[PROTOTYPE]TM

[Stark]

Arguably it's not that easy; I'm just at the peak of 'just finished Crackdown and playing on insane' skill. The 8-bit bossfights are super hard, and the regular combat is getting much harder too; the Marines are now JAVELIN JUGGLING me.

[SylasGaunt]

The dynamic city is really quite neat; as you near 'infected' zones, people begin to be zombies, the sky changes, buildings are aflame, units of soldiers move on the streets and drones observe above, until you reach teh TENTACLE HIVE and stand on the top of a car with a SAW and butcher the tactically useless zombies by the hundred.

This is one of my favorite features of the game. I like how even then they extend a bit beyond their depicted radius as infected go chasing people down outside it.

Also one thing I noticed is that as you get closer to viral zones you start seeing more and more people who look sick but haven't yet gone all 'RAR zombeh!'

That bit where your powers get taken away is kind of annoying but on the other hand that led to me discovering that even sans tentacles, blades, hammerhands, or 'roid arms I could still kick helicopters to death pretty quick. I also desperately need more EP so I can purchase that upgrade for the hammerfist that lets you hammer-throw yourself through the air.

[Ford Prefect]

Arguably it's not that easy; I'm just at the peak of 'just finished Crackdown and playing on insane' skill. The 8-bit bossfights are super hard, and the regular combat is getting much harder too; the Marines are now JAVELIN JUGGLING me.

Well, that's positive. Are the bosses particularly frustrating at all? I don't mind difficulty, but as I indicated in my Ninja Gaiden thread, there comes a point where difficulty become fake and cheap and it's annoying.

[SylasGaunt]

They can be a bit difficult, especially the ones that like to call in reinforcements. I'm not all the way through yet but so far the high and low end of the scale..

With one boss I just hauled off and smashed him in the face with a couple of trucks (albeit boosted by that Musclemass power that lets you goofiy victims of your throws).

On the other end of the spectrum I had another boss who had me desperately scrambling all over the damn fighting area eating Blackwatch, infected, and anything else I could to restore health while throwing rubble at him, snatching up and firing missile launchers, firing off devastators, and hijacking bradleys to TOW spam him. The real bitch of it is that he and his Hunter buddies seem to take you attempting to Consume something as a giant 'kill me now!' sign.

But even then I've yet to get outright stuck on a boss, I think the most I've had to do is 3 or so attempts.

Also something I've noticed that's pretty nifty is that the parkour can key off damn near anything so in one case I was running up a building for altitude, got blown off by a missile then springboarded off a wrecked chunk of fire escape in mid air before elbowdropping the offending chopper out of existence.

[Chardok]

Side note - the voice of Alex Mercer? Yeah, the sniper from Saving Private Ryan. As if this game needed more Win.

Additionally - I think this game MAY be precisely what I asked for - a re-skinned incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction - Alex runs the same as hulk, his jump animation is almost identical, and he even has a ground slam shockwave attack and a fist clap explosion pushy-awayy attack thing. So fuck it - this game is Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destrction. And that - well, that's just goddamned win.

PS - no juggling here. I spent fully 3 minutes killing hunters in that base thingo JUST BECAUSE I COULD. the absorbtion animation will never get old - it's so visceral and just...awesome.


EDIT _ _ _ _ _ IT EVEN HAS HULK FALL IN WATER, HULK JUMP OUT OF WATER IMMEDIATELY SILLINESS! OH!!! I AM IN LOVE

[Stark]

Chards you better still be on n 15m

[Chardok]

hell yes I will

[SylasGaunt]

Yeah the absorption animation is suitably gross to be worth seeing more than once, especially since it can vary a lot depending on which animation he does and how you're moving. For extra fun wolf down a bunch of them one right after the other and watch the big black roiling cloud of ick you become.

Also attacking zombies with helicopter blades is always cool.. oh and using disguise so you get things like an old Granny hitting a commando in the face with a truck right before she launches a super flying kick and surfs along on the corpse of one of his friends and then kicks the bloody mess into the other members of his squad.

[Ford Prefect]

I played al ittle today on a friend's PC. Controls were a little difficult to get a handle on (I bet my 360 controller will seem more intuitive) but it was a TOTAL BLAST. Running up the side of buildings will never get old.

[Companion Cube]

So how dynamic is the game world? Is there any back-and-forth territorial control between the soldiers and the mutants?

Also, how is the game's story presented (flashbacks, discussion with side characters)? There's obviously a positive reaction here.

[SylasGaunt]

So how dynamic is the game world? Is there any back-and-forth territorial control between the soldiers and the mutants?

The areas of the map both control change over the course of the game. You can further influence this by destroying bases or hives. With hives at least another building will sometimes trigger as a hive afterwards but if you blow them up enough an area can actually end up having its Infected status revoked. Of course you can goblow the hell out of the military bases to and in that case the military can lose their influence over the area to.

Also, how is the game's story presented (flashbacks, discussion with side characters)? There's obviously a positive reaction here.

Mostly told in flashback (to the extent that most, if not all the game is a flashback) with occasional flashes to the 'present' of the game where Alex is talking with someone as yet unknown to me on the 18th day of infection.

Then there's also the web of intrigue where you'll find people involved in some way with the conspiracy that created this mess. You get a brief snippet and movie dealing with some issue. Sometimes its on Blackwatch equipment or procedures, sometimes its remembered briefing on yourself (security nightmare indeed), etc. Absorbing a WoI target also links you to between 1 and 3 new people to find and absorb for more info.

[MJ12 Commando]

Have you seen Captain Blackwatch McScar tell the general that 'containing a city of 12 million people might be a bit outside my team's capability'? Then the general says 'oh nevermind just kill this superhero guy' and the scientist says 'realtime genetic mutable mass-from-nowhere even the clothes are replicated' and McScar says 'cool, we'll get him' without batting an eye.

And then HE ATTACKS YOU WITH A TASER. McScar rules.

Also, Batman grapple guns. He's awesome.

He's a gigantic action hero who clearly learned from the Commando school of total badassery. He even throws one-liners at you during the fight! I mean here you have a shock baton and a grenade launcher, and the enemy is a massively powerful superhuman shapeshifter... you've gotta have balls of solid steel to throw one-liners at him.

Also... <powerthirst> HIJACKING? HOW ABOUT SKYJACKING! SKYJACK AIR VEHICLES FROM YOUR FOES! ABANDON THEM IN MIDAIR AND DO AN AIRDROP! AND BY AIRDROP WE MEAN POWERBOMBING A TANK FROM THE AIR!</powerthirst>

[Executor32]

Just a note for anyone else who picks it up for PC: if you have the default sound format on your audio device set to anything other than 16-bit 44100Hz, you will hear chipmunk voices and music, and crackling cutscene audio. Setting it to that will fix it.

[Stark]

Wow so the PS3 and the PC versions were broken? Quality.

[Ford Prefect]

While I enjoy making huge ass spikes erupt from the ground to obliterate crowds of hapless enemies, and the RE mass tentacle attack is boss, are there any other Devastators?

[Stark]

It takes AGES to give them to you. You have to get past the WORST BOSSFIGHT IN THE UNIVERSE first. Kill the penis.

[Ford Prefect]

Actually, I'm curious. What happens when you have multiple Devastators? Activating them is just a matter of hitting two attakc buttons while in criticial mass (shit, this game has the best nonclementure), so how do you choose?

[SylasGaunt]

While I enjoy making huge ass spikes erupt from the ground to obliterate crowds of hapless enemies, and the RE mass tentacle attack is boss, are there any other Devastators?

Air-drop version of the spike one that lets you drop out of the sky, hit the ground and inflict instant pain.

360 degree aerial version of the tentacles that will take out everything in every direction now.

And the ground and air versions of the Critical Pain devastator which basically ruins the shit of anything in a line in front of you.

[Stark]

They have different button combos; groundspike is xy, tentacool is yb, etc. You have to hold it long enough for it to know you don't want to do the handclap or whatever.

Actually, everyone needs to finish the game so I can start talking about the terrible game design decisions.

[TheMuffinKing]

This sounds totally awesome. Thanks a lot, I'll be playing this soon.

[weemadando]

OK, I bought it and have been messing around. It's totally Prototype: Ultimate Destruction. Top to bottom re-skin of Hulk. But that's OK. Because now I can totally jack vehicles.

[Stark]

Watch out; Chards and I have both soured on the game. Wait till you get to the awful well-designed bossfights and start noticing all the things Hulk did BETTER years ago.

Or how the Web of Intriuge is clearly unfinished. Or how Mercer's character suddenly changes towards the end (in the OPPOSITE direction you'd expect given the story). The story and the dynamic city are highpoints of the game, but the freeroam, destruction and combat were better in a game from ages back, and that's before you get to the broken mechanics.

[Zac Naloen]

I have to say I've been playing this for a couple of days and I soured on it quite quickly.


I couldn't find Mercers story interesting at all, and the combat although destructive was ultimately boring... I actually found the story of Red Faction more compelling...


I'll be returning this to the store.

[Stark]

I liked the story insofar as it was Resident Evil but with competent military, which worked with the dynamic city... but the Web not working (being basically an island crawl over and over instead of 'detective') and the actual missions being so meh really highlight that perhaps the game wasn't finished. Will anyone get sick of seeing that same building collapse over and over?

[Zac Naloen]

The story is probably serviceable, but i have no real shame in admitting that I stopped caring very quickly and skipped all the story movies just to get into another fight where I use exactly the same moves as the last fight and then run up some buildings.