Before I delve into the details of Prototype 2, I feel it is important to put right in front that the demo shown to us was of pre-alpha gameplay, and that the game will not be launching until 2012. There were some bugs and hiccups, but ‘tis the nature of seeing an early build.
Prototype 2 picks up after the events of the first game. This time around you take control of Sergeant James Heller; a war veteran just returning home after 14 months of being stationed overseas. This is where the destruction starts back up.
Heller returns to a New York City that has been decimated by biological warfare, and learns that his family had been killed by the Blacklight infection. Losing all hope, Heller decides to make a suicide run into the middle of Manhattan, which has been dubbed the ‘Red Zone’ as it contains the highest concentration of infected people.
Heller manages to take out hundreds of the infected without being killed. Eventually, he is wounded and the hero of Prototype , Alex Mercer, saves Heller by infecting him with the virus. Soon after, Heller discovers that Mercer is the responsible party for the unleashing of the Blacklight virus. Heller now has a mission: Kill Alex Mercer to exact revenge on the man responsible for his family’s death.
The demonstration picked up a point a short time into the game. From a rooftop somewhere in the safe ‘Green Zone’, Heller sees Blackwatch (a ruthless PMC) murder many civilians for witnessing a strange infected creature lying in the middle of a parking lot.
Heller takes exception to this and decides to take action. Heller approaches one of the Blackwatch soldiers and stabs him with a “Biobomb,” which detonates inside of him sending spikes into all of the surrounding soldiers and killing them. Heller then takes the opportunity to “consume” a scientist that is on the scene — “consuming” is what Heller does to access the memories of his targets.
After this, the “Blacknet” system is revealed. Blacknet is a secure information database owned by Blackwatch and contains information that Heller can use for side quests. To access, you have to attack Blacknet trucks that are placed throughout the city. Unfortunately, none of the side quests were shown in the demo.
The developers then flashed the game forward a short while to show the new targeting system. Radical didn’t want to take the standard waypoint and map approach to finding targets; instead they developed an echolocation feature that Heller uses to track down subjects. The echolocation works very well and the clean HUD is a great change of pace over other games in the sandbox arena.
Chasing down Heller’s target looked to be a great time. The incredible locomotion system from the first game was kept, and tuned slightly to improve the quality. The movement was very fluid and the abilities (such as flight) were very unique. With many different ‘mutations’ (perks) to choose from, players will have the ability to tune the game to play in the style they like the best. To gain more mutations, you have to complete objectives in the game
Arenas are a staple of the third-person brawler genre, and it seems that Radical realized this and added in ‘lairs’ or underground pockets of infected people. Inside of one of these lairs, we were shown two new types of mutants: the ‘Spike Brawler’ and the ‘Juggernaut’. These types of infected are slightly stronger than the standard mutants, so a new tactical dodging feature was revealed to us. When timed properly, Heller can get behind an enemy and easily attack them at their weak point.
Compounding on this, mutants are now amongst the enemies that can be dismembered in this game, instead of just the humans in the original. In two quick steps, Heller had removed one of the Juggernaut’s arms and then quickly killed the creature by leaping into the air and then cutting him in half lengthwise.
Soon after this, the demo ended. For being a game so early in development, it had a high fidelity of graphical quality. Some key settings were obviously missing, but as I said earlier, it is still in pre-alpha. If things continue the way they have for Radical, I believe Prototype 2 will be an extremely fun and interesting gameplay experience.
Keep checking back in here, and we will continue updating you folks with information on Prototype 2, which is due out in calendar year 2012.
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