Prototype

[shadow_archmagi]

Prototype is a 360 game (don't bother getting it for PC, it's got port sickness bad) that revolves around Alex Mercer, a man with amenesia and afflicted with a virus that gives him the power to shapeshift, eat people, and kill lots of people. And super strength.


What does the Playground think of it? My own opinions spoilered.



This game's gameplay basically takes various mechanics from other games and combines them. It's a bit like Crackdown meets Spiderman. I rather like the auto-parkour system, where your character automatically hops cars and fences, saving you the trouble of being an unstoppable monster who is easily slowed down by chest-height walls.

It's incredibly fun to roam around destroying things, and the missions are not too bad either. It's a shame almost all the sidequests amount to "Kill lots of dudes" because I was already killing lots of dudes in my spare time and killing even more dudes during the main sequence.

The storyline is, however, irrevocably terrible. I've seen better writing by Squirrelking. You know how most of the time, Spiderman says things like " Hey Doc Ock, does that shirt come in a men's size?" but periodically becomes depressed and is all "Oh no my powers come with responsibility and everyone hates me because I'm different and incidentally WHAT HAVE I DONE!?"

Imagine if he were always in the second mode. Except when he decides to pretend to be wolverine and fails at it. Ugh. Fortunately, you can skip the cutscenes with little/no difficulty (and frankly I think the game would've been a lot funnier if I'd just made random guesses as to why I was protecting a scientist in a morgue).

[shazza95]

i haven't got it, but my friend does.
it looks pretty cool, and have you ever tried jumping on people?
if you jump from high enough, you can squich them!
imagine, one second you are walking along, whistling a jaunty tune, then splat! your a sticky red stain.
it looks pretty cool though

(also, if you don't have them, definetly get gears of war 1 and 2. Awesome)

[shadow_archmagi]

i haven't got it, but my friend does.
it looks pretty cool, and have you ever tried jumping on people?
if you jump from high enough, you can squich them!
imagine, one second you are walking along, whistling a jaunty tune, then splat! your a sticky red stain.
it looks pretty cool though

(also, if you don't have them, definetly get gears of war 1 and 2. Awesome)

It does look cool and it is fun.

Just don't expect to play it for any reason OTHER than hilariously jumping on people's heads.

I once accidentally killed someone just after starting. I was parkouring along, abusing the pedestrians (Alex automatically punches aside any NPCs who get in his way) when I autojumped over some obstacle and apparently kicked one in the head.

I spent more time mourning that one poor soul that all the others I killed combined.

[Oregano]

Prototype's an awesome game. It's just so fluid in it's movement but it gets hard and harder and frustrating further on. I'd recommend Crackdown over Prototype but they're both great.

[Threeshades]

Prototype is a 360 game (don't bother getting it for PC, it's got port sickness bad) that revolves around Alex Mercer, a man with amenesia and afflicted with a virus that gives him the power to shapeshift, eat people, and kill lots of people. And super strength.


What does the Playground think of it? My own opinions spoilered.



This game's gameplay basically takes various mechanics from other games and combines them. It's a bit like Crackdown meets Spiderman. I rather like the auto-parkour system, where your character automatically hops cars and fences, saving you the trouble of being an unstoppable monster who is easily slowed down by chest-height walls.

It's incredibly fun to roam around destroying things, and the missions are not too bad either. It's a shame almost all the sidequests amount to "Kill lots of dudes" because I was already killing lots of dudes in my spare time and killing even more dudes during the main sequence.

The storyline is, however, irrevocably terrible. I've seen better writing by Squirrelking. You know how most of the time, Spiderman says things like " Hey Doc Ock, does that shirt come in a men's size?" but periodically becomes depressed and is all "Oh no my powers come with responsibility and everyone hates me because I'm different and incidentally WHAT HAVE I DONE!?"

Imagine if he were always in the second mode. Except when he decides to pretend to be wolverine and fails at it. Ugh. Fortunately, you can skip the cutscenes with little/no difficulty (and frankly I think the game would've been a lot funnier if I'd just made random guesses as to why I was protecting a scientist in a morgue).



what's port sickness?

[BizzaroStormy]

Its when a game other than an FPS gets put on the PC and is ruined because of the nigh-impossible controls. However in this case, its probably due to how a computer would break the flow of gameplay with lag.

When played on a console, 95% of the systems resources are dedicated to that game. Granted its not Crysis but when you have the isle of manhattan (obviously not all of it) and its inhabitants, you're going to be pushing your system. On the average computer, this would fry it. On the average gaming computer, this would lag enough to break up the parkour and have you throwing your keyboard thru your screen. Then if you have a good computer geared towards gaming and nothing else running, you can play it normally.

Personally, my favorite part was using the musclemass power and taking out an assault helicopter with the well placed throw of an old lady.


Prototype's an awesome game. It's just so fluid in it's movement but it gets hard and harder and frustrating further on. I'd recommend Crackdown over Prototype but they're both great.
Crackdown over Prototype? Blasphemy!

[SilverSheriff]

I have it on PC, sure there is a bit of lag but its not that bad, probably doesn't help that I'm running Xfire and MSN at the same time taking up much need space, also haven't de-fragmented in about a month.:smalltongue:

[Nevrmore]

One of the best feelings I've ever had playing a game: Being in a hijacked helicopter, dogfighting with several others in a Strike Team sent out to get me. One hits me with a missile and completely blows up the chopper, sending Alex flying. Falling hundreds of feet through the air at alarming speed, I pull out the Whipfist, shoot it at the helicopter that just destroyed me, zip up to it and hijack that one to continue the killing spree.

[Neo]

Sounds interesting but i'll probably pick it up when it goes budget, as i'm a PC gamer.

Generally the PC lag for a ported game is down to mostly having lazy coders than the hardware.

[TMC]

One of the best feelings I've ever had playing a game: Being in a hijacked helicopter, dogfighting with several others in a Strike Team sent out to get me. One hits me with a missile and completely blows up the chopper, sending Alex flying. Falling hundreds of feet through the air at alarming speed, I pull out the Whipfist, shoot it at the helicopter that just destroyed me, zip up to it and hijack that one to continue the killing spree.

Naaaah. what's even more fun is karate-kicking down a helicopter, cannonballing another, then making that one-in-a-million landing ONTOP of a third one, resetting your jump timer AND destroying it in the same time, then taking down the other two with Kicks and Cannonballs.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Uh it did not get port sickness "bad". The worst problem I have is that the sound is a little low, but there is actually a fix for that. And I have never had any slowdown in the game, which is considerable when you think about how much stuff is happening on your screen.

In fact, I've seen quite a few people post about how they like the PC version better, as you can hotkey the powers. Also, relevant comic:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2009/20090619.jpg

[Threeshades]

Uh it did not get port sickness "bad". The worst problem I have is that the sound is a little low, but there is actually a fix for that. And I have never had any slowdown in the game, which is considerable when you think about how much stuff is happening on your screen.

In fact, I've seen quite a few people post about how they like the PC version better, as you can hotkey the powers. Also, relevant comic:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2009/20090619.jpg

Sounds good, I was already concerned because Ive ordered the PC version a few days ago.

[Linkavitch]

Personally, my favorite part was using the musclemass power and taking out an assault helicopter with the well placed throw of an old lady.




I may just have to look into this game now...

[shazza95]

just wondering, all of those flips and jumping and whatnot, how does that hood stay on?!

[Thanatos 51-50]

The hood stays on the same way open jackets don't flutter in the wind when your character breaks into a sprint.

[shazza95]

????
you'd think with the technology today they should fix that.
i've seen games that were made ages ago that moved clothes in wind.

[The Rose Dragon]

????
you'd think with the technology today they should fix that.
i've seen games that were made ages ago that moved clothes in wind.

Hey, it looks cool. Are you going to defy something that looks cool?

[Oregano]

He uses his gooey power to keep his clothes to his skin.:smalltongue:

*waves hand wildly*

[shazza95]

*slowly nods head while looking at crazy people*
ah well, i suppose it does look pretty cool.

[Stormthorn]

I have it on PC, sure there is a bit of lag but its not that bad, probably doesn't help that I'm running Xfire and MSN at the same time taking up much need space, also haven't de-fragmented in about a month.:smalltongue:

Thats ok. Mine hasnt been de-fragmented ever. Some one told me to do it and i asked them what it would do. Their answer was so vague (Make it run better) i refused. They wernt someone that always gives good advice.

[tyckspoon]

Thats ok. Mine hasnt been de-fragmented ever. Some one told me to do it and i asked them what it would do. Their answer was so vague (Make it run better) i refused. They wernt someone that always gives good advice.

Hard drives do less work when all the information they need for a particular program is gathered together in one place on the discs that actually hold said information. They are installed such that they can be placed that way (usually.) In the course of normal operation, programs often slowly drift away from the rest of themselves. The computer has no problem keeping track of this kind of thing, but it does mean the mechanical parts of the hard drive have to do more work to find those pieces of the program. Defragmenting gathers up those errant bits and rearranges them back to that nice clean state where everything is in one place again. It's kind of like taking a shuffled deck of playing cards and re-sorting it so it's in the same order as when you first took it out of the deck; both decks have the same things, but you can find any particular card much more quickly in the sorted deck.

It's one of those maintenance things you're supposed to do fairly regularly, but it's probably not going to solve any slowdown problems you're having.

/We now end your regularly scheduled tangent.

[mangosta71]

Visited some friends over the weekend and they had it. I was a bit disappointed by how short it was (I was able to play through it twice in three days). And there are a whole bunch of unanswered questions at the end.

I found that whipfist = god mode. That one upgrade turned me into an unstoppable killing machine. After that, all the rest seemed a bit pointless. Seriously, there's no reason to EVER use any of the other weapons.

All in all, it's lots of fun in a senseless violence kind of way (even more of that than there is in GTA4). And yes, ninja-kicking helicopters out of the sky is amusing. And then you hijack his wingman for continued good times.

[Myatar_Panwar]

mangosta, you must have really blown through that game. I have around 25 hours clocked and I am still on my second run through.

Or maybe you just didn't mess around with the side missions/free run at all? I think that is where the majority of my time is going.

And while the whipfist is good, I find that I don't use much other than Muscle Mass and Blade. In fact, I only ever really use whipfist when I am messing around, haha.

[mangosta71]

Well, the second runthrough I skipped all the side stuff because I was going for the Hard to Kill Trophy (beat the game without dying). Which is a lot easier on the second runthrough since you can port your previous character in and start with all of the upgrades.

[SilverSheriff]

Thats ok. Mine hasnt been de-fragmented ever. Some one told me to do it and i asked them what it would do. Their answer was so vague (Make it run better) i refused. They wernt someone that always gives good advice.

Some computers tend to run a bit slower when they haven't been de-fragmented in ages.:smallwink:

[Threeshades]

The game came today and i can't complain about port sickness. It's worse than that, I cannot install it at all due to a 1335 error with one of the cabinet files. if it's not art.cab it's audio00.cab

I tried to google for solutions. All I found was the same error for Unreal. The proposed solutions were tune down the maximum working memory to 256 or even less MB RAM, update windows installer, update DVD drive firmware and copy the DVD's files to hard drive.

I tried the first 2 so far and both failed. next i will try to copy the DVD files to my HD.

[Threeshades]

I just can't get it working :smallfrown:

Can anyone maybe point me to a place where i can download an up-to-date driver for an "ATAPI iHAS122 8" DVD-Rom drive? :smalleek:

[Blayze]

A very quick Google search yields one of two immediate possibilities that spring to mind:

1) At least one piece of your computer's hardware (Or its software) is damaged, most likely your DVD drive.

2) Your copy of Prototype is damaged in some way. I don't know about the whole process of getting those discs to us, but perhaps a failed burn back at the factory?

First, try that disc on another computer. If it works, it's your computer. If it doesn't, it might be the disc itself.

Are you using Vista, Shades? If not, this might be a possibility:

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=13177

Scroll down to Doc's post. The later posts might also hold some clues as well...

[Threeshades]

Well otherwise my drive is fine, I installed X-men origins wolverine today without any problems.

And the DVD is in prime condition physically

Also that link in Doc's post just gives me a blank page.

[BizzaroStormy]

mangosta, you must have really blown through that game. I have around 25 hours clocked and I am still on my second run through.

Or maybe you just didn't mess around with the side missions/free run at all? I think that is where the majority of my time is going.

And while the whipfist is good, I find that I don't use much other than Muscle Mass and Blade. In fact, I only ever really use whipfist when I am messing around, haha.

The beauty in whipfist was getting the longshot upgrade and using it to jack those helicopters that were such a nusance.

[mangosta71]

The beauty in whipfist was getting the longshot upgrade and using it to jack those helicopters that were such a nusance.

I was also a big fan of the hit and run tactics that the whipfist embodies. My playstyle is very much light combatant. Speed, agility, finesse. The occasional stun was also a wonderful thing for boss fights. And interrupting charging supersoldiers and hunters. Not to mention locking on something half a block away and snagging it on the run while you scale a building. And fights where you're facing multiple hunters/super hunters. You can almost always get all of them but one over on one side, then snag the loner and streak out of the dogpile.

The sword and armor are cool if you want to be the "stand and fight" type, but given the chance I prefer mobility. And heavy use of patsy. I always cracked up when I was stealth consuming my way around inside a base, picked up a missile launcher, patsied one guy in the middle of a group of 4, and blew all of them away without any of the other soldiers batting an eye in my direction. I also discovered that I could use patsy to drop aggro. Instant success on all those missions where your objective is simply escape.

[Optimystik]

what's port sickness?

See also: any console Spiderman game.

Anyway, thought you guys would be interested in this Prototype vs. InFamous (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/789-Prototype) review.

[Threeshades]

See also: any console Spiderman game.

Anyway, thought you guys would be interested in this Prototype vs. InFamous (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/789-Prototype) review.

The first two points that went to InFamous iny my opinion were actually won by prototype :smallbiggrin:

[Threeshades]

I could fix my 1335 error installation problem.

I copied the disks content onto another computer's hard drive and then copied it over to mine by LAN and installed it from my hard drive.
That apparently worked. So all it needs to fix the problem is a different DVD drive. In this case that of the other computer. :smallsmile:
Now I can play it on my computer with the disc in my drive too.

[onasuma]

Spoiler Alert:

Alex Mercer = The Hunter

[Threeshades]

Okay i played a bit now, and i don't see where its got port sickness. I could run it without any problems on highest settings, 4x anti-alias and 1600x1200 resolution while my hard drive is being defragmented. And the controls are quite good too, maybe they would be even better if i had an Xbox 360 controller but i really cant complain.

[PerfectPhantom]

Most of my games, i see as PS3 games, such as Prototype. It's fun, especially seeing how far you can throw old ladies from the ESB (Empire State Building) with fully leveled Musclemass. I believe it's called Old Lady Golf.