involved with this targeting system at all. You can be looking right at a person and then press the target button and it latches on to a guy behind you or off to the left or right but definitely not the guy you were looking straight at. This problem can get very annoying, which leads to the desire of not wanting to use it and with that the games difficulty goes up. The graphics are something that really surprised me, it looks like a 1st gen 360 game. Now I’m not a graphic guy at all I believe game play   before graphics but I have to tell it like it is and the graphics definitely don’t cut it. Even the cut scenes are just ok, but if the game play looked like the cut scenes it wouldn’t be in the bad section.

The Ugly

Thankfully there is nothing in Prototype that deserves ugly status.

Verdict

Prototype is a overall fun sandbox experience, and is most definitely a worthy rental for fans of the genre. Although the game has a great concept with the morality of human consumption and has fun parkour style game play, the 1st gen 360 graphics, bad story and horrible targeting system earns Prototype a 3 out of 5.

(Sorry this review was late I was gone on vacation for a month and only got this after I came back. This is one of the new review formats we’re trying tell us what you think, also video reviews are coming soon . )