Games That Nobody Plays Anymore: Prototype and Infamous
Purely for context, lets just say you only have $60 and you want to buy a free-roaming title. You only have a PS3 and you’re say… around fourteen to seventeen years old. You talk with your friends and they show you some clips from Infamous and Prototype, you’re torn between the two. Your mother is about to take you to the store to spend your money (yeah you’re a mummies boy) and you look around your bedroom. There’s a picture of Cole McGrath from Infamous and Alex Mercer from Prototype. It’s time to choose. Time to choose.
Infamous tells the tale of Cole McGrath, who is out just delivering a package, which suddenly explodes and kills him. He wakes up in hospital with special abilities and a city in peril from the explosion, and must take on many dudes in order to save the city. Although you can also be an evil guy and basically be a modern day Adolf Hitler, terrorizing and killing everything, except without the ideological political motivation. The story also tells a under layer of betrayal and regret, which seems sort of out of place in a game like this. Nevertheless, the narrative is perfectly fine.
In Prototype you play as Alex Mercer, a dead dude who wakes up with special powers (coincidence?) and these powers include giant blades coming out of your wrists. Awesome. Apparently there’s some sort of infection and you have to make people pay because they’ve given you awesome powers. Logic? The story takes a backseat to the entire game, thankfully, and Infamous’ wicked comic like graphic cutscenes look like Oscar-gold compared to this. There’s a few characters and main antagonists, but you’ll mostly just be skipping those and slaughtering dudes.
The problem with Infamous’ hook is that there’s only two paths – Good and Evil – and it rewards going in just one direction. There’s no true “I’m a hero!” and “I’m an evil man bwahahahah.” in fact, for the most part, there’s generally no change. The whole purpose of this shallow moral choice is to reward you with certain powers if you go down one of the roads. It’s a little trick that Sucker Punch has done to make you play through the game twice. It’s like playing the whole of COD4 but then being told that you can do it all again, but with different weapon sets.
Infamous plays out in a detailed city full of stuff to do. I would go as far to say that it’s even on the same levels of GTA IV’s Liberty City. It genuinely feels alive. Whereas in Prototype’s take on Manhattan… well lets just say things just aren’t the same. The textures and buildings are copied and pasted throughout the town. It feels drab and dull, the color palette that barely goes past four flavors. There’s no inspiration or ‘love’ anywhere in Prototype, it just feels lifeless and everything you kill is either a mannequin or made of jello.
Infamous is a one trick pony. You can electrocute enemies, knock out enemies with electricity, recharge your electricity and make bombs out of… yeah… electricity. There’s innovative uses on how to use your sparks, such as a defibrillator (which wouldn’t really work in real life) and even lightning. Yeah… On the other side of things, there’s Prototype. Where in Infamous you have to scale buildings and climb stuff a la Uncharted 2 or Assassin’s Creed, in Prototype… things are much more different. You can run up walls or even fly using your blood. There’s a faster pace to it which just satisfies your senses a bit more.
Cole has electric powers but Alex has everything. Blades, claws, whips, armor, shields, battering rams. He can surf peoples bodies, turn into an elderly husband, run up a building and then shoulder slam into the deceased man’s widow. It’s shockingly tasteless but on the levels of GTA. So it’s alright then. It reminds me of the early days of playing with GTA 3, not sure if I should actually be clubbing that policeman. But in this case, you’re running down walls and jacking tanks. This is a balls to the walls free roam adventure. This is Grand Theft Auto (yeah I say that way too often).
So who’s the superior one? There isn’t. Yeah I said there would be a choice of a better game but I can’t make my mine up. When it gets down to it, they’re cons and pros balance each other out. They can even be compared to a twin of brothers who look out for each other, but both have different jobs. If so, lets call them Bill and Ted, Bill is an electrician and Ted is a scientist. Bill likes to read science fiction and also cares about the choices he makes whereas Ted owns a tank and blows stuff up. Ted also has giant blades for his arms and also doesn’t know if he’s doing the right or wrong thing most of the time.
Do I have to choose? Really? Fine. If I was forced at gunpoint then I’d pick Prototype. It’s just a little bit more fun and reminds me so much of Grand Theft Auto. If Niko Bellic had blades growing out of his arms then I might have warmed to him a bit more than I did. Infamous is still a great game, and you should check it out. There’s no right or wrong when you compare these two, it depends on what you like more. In terms of style and innovation, Infamous is where it’s at, but for balls to the walls, Prototype is your man. Or woman…
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12 Responses to “Games That Nobody Plays Anymore: Prototype and Infamous”
Yeah, I played about 8 hours of inFamous and I didn’t finish. I got bored of it. I picked up Prototype about 2 months ago and played about 2 hours and got bored of it. I guess those games were just the summer “fill-ins” before the holiday season.
I only have inFamous and finished it with the good ending, but will finish it will the bad ending. The story got me hooked, especially how everything comes together.
I love inFamous. It deserved every “A” review it got. I’ve finished it several times. I somewhat liked Prototype, but got bored with it fast. I need to sell it while I can. Any takers?
Great Article.
I picked up Infamous first without even thinking about it and i was glad i did. The huge twist at the ending was absolutely fantastic and i loved the style of the gameplay.
Truth be told i haven’t even got around to buying Prototype yet, i got sidetracked with DIRT 2, Uncharted 2, Ratchet & Clank and soon i’ll be getting Assassin’s Creed II. Prototype will probably have to wait until next year for me.
I beg to differ. I played both games and enjoyed both games thoroughly. Although i will admit the progression in Infamous made me like it even more. Prototype was a bit more repetitive.
I played prototype first thinking it will be more fun but i was dumbfounded……. Infamous asks for your time and is worth it
Im sorry but inFAMOUS was way better. The story was awesome the cutscenes wer amazing the ending was really good and caught me by surprise. And the whole Karma systme does matter and each playthrough is different on inFAMOUS. When your good the story is of you and how you become a hero. The city starts to get cleaned up and people put posters of you everywhere, theres crowds that cheer you on when you fighting baddies, your powers are blue and you have a clean look to yourself. On the other hand if your evil the story changes a bit, this time you are a guy who wants to do good but get tempted into just taking the city for yourself. You start to look evil with red powers and ghostly white face and lightning markings all around your head and body. When your evil the city changes, the people hate you and form little mobs and attack you, the city looks even worse than when you started and all the buildings look like crap, its awesome. I dont understand why Kouppa said theres generall no change in the differsnt paths, did this guy even pay attention! Prototype sucks balls bad it has no soul no story just a mindless beat em up cuz this guy alex is mad thats all it is. inFAMOUS has a good story, good karma system, amazing cutscenes, and really fun gameplay. Cole has a shield he can also call down lightning from the sky and you can steer the lightning with the six axis controller. How awesome is that. If you have a ps3 go buy infamous dont rent it cuz it deserves more. Beaten it twice two months ago, started playing again last week and im hooked all over, going for the platinum trophy this time.
So the real winner here is.. Red Faction Guerrilla!
Obvious Zero Punctuation rip-off is obvious
Bought and Platinum’d inFamous but haven’t played prototype [can't say I'm all that bothered about it either]
so many great titles out there to spend your hard earned cashola
imho .. if you’re a PS3 owner play inFamous as it’s exclusive to the system and it shows .. looking forward to the sequel
So you couldn’t make you “mine” up?
Nice one lol
i still play infamous maybe once a week just to try nd play all my games