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Protoype News
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Prototype AU Update
Fast-paced and bloody. Is this the next step in open-world action gaming?
by Cam Shea, IGN AU
Australia, January 7, 2008 - IGN AU attended an event in Sydney today to get up close and personal with Radical Entertainment's latest open-world title Prototype. Following in the footsteps of the other games the studio has made in the genre – The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Scarface and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Prototype is the first to be based around a new IP, and it's clear that the team are pleased that the cuffs are off. Rather than conforming to the expectations of a license (and more importantly, a license holder), with Prototype Radical is letting its imagination run wild, and the game is already a riot of energy and destruction.
Check out this brand spanking new video diary from the guys at Radical.
At a basic gameplay level, the initial impression is Hulk: Ultimate Destruction meets Crackdown. This game has a similar sense of chaotic freedom and power. Rather than feeling artificially restrained, this is a game where you can run up the side of a building, then leap from rooftop to rooftop. This is a game where you can barrel down the street like a charging bull, knocking pedestrians aside and vaulting off the bonnets of any vehicles in your path. Hell, this is a game where you can jack a helicopter… while it's in the air.
While we were shown a mission from later in the game, the basic concept is that the player will be uber powerful right from the off. You will feel like a certified bad-ass the second you hit the streets of New York, capable of taking on anything. The balance, then, will come in the way the threats you face change over the course of the game. Indeed, while Prototype will open with players exploring a familiar snapshot of Manhattan circa 2008 (built from 11,000 photos the team took on site), the future of the city is most certainly a damaged one.
Before we discuss the path to martial law, however, let's quickly recap on the titular prototype, protagonist Alex Mercer. Designed as an anti-hero, Mercer begins the game as an amnesiac (ah, old faithful), the result of some highly potent genetic experiments. Over the course of the game you'll discover more and more about who you are and what was done to you, but for now all you really need to know is that you're highly classified, highly dangerous and the military will do almost anything to get you back.
That ain't blood... it's something far more sinister.
Of course, losing your identity and being experimented on isn't all bad… at least, not when you come out the other end with the ability to absorb the powers, form and memories of any enemy, not to mention the fact that you're packing some formidable offensive and defensive options. Soldier in your way? A tap on the D-pad and you can morph your arms into great gnarled trunks, ending with jagged claws, perfect for ripping anything fleshy in twain. Helicopter firing rockets at you? Again, a tap in a different direction and you can form a hard shield to block incoming rounds and projectiles.
There are a huge array of abilities you'll be able to use (the team call Alex the 'human Swiss Army Knife'), including skewering enemies with jagged spikes, and assuming a rock hard form so you can barge your way through traffic, a nearly unstoppable machine. The whole idea is to let you assign abilities to directions on the D-pad (with up for your attacking toggle, down for defence, right for disguise and left for your sensory ability) so that you can instantly switch between them. Combos and ability mixes will be the order of the day here, with an emphasis on speed. As Tim Bennison, the Executive Producer on Prototype, told the gathering: "This is not a slow paced game… so the menu system is designed to allow you to flick these combinations on and off, literally in mid-combat, in mid-jump, in mid-spike, you can transform, change, reconfigure your character… which affects what [abilities] you have available, then you can use that in your combat." Oh, and lets not forget there'll also be a massive array of more traditional weapons to play around with – none of which were implemented in the build we saw.
It all adds up to a game that can range from incredibly fast-paced and over the top, to relatively stealthy, and as such Radical is attempting to build in as many potential approaches to situations as possible. In the demo we saw, for instance, Alex is charged with destroying several military bases. He strolls through the gates of the first and is immediately told to put his hands in the air by the guards on duty. He slices one in half (there's a lot of decapitating and dismembering in this game), then grabs the other and runs off to an alley (taking on a disguise obviously won't work if an enemy sees you) to assume his form. These sequences are never anything less than graphic, and in this case the viewpoint switches to a low position, showing Alex wailing on the guy, blood splattering the screen, before standing up and absorbing his dissolving body in a stream of sinewy red and black goo. We should also mention that the ability to absorb enemies is about more than just disguising yourself – you can also use the ability to become 'denser', which then gives you access to more abilities – such as the aforementioned rock hard form.
The brutal threeway confrontations are incredible.
Now that he's dressed as a soldier, Alex is able to stroll back in through the gates and amongst the patrolling men without arousing suspicion. He soon comes upon the Commander of the base. Once the coast is clear, he grabs the top brass and drags him into the space between a number of tanks to assume his form (in this case by punching him through the chest, then supping on the red and black goo inside). From there it's a simple matter of – again – waiting for the coast to be clear, then running up the side of a nearby building to find a good vantage point. The Commander, you see, has the ability to call in air strikes. Target the base, send in the strike and voila, that's the first part of the mission accomplished. Of course, you don't have to do it that way, and on the second play through our demo-guy went for the straight up action approach, slaughtering numerous guards before jacking a tank and taking the building down the old fashioned way – through repeatedly hammering it with rockets. Rest assured, that's going to be a much more challenging approach. We should also mention the simple pleasure that is jacking a tank in Prototype. Hopping onto its top, Alex rips off the hatch door before cracking his knuckles and leaping inside. A great shower of blood sprays out the hatch. Classy.
So who are these guys you're going up against, and why is there such a heavy military presence in New York? Turns out a viral epidemic is sweeping through the city, and the infected become… 'The Infected' – hideously mutated creatures that are incredibly strong and can often match you in speed, and come close to matching you in power. We came across a pack of – for wont of an official name – hellhounds in our demo session: bounding beasts with massive fangs and spikes running down their backs, and again, we saw two different approaches in the demo run-throughs. In one, our demo-guy stood his ground and took them on, which was one hell of a tough fight considering the fact that they're fast and far outnumber you. Still, when you have jagged claws for arms and can send razor sharp spikes jetting up out of the ground from a distance, you can take on almost anything.
Tanks for the memories. Natch.
A far more interesting situation occurred, however, in the other demo run, when Mercer turned tail and ran. The beasts basically kept up with the blazingly fast protagonist, and in the ensuing chase a wave of destruction was left in their wake from flipped cars and trampled pedestrians. Thankfully, Mercer only needed to evade their gaping maws for long enough to guide them into an area occupied by the military; in this case Times Square. To say all hell broke loose would be a massive understatement. The result was essentially insta-war. Suddenly soldiers, tanks and helicopters are taking on the hellhounds, more cars are being tossed around like Matchbox cars, pedestrians are running screaming, explosions and gunfire are rocking the square. It's a cacophony of noise and action. At one point two of the hellhounds attacked one another, while one of them also leapt up and took a swipe at a helicopter. Impressive, and the frame rate held up admirably throughout.
So not only will Mercer be facing off against both the Infected and the Military (the most deadly of which will be Blackwatch – the ultra-secretive, ultra-hardline Special Forces units), but he can also pit them against one another. Indeed, the fight for control of the city will have heavy real-time components – other factions can be battling for control of an area while you're off in another part of the town.
The Infected, then, represent a Halo-esque twist to the game, with the power to shift up the gameplay considerably. They'll be a formidable force, but it would be unwise to underestimate the military-backed Blackwatch Special Forces. These guys are prepared to do whatever is necessary to meet their goals – civilians be damned. And as you scale up your biological powers as the game progresses, Blackwatch will be scaling up their technology to match the threat you pose. All things told there will be over 40 enemy types in the bustling metropolis of Manhattan; hopefully representing a dynamic ecosystem in a city on the brink of collapse.
The uber bad guy - the Specialist makes the other Blackwatch soldiers look like fluffy kittens. Or lolcats if that helps.
In essence, with the range of enemies and abilities for Alex, Radical are addressing the criticisms that several other open-world games have faced, in that there was a perception that they didn't offer enough variety. In fact, Tim Bennison told us that: "We have all these over the top abilities – the character himself has shape shifting powers and has access to military hardware which you can exploit when you level up your character, and then we also have the whole disguise dimension which opens up a whole new spectrum of recon, of evasion, of literally melting into a crowd of thousands. Being able to recon a situation and decide how you're going to approach it. You might never need to use your over the top action abilities to achieve an objective, and we're going to reward the player differentially, depending on the approaches they choose in any given mission, and that's going to lead to some replayability too."
It certainly sounds promising, and Radical is promising that the game will be driven by a compelling narrative… but as yet we only know the bare bones of the story. Suffice to say, however, that the present day setting will enable the team to be topical, and two of the major themes they discussed today - governments overreaching their power in times of crisis and the search for one's identity – certainly suggest that this won't be a fluff piece. And with 250 different 'web of intrigue' targets (essentially people or places of interest that can help you discover what's going on) in the game, that impression is reinforced. But hell, if you want to ignore the story and just rip it up, there's always the option to play online co-op through the entire game (and yes, if you return to your single player game after a stint in co-op you won't lose that progress).
New York New York, it's a wonderful town, the mutants are up and the fascist soldiers are down.
While the game is still early – it's not due until late 2008, it's looking really good. The frame rate was buttery smooth throughout the vast majority of the demo, even with Mercer running full tilt down a crowded city street while a chopper pursued him, rockets exploding around him, cars flying. There's plenty more to be implemented, and we were only shown a small section of the gameworld and a small slice of Mercer's abilities, but still, the pace, the brutal combat and the emphasis on options really bode well for Prototype. Radical is calling this Alex Mercer's 'origin story', with a view to create a series – here's hoping the team can pull it all together.
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This game is going to be savage!!! It's Assassin's Creed meets Crackdown meets... Condemnded!! Sooo brutal!
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01-11-2008, 01:07 AM
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