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by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 07/17/2009, 3:58pm PDT |
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I actually wrote this weeks ago, but I lost it and didn't really feel like re-writing it. I found it, though, and since I
1) crave conflict and confrontation,
2) prefer to finish what I start, and
3) actually have a bit of free time at work, here you go:
Here's the best thing about Prototype: at its heart, it's an awesomely fun game. Sprinting over buildings, gliding over Central Park before dropping down like a hawk onto a guy you then absorb into your own body, running through the streets crushing skulls under your heel, driving a tank down Broadway and laughing as the panic-striken civilians run straight under your treads, jumping 90 feet in the air to grab onto a helicopter, dump out the pilot, and take control, tossing a car a full city block into a helicopter that had made the fatal mistake of pausing to unload the soldiers within, bodysurfing through the crowd as the military chases after you, cutting nine soldiers in half with your whip-tendril in slow motion -- I could go on and on. The game is good. The game is very good, and that makes its flaws that much more pronounced and maddening.
Here's the biggest problem with Prototype: it's not enough like Crackdown. inFAMOUS is closer, and like Crackdown it really doesn't pick up until you're two or three hours into the game and developed your character significantly, but it still finds itself hamstrung by convention and tradition.
I'm speaking strictly in a game design sense here, and I think that this betrays the fundamental mindsets behind the vast majority of developers, including Sucker Punch and Radical Entertainment. To break it down via oversimplified proverb: there are leaders, and then there are followers. Both Sucker Punch and Radical are followers. Both are very good followers, and more than capable of crafting enjoyable games that will fit neatly in pre-established categories and bring nothing new to the table, but they lack that spark of innovation and raw creativity that elevates a game beyond "very good."
Radical Entertainment has been making games for a long, long time now, and it shows in that deathgrip they maintain on the most annoying, frustrating gaming clichés that are either dead or dying in the current generation of games. First off: powering and subsequently depowering the player character.
Mischief Maker on Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner in 2003 wrote:
And so at one point you're fighting the Vic Viper, complete with missiles, lasers, ripple beams, shields, and a steadily increasing number of options. The big bad guy's robot is unstoppable at the beginning because it has the power of Zwee fighting. Now normally a video game would have you procuring some sort of device that would cancel out the bad guy's Zwee ability and force him to fight you on your ground. This game? They have you procuring a device at the end that gives you the power of Zwee fighting! Smacking an enemy up and sending them flying away, then Zweeing behind them and crunching them with a finishing move? Hell yes!
Six full years ago, even Japanese developers notorious for their aversion to innovation and experimentation realized that upping the player's abilities is a far better choice than decreasing the opponent's abilities. Even though ZOE 2 fell into the same pattern of stripping the player character of its hard-won upgrades for a set portion of the game, it did display a bit of forward thinking in its final stages. You would think that in the intervening time, Western developers would cotton on to this paradigm shift and begin integrating it into their play design. And sure enough, some have. Others, however...
Creexul on Contra 4 in 2007 wrote:
Someone should just walk up to the devs of this game, say, YOU DIDN'T ADD AN EXTRA LIVES CODE, then punch them in the face. They made a Contra game incorrectly for like the 5th fucking time now. The ironic t-shirts at my Target(ses) and Hot Topic(s) don't have the Konami code on it because people didn't like using it.
This is exactly how I feel about games that boast about all the novel and exciting powers and abilities your character will be granted, let you spend time and effort honing these abilities, and then force you to play through a non-negotiable chunk of the game without them. People aren't buying these games because they DON'T like those aspects. It comes off as artificially increasing the difficulty and time spent fucking around so that it can be marketed with however many extra hours tacked on to the playtime.
I could deal with these flaws if it weren't for the fact that Radical intends for you to play Prototype in a very specific way. The missions you're assigned have a clear best-practices method of completion that often depends on seemingly random spawns and/or what powers the game has expected you to unlock at any given point. Although it's an open world game, Prototype doesn't allow the player much freedom in deciding how to accomplish any given goal. For example, let's look at an early-game assignment to destroy a Hive building. You could stand there and shoot rockets from a rocket launcher at it, but they don't do much damage and the supply of launchers is wholly dependent on how many soldiers equipped with rocket launchers spawn. Besides, the building constantly spawns Hunters, and you might not be sufficiently powered up to the point where they're not a challenge. You couldn't beat the building to death with any of your powers, even the ones that otherwise destroy armored tanks EVEN IF those powers were available to you yet (and they're not), and even if you could, there are those pesky Hunters. You could hijack a helicopter and use that, except that the hijack helicopter ability isn't available to you yet, and even if it was, it doesn't always work. You can't crash a vehicle into the building to do any damage, and artillery strikes aren't available to you yet. So you have to either hijack a tank and shoot artillery at it or run around picking up cars and tossing them at the building. Some people look at that and think, "Wow, that's a lot of choice! Thanks, Radical!" We call those people brain-damaged, or faggots for short. Finely cultured sophisticates like you and I psh it while cleaning our monocles and ask why the power progression is artifically limited by story markers, or why the only significant means of earning XP out of story missions are an array of timed events that vary in frustration and glitches.
The depth of conviction that Prototype has to its hackneyed, banal storyline is astonishing. There are cutscenes bookending every story mission, some several minutes in length. The Consume side-missions as well as the Web of Intrigue targets also spark cutscenes, which although significantly shorter, are almost nonsensical half the time. The voice work is stellar; real talent was clearly procured for the project, which makes it even more strange that the character modeling and cutscene animation is so second-rate. It's like the developers all played and loved BioShock, and set about to construct a game that was equally reliant on narrative -- and then forgot to actually write a compelling story.
As bad as Prototype's story is, inFAMOUS's is worse. The opening scene portrays the devastation of a thriving city and the brutal deaths of tens of thousands of people -- and you won't care at all. I don't know if Sucker Punch had turnover in its writing department, or whether their writers are incapable of creating compelling characters without the crutch of funny animals, but no one in this game elicits any kind of emotional connection or reaction whatsoever. Alex Mercer may be generic, but he's got nothing on Cole McGrath (I had to look that up and really? Cole McGrath? Jesus Christ), his bitchy character-sketch of a girlfriend Trish, and his fat hick best friend Zeke. The most original character in the game is Trish's dead sister, whose sole defining feature is being dead.
inFAMOUS is a Sucker Punch game, though, with the high level of polish that the studio is known for. That attention to the user experience helps blunt the realization that you're doing the exact same thing that every other sandbox game of the past five years has made you do. You've got your arbitrary OCD collect-em-all section in the satellite dead drops to retrieve. There's the various side missions that require you to escort NPCs, use stealth to follow enemies without being detected (although there is absolutely no legitimate feedback whatsoever in what the player needs to do to avoid being seen [hint: stick to the rooftops] -- I was once spotted somehow around the corner of a building), and locate all of the foozles on a given building. And then there are the timed races. No innovation, no original thought.
Thankfully, the electric powers you're given, once developed a bit, are precisely tuned to liven up things a bit. Your fragility kind of precludes any serious melee combat though; especially later in the game when you have to face packs of medium-to-difficult enemies. You'll spend most of your time utilizing various electric projectiles to kill your enemies while dodging gunfire and taking cover behind lightposts, bus stops, and civilians. Upon further reflection, this is the game The Force Unleashed aspired to be: hurling objects around and electrocuting anyone foolish enough to cross your eyeline while doing crazy flips and jumps from heights.
Again, however, the leash is kept fairly tight when it comes to character development and progression outside of the main storyline. Overall, inFAMOUS's side missions are less arbitrary and depend less on chance than Prototype's, though the timed races are, well, timed races. Still, I'd rather assault/defend a police station and have a visible effect upon the game world than try to figure out exactly how to murder 61+ people in the park within a time limit while praying that the random spawns work in my favor this time.
In the final analysis, I would break it down like this: while Prototype gives the player far better tools, inFAMOUS does a better job in getting out of the way and allowing the player to decide how to best use the tools at his disposal. Both games are positive, but I would qualify Prototype's with the caveat that it's a far more structured, linear, and narrative-driven game than one might be led to believe. |
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inFAMOUS/Prototype double review outline by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/14/2009, 4:10am PDT 
A reply for Prototype by Worm 06/14/2009, 4:39am PDT
Infamous is exactly as you describe it by Lizard_King 06/14/2009, 6:41am PDT
Re: Infamous is exactly as you describe it by Choson 06/14/2009, 8:43am PDT
Re: Infamous is exactly as you describe it by Qt3 Historian 06/14/2009, 10:48am PDT
I haven't hit a single invulnerable enemy, where are you talking about? by Worm 06/14/2009, 11:12am PDT
Re: I haven't hit a single invulnerable enemy, where are you talking about? by Lizard_King 06/14/2009, 4:37pm PDT
Re: I haven't hit a single invulnerable enemy, where are you talking about? by Worm 06/14/2009, 5:57pm PDT
I guess Amon Tobin did the soundtrack to inFamous? by Fullofkittens 06/14/2009, 8:09am PDT
nobody knows who that is because of music having died years ago but by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/14/2009, 8:47am PDT
Okay, so that obviously was a script. NT by Worm 06/14/2009, 8:56am PDT
I think he was copying the text from the link and pasting it (thanks). NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/14/2009, 9:05am PDT
that's too much complex info for him to process, you just blew his mind NT by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/14/2009, 9:06am PDT
It's good he did that because you can't click on it :( NT by Worm 06/14/2009, 9:14am PDT
Electronic music isn't really music, so it didn't die when music died. NT by Fullofkittens 06/14/2009, 9:34am PDT
You migh say it was Eno-culated against the disease ravaging music. NT by motherfuckerfoodeater 06/14/2009, 10:00am PDT
so, nothing to flagellate ourselves over (and they still call it the fail staysh NT by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/14/2009, 8:53am PDT
oh yeah and on the subject of infamous'ses moral choice system by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/14/2009, 9:00am PDT
Re: oh yeah and on the subject of infamous'ses moral choice system by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/14/2009, 9:03am PDT
Yeah I thought it was gonna be really in depth and stuff, too bad. NT by Worm 06/14/2009, 9:16am PDT
Spoiler! by Lizard_King 06/14/2009, 10:51am PDT
So, assuming I had a PS3 (which I don't), which should I buy, Prototype or Infam NT by Fortinbras 06/14/2009, 4:35pm PDT
Prototype! NT by Ethan Steele 06/15/2009, 11:51am PDT
Some of the challenge events are going to make your fucking blood boil, fyi. by Worm 06/15/2009, 3:17pm PDT
inFAMOUS/Prototype double review first draft, mostly done w/ Prototype half by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 2:54pm PDT
Harsh by Fortinbras 06/24/2009, 3:07pm PDT
From the Makers of Scarface and Simpsons: Hit and Run... NT by The Littlest Hobo 06/24/2009, 3:13pm PDT
I just threw cars at the hive, are you dumb? NT by Worm 06/24/2009, 3:45pm PDT
Here's the point, here's Worm. by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 4:33pm PDT
You might have to explain it to him as you would a child. NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/24/2009, 4:58pm PDT
I'd really like this, because it looks like he just never threw a car a hive. NT by Worm 06/24/2009, 5:04pm PDT
Maybe he should throw a car at a hive NT by Entropy Stew 06/24/2009, 5:53pm PDT
What? It's just as valid as using the fucking tank. by Worm 06/24/2009, 5:04pm PDT
You know what? Fuck you, Worm. by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 5:53pm PDT
OH THESE CHAINS THAT BIND by Entropy Stew 06/24/2009, 6:00pm PDT
The track of not throwing cars? NT by Worm 06/24/2009, 6:01pm PDT
No, the game doesn't want you to do that. I can't explain why; trust me on this. NT by Entropy Stew 06/24/2009, 6:02pm PDT
Nice projecting by FABIO 06/25/2009, 1:11am PDT
FABIO realizes he makes bitchy nitpicky complaints constantly and shuts up by The Caltrops Narrator 06/25/2009, 7:38am PDT
Nope NT by FABIO 06/30/2009, 5:23pm PDT
blob is pretty much entirely correct, hey wrom how did you find caltrops? by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/30/2009, 2:22pm PDT
Just throw a car, moron. Get Jhoh to do it for you. NT by Fortinbras 06/30/2009, 2:25pm PDT
the game gives you a shitty unfun "choice", you "choose" the worst idea to defen NT by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/30/2009, 2:27pm PDT
Crackdown did it. NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/30/2009, 2:42pm PDT
Haha imagining you trying to fist fight the building after being told it doesn't by Workm 06/30/2009, 4:22pm PDT
I heard you can knock buildings down NT by Moog 06/30/2009, 4:31pm PDT
wrom has to intentionally misunderstand posts to reply to them now. by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/30/2009, 4:46pm PDT
the game even gives you jazz hands I mean sledgehammer hands AND supar muscle a by the game even gives you jazz hands 06/30/2009, 5:01pm PDT
i tried a hundred times and then the hive broke and there was all this cool stuf NT by gruman 06/30/2009, 5:05pm PDT
Thanks for proving us right. 8) by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/30/2009, 5:09pm PDT
Re: Thanks for proving us right. 8) by the game even gives you jazz hands 06/30/2009, 5:10pm PDT
Re: Thanks for proving us right. 8) by Mysterious Stranger 07/05/2009, 6:59pm PDT
We sit around laughing at the replies we get 100% of the time. NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 07/05/2009, 7:12pm PDT
haha holy shit this couldn't be easier NT by Weyoun Voidbringer 06/30/2009, 5:10pm PDT
haha holy shit all i had to do was post shit for a decade and - hahaha holy shit by Weyon Voidbringer 06/30/2009, 5:16pm PDT
Whoa seems like you're being a crybaby faggot again. by Worm 06/30/2009, 5:04pm PDT
Sounds like you're accusing us of the exact thing you're doing right now. 8) by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/30/2009, 5:20pm PDT
Hey look, more white knighting and screaming about how little you give a shit by Worm 06/30/2009, 5:33pm PDT
Re: blob is pretty much entirely correct, hey wrom how did you find caltrops? by Tricknology 06/30/2009, 7:43pm PDT
I'm with worm, not throwing cars is pretty retarded by bombMexico 06/24/2009, 5:46pm PDT
Horrible Gelatinous Blob begins to realize he shouldn't post incomplete first dr NT by The Caltrops Narrator 06/24/2009, 5:51pm PDT
Re: I'm with worm, not throwing cars is pretty retarded by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 6:31pm PDT
Re: I'm with worm, not throwing cars is pretty retarded by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 7:10pm PDT
stop saying inFAMOUS :( by bombMexico 06/24/2009, 9:19pm PDT
I'll stop saying inFAMOUS as soon as you stop quoting below new text :( NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/25/2009, 10:12am PDT
they're daring each other to blink NT by discuss. 06/30/2009, 5:11pm PDT
This isn't gonna happen until he and Zseni have hashed out their porn preference NT by Fortinbras 06/30/2009, 5:16pm PDT
I just threw shit at the hive. Are you retarded? NT by Entropy Stew 06/24/2009, 5:47pm PDT
Entropy Stew and Worm have a gentle clusterfuck as they obsess over a single sen NT by The Caltrops Narrator 06/24/2009, 5:54pm PDT
You can't have a clusterfuck with 2 people!!! NT by Entropy Stew 06/24/2009, 5:58pm PDT
Why am I genuinely getting angry at accusations I didn't throw shit? by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 6:03pm PDT
You might have been a victim of Caltrops hype! NT by Fortinbras 06/24/2009, 6:04pm PDT
No, you like inFamous and hate Prototype. Explain how you can have this opini NT by Fullofkittens 06/24/2009, 6:08pm PDT
Whoa, it's not like anyone threw a car at you. NT by Worm 06/24/2009, 6:12pm PDT
Did you also not call in an artillery strike? by Entropy Stew 06/24/2009, 6:15pm PDT
Poor word choice: acknowledged. NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 6:22pm PDT
They're crap. Crap. Crap. Megacrap. NT by J Entropy Steweson 06/24/2009, 6:31pm PDT
Aw, isn't that sweet? I HATE SWEET! I NEED CARS! CARS TO THROW AT HIVES! NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 6:33pm PDT
Isn't that cuuuuuute? BUT IT'S WRONG! by Fortinbras 06/24/2009, 6:42pm PDT
Re: Aw, isn't that sweet? I HATE SWEET! I NEED CARS! CARS TO THROW AT HIVES! by Ice Cream Jonsey 06/24/2009, 9:16pm PDT
You can throw cars in this game? NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 06/24/2009, 9:24pm PDT
The car throwing feature is not available in the PC version. NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 06/25/2009, 5:36am PDT
/flips keyboard FUCK THIS, I'm holding out till the Vectrex port NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 06/25/2009, 9:14am PDT
So....can you throw cars in inFAMOUS? NT by Fortinbras 06/25/2009, 11:25am PDT
In a way. by Lizard_King 06/25/2009, 1:31pm PDT
Re: In a way. by Weyon Voidbringer 06/30/2009, 5:20pm PDT
If your B button doesn't work just buy a new controller, retard! by bombMexico 06/24/2009, 9:06pm PDT
2nd draft delayed indefinitely due to deaths of MJ, McNair, Billy Mays, Shia LeB NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 07/04/2009, 6:26pm PDT
Shia is dead? NT by no NO no NO n-n-n-no NO NO NOO! 07/04/2009, 8:51pm PDT
Read: A car got thrown at me NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 07/04/2009, 11:25pm PDT
Re: inFAMOUS/Prototype double review outline by Ice Cream Jonsey 06/25/2009, 9:16am PDT
Prototype is great! Everything Blob wrote is 100% wrong by FABIO 07/05/2009, 6:46pm PDT
Re: Prototype is great! Everything Blob wrote is 100% wrong by Lizard_King 07/05/2009, 8:04pm PDT
Here's a sexual question for you, Fabio. by Zsenitan 07/06/2009, 4:26pm PDT
Also if you would please be so kind as to not answer, thanks. NT by Zsenitan 07/06/2009, 4:28pm PDT
I'll wait till someone makes fun of that so it''ll be readable by FABIO 07/06/2009, 5:41pm PDT
Re: I'll wait till someone makes fun of that so it''ll be readable by Zsenitan 07/06/2009, 6:33pm PDT
Soooo, which one is FABIO and which one is you? NT by Confused Caltrops 07/06/2009, 6:42pm PDT
Yes, that's the problem, isn't it. NT by Zsenitan 07/06/2009, 6:54pm PDT
Isn't that how QB met Irene? NT by Mischief Maker 07/07/2009, 8:33am PDT
You were right to ignore her post, friend. by Quétinbec 07/06/2009, 8:17pm PDT
It's obvious she replied to the wrong post. It's safe to continue ignoring her. NT by FABIO 07/07/2009, 1:43am PDT
Yes, that's a very safe thing to do. I'm glad people are becoming aware of her NT by dangers - Quétinbec 07/07/2009, 2:27am PDT
"You're a pussy." by Zsenitan 07/07/2009, 12:53pm PDT
Re: "You're a pussy." by Quétinbec 07/07/2009, 4:34pm PDT
inFAMOUS/Prototype double review second draft by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 07/17/2009, 3:58pm PDT
So do you still want to just punch the building to death? by Worm 07/17/2009, 4:20pm PDT
You're right, Worm. Destroying a building with your bare hands = not fun at all. NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 07/17/2009, 5:26pm PDT
I brought up controlled demolition as a goofy example, not an unfun one! by Worm 07/17/2009, 6:11pm PDT
I agree with pretty much all of this despite only playing prototype for 5 hours by Weyoun Voidbringer 07/17/2009, 4:31pm PDT
Re: inFAMOUS/Prototype double review second draft by Ice Cream Jonsey 07/17/2009, 6:24pm PDT
Can there be a rebuttal saying how dead wrong he is? NT by icycalm 07/17/2009, 7:50pm PDT
No, because he's actually right, idiot. by icycalm 07/17/2009, 8:59pm PDT
One of us nitwit(tgenstein)s NT by Fussbett 07/17/2009, 9:03pm PDT
hahah NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 07/17/2009, 9:11pm PDT
Instead you'll just tell us because you can't stand to have your ego torpedoed by Fortinbras 07/17/2009, 10:13pm PDT
Go ahead. All I would add at this point is (even more) whining. NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 07/20/2009, 3:34pm PDT
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