CES 2009 - Prototype Demo

While at CES me and the girls were able to get an exclusive demo of Activision’s newest game Prototype. This open-world game is set in Manhattan, NY and you play as Alex Mercer who just woke up on an experimenting table and has no memory of his past or who he is. You begin to discover you have powers that seem to grow and morph as you play through the game. Prototype also has a bit of an RPG aspect to it as you can tailor your growing powers to the way you want to play the game.

Think of the Darkness game meets GTA; they fall in love and have a child…Prototype is that love child. The gameplay looks quite interesting as youcan pretty much destroy everything, and I like the fact that you can tweak and upgrade your powers. The only real concern I have is, as far as I have seen, it’s nothing too radical or new. Like I stated before…it’s the Darkness meet GTA, and once again we have an open-world set in New York. Honestly, I am tired of playing in New York….there are so many other iconic cities that could have been the setting for this game. The other downfall I saw was Prototype has such a promising layout for co-op and multiplayer, yet the game will not support either. Co-op and online play is such a huge factor in gaming nowadays, I just do not see how any game, and especially an open-world, super-human, beat-em-up game like Prototype can overlook that crucial factor.

All in all, the game looks promising, it could be quite good…but as of right now and based solely on what I saw in the demo, I wouldn’t pay full price for it…it’s just nothing new to me. Who knows, both GTA and the Darkness are both good games, maybe this one will be a good mix, we will see, hopefully they will prove me wrong.

Look for Prototype on the PC, XBox 360, and PS3 this April.