StormShadow Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Even while confined to a relatively small game world -- Manhattan is not recreated to scale -- Prototype manages to have visuals that range from bland to downright ugly. The only real savior is the smooth animations which do a great job towards making Mercer's powers feel real. Running up the side of a building, doing a flip over a railing, and then leaping off into a charged drop attack just feels cool. Unfortunately, there's the rest. The blandness is seen throughout in a city recreated with few landmarks and instead filled with generic, lifeless buildings. It's seen in the drab color palette. And it's seen in a city filled with what appears to be a dozen or so identical clones all wandering the streets together. Just climb a building or get in a helicopter and look out at the skyline to get an eyeful of Prototype's ugliness. The draw distance in Prototype is atrocious. Move quickly along the building tops and trees, bushes, cars and other structures pop in and out as the game struggles to draw them. Everything else is shrouded in an ugly fog. In a game where you spend much of the time pouncing from one roof to the next, this ugliness is felt throughout. It isn't just the streaming world that suffers in the looks department. Aside from specific infected buildings, no structural damage can be done. You can't even knock over billboards. And when you do take down the few buildings you're allowed to damage, the resulting explosion is laughably bad. All of the real chaos you can create is limited to vehicles and passing pedestrians. Your cool powers don't feel quite so cool when you can't even break a window by throwing a tank at it. These technical issues are so severe that they do in fact impact the game's ebb and flow. There are 250 orbs scattered throughout Manhattan for you to collect. Unfortunately, you oftentimes can't see them until you are literally on top of them. The game engine fails to draw them at any meaningful distance. You can be across a street and not know that you're within 20 yards of one of these orbs. Without any other ways to find them -- there are no maps or sound indicators -- tracking down all of the orbs is less fun than it is chore. It seems Prototype's developers didn't know when to say when. Tons of enemies are tossed into the mix, and so the visuals suffer and the gameplay occasionally becomes too chaotic and unfocused. Some cutscenes feel out of place and pointless while others are well done. Nobody ever put the finishing touches on Prototype to tidy it up and make it fully presentable. LINK guys are the visuals so bad? cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarketTantrik Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 LINK guys are the visuals so bad? cheers. Check the video posted by Snake a page or two before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The JACKAL Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 LINK guys are the visuals so bad? cheers. waht nonsense, this game totally rocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Screw anyone who has anything bad to say about this game! Started played the 360 version last night and it's an absolute blast! A few quick impressions - - The game reminds me a LOT of Crackdown and Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows. It's like someone put those two games in a blender and added some Resident Evil to the mix. - The platforming is closer to Crackdown than say inFamous or Assassin's Creed. It just involves jumping, gliding and holding down a button to sprint or wallrun across buildings. It's extremely easy compared to other games and for some this might be off putting. I'm still enjoying it though. There are also a bunch of collectibles to find which give tons of EP. - I've been spoilt by inFamous so I found the "power wheel" selection a bit restrictive as you can only have one active offensive or defensive power at single time. inFamous had a much better system as you could use all your powers at any given time. - The graphics aren't exactly great but they are definitely not as bad as the above article suggests. He's absolutely wrong about the draw distance. NY looks decent for the most part (once again, very reminiscent of Web of Shadows). Combat animations look pretty awesome btw. And did I mention it plays very smoothly? - Main missions are ok so far (and they have checkpoints... YAY!) but I can see them getting repetitive later on. The side missions are kinda disappointing and are not actual missions but activities (or "events" as they're called here) which have Gold, Silver, Bronze ratings depending on how well you do. They're usually on the lines of "kill X number of enemies in a certain time" or rooftop races. - The story is alright I guess. Much like inFamous it has a dark violent comic book feel to it. - Vehicle driving sucks. The controls are not right (I always hate driving vehicles using only the analog sticks) and the handling is even worse. Some missions force you to drive vehicles - otherwise I don't see any point why anyone would want to drive when Alex can travel MUCH faster and more efficiently on foot or through air. - Lastly, the game is ultra-violent! Probably one of the goriest games I've ever played! Alex is a mean killing machine and he doesn't really care if a few civilians get slaughtered in the process. I started out by avoiding killing civilians in the beginning but the game really doesn't seem to care about that. There was one mission where I simply could not prevent that from happening. After that I was like "what the heck? screw being a nice guy let's just have fun!". Overall it's a fun game so far. Let's hope it stays fun throughout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchizoidFreud Posted June 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 ^^ nice, cant wait to get my copy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death Stryke Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 ^Awesome, how're the controls otherwise? Smooth or clunky? And graphics compared to GTA4/Infamous??... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 The controls aren't as tight as inFamous or Crackdown but they're good enough. It takes some time to get used to them though. Also when you pick up a gun, you have shoot with X as opposed to the triggers. It kinda confused me while fighting a few tough enemies who I had to kill with a rocket laucher resulting me in dying a few times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeezNah Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Thanks for the impressions, Tyler! Will probably pick this up next week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 You're welcome! BTW I just couldn't resist... went home for lunch and played Prototype for an hour! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Haven't checked them in detail but they seem to be standard sandbox-game fare. I did get some achievements for unlocking new moves, finishing missions etc. I'm pretty sure there will some achievements like "get Gold ranking in X type of side-mission" or ones for finding all the collectibles etc. There's also something called "Web Of Intrigue" which is essentially a large side mission where you have to find and consume various targets in order to unlock hidden cutscenes which give more information on the plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormShadow Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 - Vehicle driving sucks. The controls are not right (I always hate driving vehicles using only the analog sticks) and the handling is even worse. Some missions force you to drive vehicles - otherwise I don't see any point why anyone would want to drive when Alex can travel MUCH faster and more efficiently on foot or through air. The controls aren't as tight as inFamous or Crackdown but they're good enough. It takes some time to get used to them though. Also when you pick up a gun, you have shoot with X as opposed to the triggers. It kinda confused me while fighting a few tough enemies who I had to kill with a rocket laucher resulting me in dying a few times. So playing this game with keyboard & mouse would be better i suppose... cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmage Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 @ Tyler -- Thanks for the impressions. I should get my copy morrow and cant wait to start the game. BTW i met Prasaanth and he mentioned that u have a huge asss collection. You should put up a pic sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormShadow Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 @ Tyler -- Thanks for the impressions. I should get my copy morrow and cant wait to start the game. BTW i met Prasaanth and he mentioned that u have a huge asss collection. You should put up a pic sometime. so that u & others could water over it?! anyways he does get 2 out of every 3 games in market! who knows it better than me heah tyler? cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 So playing this game with keyboard & mouse would be better i suppose... No. I can't even begin to imagine playing this with a mouse and keyboard. Trust me, despite some questionable control choices the game is still very much a game that needs to be played with a controller. @ Tyler -- Thanks for the impressions. I should get my copy morrow and cant wait to start the game. BTW i met Prasaanth and he mentioned that u have a huge asss collection. You should put up a pic sometime. Hehe yeah, he was at my place a couple of weeks ago and was quite impressed with the collection and my gaming setup. anyways he does get 2 out of every 3 games in market! who knows it better than me heah tyler? Well, that is true... But then there is reaper-san as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormShadow Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 bought this game yesterday.played very little so cant post any impressions.once i play it for awhile i will post about it. so far the gameplay is nice.gfx are ok. cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death Stryke Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 This game is total chaos. the graphics are so so. GTA4's gfx are only slightly better but GTA4's city feels more alive than the city in Prototype. The controls take time getting used to, otherwise the gameplay is brilliant. The movement, the powers, the missions are fun. Total mayhem. Love the running on buildings and gliding phyics. Superbly done Story is similar to infamous. Some experiment gone wrong (or right?) and giving the protagonist powers. Blah blah you know the rest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarketTantrik Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 I really want to play this. Infamous whetted my appetite, but now the wait is killing me. to ShopTo or not to ShopTo, that is the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 Finished the game on Sunday,great game...visual are good(keep in mind i own a shitty PC with a 9400GT),the powers are fun to play it...as it jacking choppers and tanks. Also the upgrades for the powers are so awesome its ridiculous. Especially the Diving Slice and HammerFist Elbow,u can finish off tanks with one blow Will capture and post some vids after i get the god damn Internet back!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 I got a taste of the elbow attack during the opening section and man it felt so cool to do that! BTW, I unlocked a couple of the Devastator attacks and they look freakin' awesome! I hate pressing two face buttons at a time though... I wish they had come up with a better control system. I've been fooling around the city a lot doing random side missions and blowing up military bases and hives. So far I haven't been bored at all! LOL... my mom saw me playing this game the other day was like "this is so much like that other game with that electric guy... except this is so much bloodier!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormShadow Posted June 24, 2009 Report Share Posted June 24, 2009 So now the ppl who dont own a ps3 can substitute prototype for inFamous (maybe to some extent).btw,i unlocked the mega mass power but evn after gaining extra health i dont have any devastator attacks!so i think i need to unlock some devastator attack or something?!? cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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