Prototype 2 is a great lesson in how to shake up a series' style and structure while still retaining what makes it fun to play and improving its entertainment value elsewhere. Its predecessor was a solid game, but one that very much felt hindered by limited graphic capabilities and an emphasis on wild, destructive gameplay over a story with characters worth caring about; that's what its sequel improves upon.
To start with, we completely avoid Bag of Spilling on ol' Alex by taking control of James Heller, a Marine who's just lost his family to the infection and wants nothing more than to kill Mercer as revenge...but of course, the plot evolves quite beyond that through a series of well-done twists, all carried by excellent voice acting and stunning animation for the pre-rendered cutscenes. The characters are all memorable in their own ways and feel like real people - or, at least, believable sociopaths when it comes to the villains.
Then there's the gameplay: echoing another review below, this game puts a lot more emphasis on actually using your POWERS to fight rather than the nearest tank or chopper, and it does so by 1) making melee combat much more fluid and rewarding with the ability to keep two distinct arm forms on separate buttons so you can switch between them on the fly instead of needing to bring up the power wheel every time, and 2) giving you some tendril-related abilities that let you restrain enemies, as well as opportunities to strike foes when they've left an opening in their attacks. The parkour also feels much faster and more horizontal-oriented, as we've largely exchanged skyscrapers for more standard-sized buildings that don't take 5 minutes to run up the side of - did I mention that the cityscape looks so much better here with all the color and added detail, too?
Finally, there's the matter of Alex Mercer himself. Now, I won't deny that the change in his characterization is...jarring (it's hard to call it a Protagonist Journey to Villain when we don't really even see the journey part) and that said transition should've been explained properly in-game rather than left to inference and (I think) a set of interquel comics; however, ultimately I don't really mind it. Having to contend with the character you spent dozens of hours playing as, upgrading, and watching the personal journey of in the last game as an antagonist is always an interesting route to take for a video game sequel, and Mercer is no exception to that, as he feels menacing from the second you see him all the way up until Heller fulfills his promise, and the plot is that much more intriguing and ominous with him and his army working in the background, always appearing at unexpected times. I personally might've tweaked his involvement in a few ways, but ultimately I'm satisfied with what we got.
The worst part of all this is, well, that there won't be a Prototype 3 - I had hopes after playing it for the first time at launch that Radical could make a full-fledged interquel game that would return Mercer to playability, have him actually meet and contend with PARIAH, and ultimately change to his inevitable villainous role across the course of the story by seeing humanity's flaws or what have you, but thanks to ol' Bobby Kotick and the toxic cesspool that is Activision, such a game never even had a chance of getting the greenlight, so we're stuck with this dilogy. Both games are good, but 2 is indeed superior.
An Invigorating Sequel
Prototype 2 is a great lesson in how to shake up a series' style and structure while still retaining what makes it fun to play and improving its entertainment value elsewhere. Its predecessor was a solid game, but one that very much felt hindered by limited graphic capabilities and an emphasis on wild, destructive gameplay over a story with characters worth caring about; that's what its sequel improves upon.
To start with, we completely avoid Bag of Spilling on ol' Alex by taking control of James Heller, a Marine who's just lost his family to the infection and wants nothing more than to kill Mercer as revenge...but of course, the plot evolves quite beyond that through a series of well-done twists, all carried by excellent voice acting and stunning animation for the pre-rendered cutscenes. The characters are all memorable in their own ways and feel like real people - or, at least, believable sociopaths when it comes to the villains.
Then there's the gameplay: echoing another review below, this game puts a lot more emphasis on actually using your POWERS to fight rather than the nearest tank or chopper, and it does so by 1) making melee combat much more fluid and rewarding with the ability to keep two distinct arm forms on separate buttons so you can switch between them on the fly instead of needing to bring up the power wheel every time, and 2) giving you some tendril-related abilities that let you restrain enemies, as well as opportunities to strike foes when they've left an opening in their attacks. The parkour also feels much faster and more horizontal-oriented, as we've largely exchanged skyscrapers for more standard-sized buildings that don't take 5 minutes to run up the side of - did I mention that the cityscape looks so much better here with all the color and added detail, too?
Finally, there's the matter of Alex Mercer himself. Now, I won't deny that the change in his characterization is...jarring (it's hard to call it a Protagonist Journey to Villain when we don't really even see the journey part) and that said transition should've been explained properly in-game rather than left to inference and (I think) a set of interquel comics; however, ultimately I don't really mind it. Having to contend with the character you spent dozens of hours playing as, upgrading, and watching the personal journey of in the last game as an antagonist is always an interesting route to take for a video game sequel, and Mercer is no exception to that, as he feels menacing from the second you see him all the way up until Heller fulfills his promise, and the plot is that much more intriguing and ominous with him and his army working in the background, always appearing at unexpected times. I personally might've tweaked his involvement in a few ways, but ultimately I'm satisfied with what we got.
The worst part of all this is, well, that there won't be a Prototype 3 - I had hopes after playing it for the first time at launch that Radical could make a full-fledged interquel game that would return Mercer to playability, have him actually meet and contend with PARIAH, and ultimately change to his inevitable villainous role across the course of the story by seeing humanity's flaws or what have you, but thanks to ol' Bobby Kotick and the toxic cesspool that is Activision, such a game never even had a chance of getting the greenlight, so we're stuck with this dilogy. Both games are good, but 2 is indeed superior.