Halo Addendum

So, small addendum to my Halo rant. I need to add this because, honestly, I completely forgot I had this until just now.


I also found some other stuff

The Halo Graphic Novel has four short stories in it and a lot of extra art (the Brute image from the previous entry is from it). For the most part, they're all terrible and actually are REALLY good examples of how the Halo canon is so inconsistent among different media.

The first story, The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, is actually a well-written story. My only complaint really here, which is likely the smallest of complaints, lies in the art. This story focuses on Rtas 'Vadumee, an Elite Ultra who players of Halo 2 will remember as "That alien with half his mouth missing". Among other things, it shows how he got this wound at the hands of The Flood. Rtas 'Vadumee, by the way, is a cool alien name. Unlike the Brutes, which all have Latin names. Which makes NO SENSE! Screw you, Tartarus. You were the worst final boss ever.

The Flood, parasitic creatures who take over host bodies and turn them into twisted, zombified abominations of their original form, are actually one of my favorite parts of the Halo Universe. The only issue with this story involving the Flood is... they don't LOOK like the Flood. The Flood have a certain putrid, decayed look to them with a sickening brown and yellow color scheme. That certain tint to the air in an area heavy with flood in any Halo game sends shivers down many a player's spine. These aliens, who are clearly supposed to be the flood, have a sick green and purple color scheme to them. They don't give off the same vibe as the flood. They don't FEEL like the flood. The feel like some other weird parasitic infectious race. This is not a minor quibble. Consistency is important in a large universe because each group has their own feel, their own aesthetic. It's like if Superman suddenly started running around in Orange and Black instead of Red, Blue and Yellow. It changes the feel and messes with the aesthetic.

The second story, Armor Testing, I have the most problems with. It's another Spartan II(besides John-117, The Master Chief) testing a new variant of the MJOLNIR armor they wear. It's well done, up until the end. The Spartan removes her helmet and HOLY SHIT IT'S A WOMAN! Which is fine. There were female Spartans. My favorite Spartan, Linda-058, is a female. As the name Linda would suggest. But my problem here is that she says the following. "I don't regret retiring to start a family."

Wrong. Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong WRONG.

Every last Spartan was hand picked at age 5 for the program. They were trained rigorously, day in, day out. They underwent so many physical augmentations, including a massive list of musclemass enhancements, things with names as long as your arm, metal-bone coating. At age 13 they were physically the size of 18 year olds that had already been in the Marines. These are BIG people that have had their body chemistry fucked around with so much the notion that one of the females still having a period is laughable. That and their sex drive has been massively suppressed to the point of nonexistent due to pituitary gland implants. They have no sex drive. And even if they did, they are fighting a war for the survival of the whole of Humanity as a species. When you are raised from age 5 in a military background, the mere thought of leaving the military is insane. They have no basis for the outside world. Nothing but the UNSC. They have never lived a civilian life. They have no concept of it.

Coupled with their lack of a sex drive, this makes it insane to think any of the Spartans would EVER retire to start a family. And even then, it's crazy to think the female soldiers in a Supersoldier program would be able to have kids. No one wants a soldier with the strength of ten super-strong marines in a suit of powered armor to be PMS-ing on the battlefield. And all the steroids, growth hormones and physical modifications were administered at age 12 or so. The female spartans have likely NEVER had a period ever. Also, consider the following. The musclemass enhancements make them incredibly strong. A single, weak punch from one of them could SHATTER your bones to powder. They have insane strength. Imagine having SEX with one of them. Have you ever read Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex? It'd be a lot like that. Potentially much more horrifying, because the woman in this case would be the super strong one.

Even if she, say, adopted (and married some random guy with whom she could never have sex and probably never even desire sex), hugging her kids would kill them. And that still leaves the big hole of "leaving the military in the middle of the greatest struggle humanity has ever known" coupled with a military childhood. It simply doesn't make any fucking SENSE. It's stupid. They should have used one of the other living Spartans for this comic, like Linda for one. Whoever this Maria-062 chick is clearly fails at logic of this universe. Or hell, they could've used Anton-044. He was still around after the Battle of Reach, right?. He was awesome.

Although I think if they implied that Linda had kids, I might have shot someone.

The third story, Breaking Quarantine, is by Japanese artist Tsutomu Nihei (he gets named because he is clearly the best one of this book) and shows Sgt. Avery Johnson escaping the Flood during the events of the level 343 Guilty Spark in the original Halo. It has no words, besides sound effects in Japanese. I assume he didn't speak English. This one is awesome and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I wish he did the entire book.

The fourth story, Second Sunrise over New Mombasa, I don't feel I should comment on. It's a civilian aspect of the Halo universe, during the Covenant invasion of Earth, near the beginning of the events of Halo 2. As such, it is radically different from the rest of Halo. The art is... interesting. Bright, colorful, cartoony. I don't feel it's bad, just not my cup of tea. It fills me with much less rage than Armor Testing.

I am also aware of Halo: Uprising, a comic series printed by Marvel and written by Brian Michael Bendis. I saw this in a store on Thursday. I looked at it. It looked at me. I put it down and said "No." We won't be hearing about that again.

Something that occurs to me. Excluding the art pages in the back, there are no Brutes in this book. That makes me smile.

I Hate/Love Halo - Part 2

I will be completely clear on something. I am very fuzzy on the plot of Halo 2. I recall the general gist of things and, if I wanted to, could almost certainly lay out a fairly accurate path of the events of the game. But I don't want to.

Because after I beat Halo 2 the first time, I sat through the credits to watch the final post-credits scene. Then I stared at the title screen for about 3 minutes. I then ejected the game, turned off my Xbox and put the game in the shiny plastic-metal case thing (I got the collector's edition. Go me.) and stared at it for a few seconds. I then pointed my finger and glared. "Never. Again." I then put it away and have not played it since.

This game hurt me on levels I did not know I was capable of being hurt. The plot was terrible, the gameplay was tedious and annoying, all the new weapons were TERRIBLE (which I find hilarious in retrospect, because the Spartans in First Strike briefly commented on the superior design of the new weapons), many of the old ones had been removed and the new enemies... the new enemies...

The Brutes were a sign of the end-times of Halo for me. In the original game, there were four basic Covenant enemies. Grunts, Jackals, Elites and Hunters. Grunts are these things that look like bipedal midget dogs wearing portable iron lungs on their backs. They breathe methane. They're hilarious and like to run around and scream. In the original Halo, they spoke English when yelling at humans. My interpretation is that their respirators also had translation devices in them, which the covenant established as having advanced real-time translation... stuff... in Fall of Reach. The Elites yelled in their alien tongue (which was actually just English, sped up and backwards, but it sounded cool) and the Jackals spoke in this high-pitched, bird squawk thing. The Hunters, to my recollection, made no noise besides semi-audible grunts. Now, this I liked. Because Aliens speaking English always irritates me without proper explanation, no matter how stupid. Dammit, I will accept a freaking babelfish, just TELL ME THERE IS ONE! It's like my one button when it comes to Science Fiction. It's that one thing that always pisses me off, which is why despite it being one of my favorite shows, I can never truly enjoy an episode of Stargate (the new one kind of looks like it will be BattleStargate Galactica, by the way. But that's neither here, nor there.)

Which brings me to Halo 2. Of course, ALL the aliens in Halo 2 speak perfect English, including the ones that clearly have nothing covering their mouth or automatically translating. But whatever. I can let little things slide. But you see, the Brutes are not a little thing. They are a big, hairy, smelly thing and they slowly integrate themselves into the Covenant over the course of the game, usurping the position of the Elites and by the end of the game, taking their place and causing an uprising among the Elites. The Elites then join the humans and fight the Prophets of the Covenant, who are basically big floating Space Popes that look sort of like those worms from that one episode of Futurama.


Kind of? A little?

Now this is all well and good. Except that this means that you don't fight Elites anymore. Now, this is a problem for the following reason: The Elites are GREAT enemies. They are tough, they're the right size, they're visually striking and distinctive in their armor (without their armor, they kind of look like big worm-puppy things)and they move in a cool way. They're such a good enemy that I DON'T WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH THEM! I want to shoot them and I want to feel cool doing it! In the novels, they're all depicted as being on-par with the Spartan IIs and fight hand to hand on a few occasions. They're awesome and they're good enemies. Good enemies are imposing and you feel good about taking them down. When you bring down a cool ba dguy, you feel even cooler. This first becomes a problem when you play as The Arbiter in Halo 2, who is an Elite. You fight alongside other Elites and for his early levels, you fight Elites wearing stupid-looking armor. It's hard to not shoot your allies in these levels, but it's made easier because the Heretic Elites look so ridiculous you really, really want to shoot them. Although honestly, playing as the Arbiter was lame and you didn't really like him that much in Halo 2. Which makes it incredibly weird, because when you can't play as him in any story-relevant way in Halo 3, he's suddenly awesome and you WANT to play as him. I'd call this "Raiden Syndrome," but I really don't think it happens enough in video games to warrant its own name.


This is awesome.

Now, the Brutes. Oh, the Brutes. The Brutes are giant gorillas. Not like giant gorillas, they ARE giant gorillas.


This is not.

Look at that. It's like Mighty Joe Young had sex with a Wookie and beat the child with a bat made of steroids. They don't feel alien, they feel like if there was a dark and edgy 90s version of Donkey Kong, with guns that shoot bullets instead of coconuts. I hate fighting them. I hate them. They are stupid. The only thing that they bring to the table is the gravity hammer in Halo 3, which is quite possibly one of the coolest weapons in video games. But enough good things, I'm still angry. They're just NOT good enemies. I hate fighting them. I LOATHE fighting them. They're stupid and I'm glad they're not in the original game. This is a problem I have with them though.

In First Strike and Halo 2, it is implied that Brutes have never been seen before in the war against the Covenant. They are new players. Eric Nylund makes a note of this by introducing them near the end of First Strike, the Master Chief implying he has never fought them and Cortana saying there is no prior record of them. This makes sense because in Fall of Reach, they list off and show holograms of all known Covenant species to the Spartans, including the Engineers, which never made it into the final version of any of the games (besides Halo Wars, apparently) because they were non-combatants. Which makes me sad because I like them. They're cute.


Oh, the fun we could've had.

I want to make that clear. There are multiple instances that have made it clear that, before the events of Halo 1, Brutes had never been seen by humans and had not been encountered until shortly before Halo 2. Never. So, in Contact Harvest, which is Humanity's first contact with the Covenant, there are Brutes. Not Elites, Brutes.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, BUNGIE? WHAT THE FUCK?!

Why do you have such problems sticking to your own damn canon? It's YOUR CANON! It's a good one! Stop changing it! Oh, I also discovered while searching Halopedia for images that Brutes are ALSO in Halo Wars, which is set before the events of the first Halo.

GOD DAMMIT, BUNGIE! What the hell is wrong with you? This is my BIGGEST PROBLEM with you. Seriously.

You have writers capable of crafting a fine story. This much is clear. You do this with great frequency in the novels you put out. They craft a great world. Why do you insist on fucking that up? Are you incapable of weaving this story into your games? I think you are. Because of this great, layered plot with events across galaxies, organizations, species, what have you, none of this comes across in your games. I don't get this at all.

I'm actually pretty sure at this point, by the time the time the graphics engines of the games are done and its time to start working on the story, all the writers are too busy playing Capture the Flag and Slayer to do anything. I mean, god dammit, Red vs. Blue has a better plot than Halo 2 and 3. And the ONLY Part of Halo 3 I enjoyed was that little Easter Egg with the Red vs. Blue guys on the second level.

That being said, I'm going to buy Halo 3: ODST when it comes out. And pretty soon, I'll probably buy Halo Wars too. Why? Well, besides the fact that I clearly have no sense of pattern recognition, I still have hope. I will always have hope. I will hope and wish that you can tell your story in a half-way competent way. After playing Half-Life 2 and Bioshock, I now have VERY high regard for storytelling in video games. Games are capable of GREAT things and it pisses me off when people squander that. And I hate you for it, Bungie.

I Hate/Love Halo - Part 1

I hate Halo. I also love it.

Let me explain. Actually, let me build up to this first. When I tell stories, dammit, I tell them fully and completely, including every last insignificant detail!

Halo was a special thing for me back on the original Xbox. It still is. In fact, I'm listening to the soundtrack to the first game right now. In FLAC format. But for a time, it was my absolute favorite game. It still has a firm grasp on my heart, as you can tell by the following photo.


Not Pictured: Todd MacFarlane Custom Brute Xbox 360 Controller, because I can't find the damn thing.

My world view was admittedly still pretty small back then. I had never played Half-Life at the time, or even heard of it, to be honest. The only reason I ever even heard about Halo was through my cousin, one of my only friends at the time. Not a very good friend, but I didn't develop any of those until about my sophomore year of high school. Those guys are AWESOME. But anyway, he had an Xbox, I had Gamecube (we both had a PS2). We had pretty much always had different systems. He had a Playstation, I had an Nintendo 64... actually, that's as far back as it went. We both had a Sega Genesis (anyone who calls it the Mega Drive is a Communist). In fact, I'm pretty sure I was born with the controller to one in my hand, as impossible as that would've been time-wise. And the logistics are simply... oh right, Halo. Anyway, it was something to us both. I assume it also had an impact on him, as he recently joined the United States Marine Corps. I can't say with CERTAINTY he developed an interest in shooting things until they died because of Halo, but I can say that regardless. Also, he probably really wishes he could call himself a Space Marine. Maybe someday. I'm getting off topic again. You should get used to that.

When I first played Halo, it was something special to me. Like I said, my world view was small and this was new. I adored the game. I played it with him endlessly. It was a point of pride when we beat The Maw on Legendary together and got the little bonus bit in the ending. I convinced my parents to buy me an Xbox for the sole purpose of playing Halo myself. Yes, I bought a console for the sole purpose of playing this game. It was THAT important to me. But what really got me going for Halo was when I was in a Barnes and Noble one day and I saw a book. Halo: The Fall of Reach. My little 12-year-old brain was intrigued. I read the back description. "A prequel...? ... MORE Spartans? My god." I had to possess it. So, I poked my Mom in the ribs and demanded she buy it for me, because I was a tiny annoying brat when I was twelve. And my Mom, being the saint that she is, bought it for me. I immediately went home and read it. And it blew my mind.

I am not going to try and argue that it was a deep, meaningful book. It's not. It's entertainment, plain and simple. Events happen. They are awesome. You are entertained. It's not deep and symbolic, but it's engaging and you want to know how the story goes. I absolutely loved it and I still enjoy reading it to this day. As soon as I was able to, I bought the second book, The Flood. This book is still my least favorite among the 5 Halo novels I've read (I haven't gotten around to The Cole Protocol yet. Odd, since I bought it on release day), but it was still cool. I wanted more. And then I heard the news.

They were making Halo 2. Holy shit.

It was during the time I had truly discovered the internet and thus, was on top of the hype like crazy. Every time something new was announced about the game. I HAD to have this game. I treasured my copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly that previewed the game like it was made of gold bouillon and the mark was going through hyperinflation. I don't care if no one gets that joke, it's funny to me. Beyond that, I still view my greatest failure on the internet is not finding out about the ilovebees alternate reality game sooner. This game was going to be the greatest thing ever.

Now, anyone even remotely aware of Halo can assure you that Halo 2 was far from the greatest thing ever. It sold like crazy and in fact became the fastest selling anything ever in history, until Halo 3 which broke that record in its first day. But this game... this game traumatized me. This game is what gave me my first taste of true disappointment. You know the kind I mean. Maybe as a kid, you didn't get the toy you wanted on Christmas. Maybe you threw a fit. Maybe you were let down. But odds are, if you still got anything you wanted, it wasn't true disappointment. No, true disappointment is like finding out that Santa isn't real by seeing the fake Santa at the mall remove his beard and take a shot of whiskey. While fucking your mom.

Okay, maybe not that extreme, but you get the picture. And my condolences if that actually happened to anyone. That's the gist of it, though. Something that fundamentally changes you and makes you realize the world isn't the bright, sunny place you thought it was. Something that makes you realize that people aren't perfect and sometimes, people do terrible, terrible things. I imagine The Phantom Menace was like this for many adults, as well. "Gee, the world may suck, but at least there's still Star Wars."

But moving back to Halo 2, it was a massive disappointment in my eyes. Prior to the game, Halo: First Strike had come out, which filled in the time gap between Halo 1 and 2, and also brought back MORE SPARTANS! They weren't all dead after all, including my favorite from The Fall of Reach, Linda. Because I have always found female snipers to be the single most awesome thing alive. Sexiest too, but that doesn't really apply when they're dressed in full combat armor. Also, judging from the descriptions in Fall of Reach, they'd be anything but sexy. That leads to my first real complaint about Halo and will begin the long, long descent from there. The Halo canon is INCREDIBLY inconsistent between mediums.

The first sign of this comes when comparing the end of First Strike with the beginning of Halo 2. First Strike ends with the alien conglomerate of species, The Covenant, finding Earth. Earth, at this point, is the last human-settled world with something like 10 Billion people on it. Earth makes contact with Master Chief and his team of Spartans and tells them that the Covenant have found Earth. And the book ends there. Well, it ends a few pages later after some foreshadowing of Halo 2's plot that makes no sense until you've played the game. But anyway, my point remains. The book ends with the Earth under attack by Covenant, the Master Chief and multiple other Spartan IIs off in space somewhere and they head back toward Earth to fight the Invasion. Remember this. It is important.

So Halo 2 begins on a space station above Earth, with Master Chief arriving back with Sergeant Johnson, the only black man in the entire United Nations Space Command. Also, the closest thing to a badass normal the games get. Anyway, they Chief gets into his new armor (in-game reason for the obviously different armor the graphical enhancements allowed) and they're both about to get all kinds of medals and stuff for the events of the first game. "But wait!" you might exclaim, "Why are they having an award ceremony during the middle of an alien invasion?" A fine question! And the answer is "they're not, because THE INVASION HASN'T HAPPENED YET!". That's right, they retconned the book. The Covenant haven't hit the Earth yet. So already, they have fucked with their own canon. And it's not like the book was outsourced. To some novel-writing factory in Taiwan (do they even have those?). No, Eric Nylund, the author of 3 of the 6 Halo novels is on the Bungie staff and in fact is one of the lead writers for the games. I mean, I can understand if they didn't want to start the game with the Covenant being on Earth, but if that's the case then GOD DAMMIT DON'T PUT IT IN THE BOOK! I mean, the man had to have been in the Bungie office frequently while he was writing the book. And even if he wasn't, 5 minute phone call. Tops. It's fucking worth it for consistency.

The tragedy only begins there and I will continue this in my next post.

[Prototype] Review - Part 2

As cool as suddenly being Guyver was, I was not willing to risk my TV. I already noticed the burn as a random mini-map shaped circle drifted in the corner while I watched NCIS on my DVR. On that note (yes, NCIS is relevant to this. I'm getting to it.), I feel like I should point out something amusing in this game. For those of you who may have played Assassin's Creed, you may remember that there was a button to press if you wished to wade through a crowd more efficiently. You would hold it and Altaïr would push people aside. However, if you stayed in place while holding the button, preferably in a very thin walkway, anyone coming close to Altair would find his hand against their chest, keeping them away. It was mildly amusing and likely a programming oversight. I immediately thought of this early on in Prototype, after discovering something I found hilarious.

Holding the R2 Button (I have the PS3 version), you will run fast. You will leap and bound over obstacles and shove people out of your way with shoulder charges. But if you merely walk down a path, slowly, when people come to close to you, Alex will lift his hand high and deliver a mighty smack to the back of their head. This is not a light tap. This is a hard smack, that knocks them aside. The exact motion instantly brought to mind the kind of smack Agent Gibbs (played by the ever-awesome Mark Harmon) delivers at least once per episode in NCIS, almost like it was modeled specifically after that, which is what makes NCIS relevant to this. And of course, since this is New York, they will curse you off and continue on their way. This was clearly intentional and I cannot fathom why. Alex thus far has been painted as a somewhat sympathetic, if murderous and psychotic, character. So why make him such a massive prick for no reason? Because it's fun. Because these developers like to see humans suffer. That is the only explanation for this game.

I say this because, unlike inFamous, Prototype does not give you a moral choice. There is no Knights of the Old Republic Light Side/Dark Side choice in this game. You are a prick and you are going to have to deal with this. You follow the Path of the Closed Fist and you rip peoples' spines out with it. This is not really a bad thing, but just something I feel I should mention, because it's rather important and further expands on why this game fails at storytelling.

Alex Mercer is, without a doubt, an asshole. My definition of an asshole is a rather specific one when it comes to fictional characters. Almost every person who you would, in real life, call an asshole, I would simply call a jerk. For a fictional character to be an asshole in my eyes, they have to be something really fucking special. The epitome of my definition of an asshole in fiction comes in the form of Wesley Gibson from Mark Millar's opus, Wanted. I mean the comic book specifically, by the way. Wesley in the movie wanted is merely a pussy. But enough of that. For those of you familiar with the comic, you should instantly know what I mean. For those unfamiliar, let me explain. This breed of asshole does not give a shit about anything. He will usually maul, maim, steal, kill and a slew of other horrid things just for shits and giggles. Sometimes, not even that. This kind of person will punctuate the sentence "Fuck you" with a bullet, delivered between the eyes of whoever is unfortunate enough to be an irritant.

My realization of Alex's asshole status came when I accidentally grabbed a pedestrian on the street. Since the military was nearby, and I did not want to attract attention, I tried to put him down and walk away. And something occurred to me.

There was no way for me to get him out of my grip without killing him.

This might sound odd, but hear me out. Circle is the button to grab. Circle is also the button to throw, after you have grabbed. Throwing pedestrians will, 100% of the time in Prototype, result in them being a bloody streak on the pavement. Triangle is "consume" which would have Alex maim and brutalize the poor old man (I had grabbed probably the ONLY old man character model in probably the entire city, by the way) before absorbing him into my being. And none of the other buttons would allow me to release him. This was a strange, elucidating moment for me. As a gamer, I tend to respect the humble NPCs. The bystanders. I try to help them when I can, or at least change direction if I'm going to run over them. In Assassin's Creed, I did not shank and gut the humble pilgrims for fun. I did not dive and tackle the random, crazy women begging me for money. As annoying as they were, they were still human in their world. They were people. This twisted logic usually means that in games with a moral choice, I will invariably choose the path of good. I blame my parents.

But this was something new and different. I realized that no matter what I did, it was out of my hands. This man was going to die. I held his neck in the palm of my hand, but I could do nothing but tighten my grip, like a man's thumb caught in a wire crimper, fated to be crushed harder and harder to the point of oblivion before it could be released. This man was already dead. So I ran up the nearest building, dragging him alongside me and when I reached the top I hurled him as hard as I could. He flew off, flailing in the air until he finally collided with the ground with a satisfying splat. And with that splat, I was free.

Prototype is officially the game that made me stop caring about Civilians. Oh what a horrid thing you have wrought this day, Activision. I hate you for it, but I love you. With this single act of hurling an old man off of Penn Station, so began my merciless reign of terror over New York City. I found myself letting go, shredding civilians to pieces with wild abandon. They no longer mattered to me in missions. Which is good, because when you're driving a tank, it's almost impossible NOT to run the little fuckers over, crushing them into a gooey sanguine frappe. It was liberating and horrifying.

And I have to believe that this is the feeling is what Activision was going for.

Well, if I want to give them credit for something good, anyway. What I mean is, I think they didn't want you to care about the average civilian turning into weird zombie things. Who cares about them? This is about ALEX FUCKING MERCER because the world revolves around his pain. Is he even in pain? I'm not entirely sure. He never really seems to be in pain from his superpowers. I'm not even sure why he really wants revenge. I mean, he's basically cursed with AWESOME, although not being human (he certainly looks human, when he wants to) is sort of a problem. Also, I really must wonder why all the pictures from him in the past have him looking clean cut and happy while he apparently "died" in the shadiest clothes I have ever seen.

At this point in time, I feel like I'm getting off my message. Wait, did I have a message? I think I did. Right, whatever. At the point of Prototype I am at, I am still enjoying the gameplay deeply, but the storytelling is horrific and when it injects itself into the gameplay, the result is frustration and fail. But I can honestly say I enjoy it, despite how its story arouses my ire like an ingrown nail on fire. I will likely write a follow-up to this review when I actually finish the game, which may be more forgiving and less rage-filled. Or maybe I will wish a pox upon all involved in the development of this game. Who can say?

Was Prototype worth the US$60 I spent on it? Probably not. But I did preorder it, so I got a neat little rage-filled Alex Mercer figure. And in the end, isn't that all we can really ask for?

... well, maybe it's all I'll ask for. I'm easily pleased.

...

Oh and also, why the hell are there no street signs? It's New York, god damnit, I want to know where I am.

[Prototype] Review - Part 1

I will introduce myself later, for the words come to me now and I must begin.


Let me start off by saying this: I really like the gameplay of Prototype. It is fun for me. I may go into more detail on that later, but I am filled with so much rage right now that I need to vent my fury lest people be hurt. Probably the staff of Activision.

Prototype is a game that I have been looking forward to for quite a while. It just looked awesome. The running, the destructive parkour, the jumping, that seamless gliding. It looked to me like the ideal open-world game. You have fucking superpowers and you wreck shit. And you can elbow-drop tanks. As you can tell, I was on the Prototype side of the inFamous v. Prototype fan wank debate prior to their release. But that is neither here nor there. Before I really get started, I would like to say, at this point, I am midway through the game. But I cannot wait any longer. I have thoughts and they must come out.

My main gripe with Prototype is the back-asswards clusterfuck it has the audacity to call a story. I say story, and not plot, because the plot in concept is not terrible. It has a lot of elements that have real potential for compelling storytelling. But the storytelling is where it fails. It's kind of like they took a decent plot, put it through the patented Retard-o-Blender. Alex Mercer, the player character, has two sides. During gameplay, he spouts lines now and then that you would expect to here when running about. Not a lot of dialogue. Short, to the point, occasionally clever. Not witty, but clever.

Then we have the Alex Mercer off the cutscenes. This Alex Mercer is not a character. He is an Expositionary Plot Robot that says lines that, while true, have no bearing on anything. For example, one cutscene has him speaking to his sister. She tells him that he must go to Point X to get information on Plot-Significant Mysterious Figure Y McMullen. To which he replies, simply, "McMullen is the key." Yes, we know he's the key. That's why we're looking for him. You don't need to tell us and you especially don't need to tell your sister who told you about him in the first place. It's like he's informing the player of what her statement of "Find this dude, he's important means." If the player didn't get that, they are either too stupid to live and must be purged or are 5. And if they're 5, they shouldn't be playing this game because it's full of violence, gore and tosses the word "Fuck" around like it's a whiffleball at a dull family picnic. I must assume that this is because this is a mature game for mature gamers. Read that sentence again and add a laugh like "hurr hurr hurr" at the end to get the vibe I was trying to give off with it.

It's a mature game by the logic that "swearing is edgey and mature by virtue of swearing". Which is stupid. Yes, fuck is a strong word but it loses its edge if it's every fifth word. It's annoying and just makes me uncomfortable having my brother in the room as I play it. Because violence is a-okay. I don't expect him to suddenly contract a mutagenic virus that gives him giant razor claws and maul people all around New York City (although he totally would, the little jerk), but I'd rather not have my mom get a call about him dropping f-bombs around class. That'd be hard to explain.

Actually, it'd be very easy to explain, but I'd still be in trouble. Moving on.

The cutscenes, yes. They're disjointed and weird. Throw in the "Web of Intrigue" moments when you consume enemies who know things, and it just becomes a huge mess. Actually, I DO like the Web of Intrigue moments. They're stylistic and have real-life photos mixed in with the renders in such a way that it feels like it fits. It's meant to be jarring, like a rush of information all at once. It's cool, but the information you get from them is often repeated two or three times from previous Web of Intrigue moments or from the stupid cutscenes. In short, had potential, is currently pissing all over it. Good job, Prototype. Real classy.

On a side note, "Web of Intrigue" is something of a misnomer. Yes, it's presented in a web form (you select them from this weird viral web things... I didn't know virus colonies built webs, but I don't make video games for a living, do I?), but it's not intriguing. It doesn't do the job of making you curious. It's just... "Hey look! Interesting shit! Oh, now it's gone". There's also the Mother character who showed up once so far. I'd like to see more of her. So far, she has shown up in a few Web of Mild Interest moments with the exact same deadpan expression from slightly different angles. Boo.

None of the characters do enough to be likable. The only bits of dialogue that are even passable are when Alex is out and about and he's not talking to anyone then. Which doesn't make sense, really. I think it would've flowed much better if he had a cell phone or a walkie talkie and you kept in touch with the other characters as you're parkour-ing it up. Then maybe that one competent writer might have made it flow better. I mean, I can maybe understand how Alex wouldn't want to risk his conversations being tapped by the military (The Web of Odd Curiosity implies they do this a lot. Hahaha Patriot Act), but then it should've gotten a mention. All the cutscenes are hurried and rushed. If they took the time to draw them out a bit, it might've done much better. And maybe got decent voice actors for the MAIN characters, instead of the Web of Generic Wile guys and random soldiers. I heard Stephen Blum in there! He should've been that mercenary character that hunted Alex instead of those random soldiers whose heads I crushed.

Speaking of that guy, he is in my eyes the prime sinner of this game. He committed the greatest of travesty. He made the plot go in a direction that fucked with the gameplay. And I would never forgive anyone who did such a horrible thing (unless they were Stephen Blum). After your fight with him, he injects you with some weird cancer thing that strips you of all your cool powers you had acquired up that point and leave you with your most basic of abilities. This is dumb. This is where my rage began. The plot had bloated and overflowed with stupid that it screwed up my gameplay fun. I liked doing the side missions, especially where you infiltrate military bases and consume commanders. This fucks with my fun. You do NOT fuck with my fun. I felt the need to continue with the plot until I got my awesome powers back. This took something like 6 back and forth missions that involved WAY too much fighting for being depowered. Half of this could've been solved in ten minutes if Mercer stopped at a Verizon kiosk, consumed the teller and opened the pre-paid cell cabinet. It also would've given him something to do besides running back and forth between Harlem and Gramercy like an idiot.

Just when I had finally reached my limit, when I was about to put the game down, I finally recovered my powers. And not only did I recover all my old ones, but I got that huge kick-ass blade arm on the box cover and badass armor that made me look like The Guyver. Well played, Prototype. Well played. I continued to play, slowly becoming aware that the never-disappearing HUD was burning into my plasma screen. So I took a break. As I do from this review, right now.