Prototype: Biohazard Bundle (2015)

Mini Review of "Prototype 2" from the Prototype: Biohazard Bundle

Pros:

• A barn burner of an opening: James Heller talks with and suddenly loses his family to a second outbreak via montage, goes a on a suicide mission to the red zone, barely survives his unit being wiped out, kills a large infected with just a knife, escapes a house sized infected, puts up a decent fight against Alex Mercer, and is ultimately turned into an evolved.

• Gameplay is a massive improvement from the first game: The Player can block now, dodging is much easier, the human and infected enemies are more varied and more detailed, vehicle takedowns have more variety, the web on intrigue has been massively scaled down, two virus powers can be used at once now, targets that need to be consumed are much more resilient so they can't be killed by accident, a greater variety of missions outside the main campaign, the game is gradually unlocked by exploring three zones, more ways to upgrade your character's powers, the ability to summon and control certain infected, audio logs can be collected, and evolved enemies like Heller can be fought.

• The protagonist of the last game is the antagonist in this game: This premise is always intriguing for narrative fiction even though in this game's case the execution is somewhat mixed. The player knows going up against Mercer is a big deal because he has had an entire prior game to be built up.

• An amazing final boss fight: Heller fights Mercer on a burning rooftop in the rain. The fight has three stages and Heller can't use the same powers as Mercer unless you want to take damage. The fight is just right in terms of difficulty and ends in an appropriately epic way.

• Multiple unlockable skins: This has no meaningful effect on gameplay but I like it all the same.

• The black and white stylized cutscenes: I just think they look neat.

Cons:

• Alex Mercer's unexplained villainous turn: There is absolutely zero explanation as to why Alex Mercer's characterization has done a complete 180 since the last game. This is why my personal head-canon is the the antagonist in Prototype 2 isn't the same Alex Mercer from the first game. It's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

• The stereotyping of protagonist James Heller: James Heller is a decent enough protagonist with a sympathetic motivation but the portrayal of Heller as a "perpetually angry black man" is not only tiresome but also borders on insulting. Tragically there aren't that many Black protagonists in videogames. Because of that I think that it should be the job of developers to try and make protagonists who are people of color multidimensional or failing that, not have them fulfill negative stereotypes.

• The underdeveloped relationship with Heller's daughter: The narrative wants the player to be really invested in Maya and her well-being. Unfortunately we as the players know next to nothing about her or her relationship to her father. We know that they're related but that's about it.

• Dangling threads from the first game: The whereabouts of PARIAH from the last game are never touched upon. Which seems weird because that seems vaguely important.

I picked up the Prototype duology on PS4 recently and just finished playing the second game.

Prototype 1 was pretty much how I remembered it (this would be my third playthrough I think?). A fun enough sandbox game with a cool set of powers, a conspiracy laden plot, and and number of time killer challenges that could earn you extra experience points. Unfortunately the protagonist was a generic gravely voiced anti-hero, the dodge mechanic was so so, you couldn't block, the enemies were lacking in variety, the Elizabeth Green fight was just frustrating, and you get your powers stolen for two or three missions with no warning.

Prototype 2 is a game I'm disappointed that I didn't play until this year because it improves on pretty much everything the first game did. I highly recommend it if you've been wanting a dark superhero-esque to play.