Superheroes and, by extension, superhero games are about the fantasy of power: that slightly Neitzchean desire to exert your will on your surroundings, to reshape reality according to your whims, to jump-kick a helicopter until it explodes. Prototype gives you a broad set of shape-shifting superpowers and lets you loose in a well rendered Manhattan (where else?) to work your will, provided that will can be expressed by throwing, punching, clawing, or exploding humans and vehicles.
As Alex Mercer, the carrier of a mutagenic super-virus, you are hunted by the military, who are interested in recovering your carcass for research purposes. Fortunately, the virus grants you all sorts of super powers, including the ability to reshape your limbs into weapons, so you’re able to beat back legions of soldiers. Then the zombies come in, and things get interesting.
As you accomplish objectives, destroy bases or zombie “hives”, and finish side “events” (like races or timed battles), the game awards you “Evolution Points” with which to unlock new powers. These are impressive in their number and diversity, and they open new styles of play to you, which makes the game all the more flexible.The appeal of the game lies in the variety of ways you can approach any situation – do you want to defeat this monster by pelting it with rockets? By knocking it off a skyscraper? By throwing pedestrians at it?
The graphics are decent, but not exceptional. Alex’s coat ripples nicely in the wind, and the view of Manhattan from the top of the Chrysler building is breathtaking. Character models can be a bit bland, but there are hundreds of them on the screen at a time. The controls can be squirrelly, sometimes sending Alex ricocheting off of skyscrapers when you just want him to walk calmly down the street, but it’s an acceptable exchange for the mobility offered.
Prototype offers a chaotic and flexible open world, inexhaustible game play, and an intriguing plot, jinxed by sometimes squirrelly controls and occasional difficulty spikes. But, really, the game grips you from the moment you first jump-kick a helicopter out of the sky.
That is a thing of joy.

By Jens Rushing