Prototype™

I got it on sale but sadly the game simply doesn't work. A game from 2009 shouldn't need me to jump through 30 hoops to play it it should be ready to play as soon as I buy and download it. I may have done the process the wrong way but I did follow the instructions and it still crashed after loading a new game. IF they ever decide to fix the game properly I will be buying it again but currently it is unplayable for me at least.

Prototype is one of those games that leaves a lasting impression, not just because of its intense action and chaotic open-world game-play, but because of the memories tied to it. I used to secretly play it on my brother's laptop whenever he was away, and every time I launched it, it felt like stepping into a world of unstoppable power and gritty freedom.

The game-play is pure mayhem in the best way possible. As Alex Mercer, you tear through the streets of New York City with shape-shifting powers, scaling buildings, hijacking tanks, and unleashing brutal attacks on enemies. It’s an open-world sandbox that encourages creativity through destruction, letting you play as the ultimate anti-hero with no limits. The movement system is especially satisfying, running up skyscrapers, gliding through the air, and smashing down with incredible force never gets old.

Visually, it captures the dark and gritty tone perfectly. The streets are chaotic, filled with infected creatures, military patrols, and civilians reacting to the madness. The sound design, from the deep roars of your powers to the crumbling city-scape, helps bring the dystopian atmosphere to life. And while it may show its age in places, the overall experience still holds strong.

What makes Prototype truly special for me, though, are the memories. Those quiet hours sneaking in playtime on my brother’s laptop, discovering new abilities, and just getting lost in the game’s raw energy, it’s something I’ll always hold onto. Unfortunately, I never got to experience Prototype 2 because of regional restrictions. It’s really disappointing, as I would’ve loved to continue the story and dive back into that world. I still hope one day it becomes available without region locks.

In conclusion, Prototype is a wild ride through a dark, chaotic city with a character who feels truly powerful. For anyone who loves open-world action games with a twist, it's a must-play. And for me, it’s a piece of gaming nostalgia I’ll never forget. With the rumors of Prototype 3 coming around, I am also excited about that.

this game is actually amazing its alot like infamous second son game or any of the infamous series 100% reccomend

Ok... lets talk Prototype for a bit:

Yes, we need Prototype 3
No, this game does not work well on modern PCs
Yes, there is a solve: use this 3 min youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4cmh5eX38w) as I did and enjoy 4k 120 fps (or higher) on your comp
My PC: RTX 3080 10 GB, 5900x cpu, samsung SSD, Windows 10 OS

OK - back to the game -
My nostalgia glasses are STRONG with this one. I loved this game as a young teen: it is dark, brutal, gory, kinda just evil and a bad time, but that makes it a great time. They committed to the setting: BIOHAZARD, INFECTION, EPIDEMIC, VIRUS OVER USE OF MILITARY JARGON, EVIL MILITARY JERKS, ASSHOLES EVERYWHERE, SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS - all really good stuff.

Alex Mercer is a truly awesome protagonist (anti hero? antagonist? idk, your call). And his VO is awesome. The story has a great mystery and decent enough pacing. The twist is great (what Alex did or was forced to do) though many redditors will argue this. I dig it and vibe Alex. The traversal/locomotion is spot on. The flips and tricks are slick. Combat leaves much to be desired but has good bones and really cool weapon designs (transformations). The consumption mechanics are gruesome and satisfying as well (both stealth and normal). The military weapons and vehicles are... serviceable. The "skill tree" is large and fun to fill out, opening many new pathways for, well, everything in the game.

BUT man are there some obtuse and s****y mission design choices here. It is clearly of its time. Thank god they give some generous checkpoints for the main ones. The side missions ramp up into this super annoying, never ending, sometimes time limited BS that 70% through I just said F it no need for 100%. The web of intrigue, while a unique idea and fun to tackle and has some really interesting bits of lore, like REALLY interesting to me - just NEVER ENDS (I think it is 100 consumption to 100%) WOOF. People you need to interact with just die sometimes because the city is a f****n war-zone, duh. But, like, that sucks and is tedious.

I wanted to come back and think this game was a 10/10, but I will give it an 8/10, and even then, without the nostalgia I can see some frustrated players viewing this as a 6 or 7. But man was this ahead of its time in so many aspects and I would love to see life back in this franchise with Alex and hell, even James Heller (but let me play Alex as MC). From what I can tell - Prototype 2 is fixing many of the above issues for me ESPECIALLY combat feels WAY better (but currently am only a few hours in and have not played since it came out originally - also same fixes above seem to work for Prototype 2).

Amazing game for its time.

Cool concept but some things were poorly executed.

Finally beat it after 15+ years.

Man oh man does this game suck at the end though.
It gets so difficult and frustrating. Sadly.

The graphics could use an update but otherwise awesome game, loved it on xbox many moons ago lol, and still enjoying it as I replay through.

Tive que pedir reembolso. Não sei porquê motivo, mas o jogo não está rodando para mim, mesmo a máquina tendo mais capacidade do que os requisitos recomendados. Tentei algumas soluções do suporte e de dicas do YT. Uma pena, tenho boas recordações desse game de quando jogava há muitos anos.

If you are getting this game today, Be sure to get the crash fix mod, It's a simple "Install, Unzip The Folder, Drop Contents in the Game Directory" If you are looking for it it's here https://www.nexusmods.com/prototype/mods/52?tab=description after that I was able to free roam the city and look around no issues.

PC port was honestly a little janky but still playable. I never played this when it came out but it has aged well in my opinion, I kept forgetting this is 15 YEARS OLD. Gameplay was fun and it FEELS fun despite you becoming rather overpowered. Wanna destroy a tank in one hit? Cannonball into a helicopter to make it explode? Heck, just steal the chopper and make it everyone else's problem? My favorite ability however was the one where you can accuse random military guys as being you in disguise and watch the shots fly.
Story was alright. Main plot did the job and background lore was pretty interesting. Definitely edgy. But more like 90's-2000's comic book edgy, which fits given this is pretty close to a Venom game.
Played entirely on Steam Deck, unsure if it would have less jank than Windows.
Overall, I'd give it 8 eaten soldiers out of 10!

Stands the test of time and feel like a true anti-hero. Few games attain the ability to feel like a complete bad a** and this game hits it head-on. Having fun with this 16 year old game.

I played this to the end on pc when it first came out. I have not played this for over 13 years. Now I'm playing on an oled steam deck.Game started and runs perfect.I forgot how perfect the movement system in this game is.You can run up or over anything, air dash and glide.Combat is also excellent and gets better as you progress in the story. This game should have been called "Power Fantasy Simulator." You are pretty much Venom,Spider-man and Batman combined. 10/10

Nothing much to say about this underappreciated gem of a game. Simply brilliant piece of entertainment.

Great game, way ahead of its time, I went back to play it again but the game will not run if your CPU has more than 4 cores.

With infamous 1 being my favorite video game of all time I was heavily excited to test this game out and damn I wasn't disappointed this is fantastic and 100% worth buying

Doesn't run on modern computers

I think about how cool Alex Mercer is on a near weekly basis. This is perhaps my favorite videogame.

A very underrated game from xbox 360, a must play.

This is the kind of game that you would have played when you were thirteen years old, thinking this is what "adult video games" looked like.

Prototype is a decent video game for somebody who wants to destroy anything they want in a sandbox. Stealth isn't required for most of the game (if not all of it), you can get good at all of the skills and powers it gives you, and it's fantastic background fodder to play whenever you want to talk it up with your friends. As sandbox games usually go, there's also a lot of funny stuff you can do with your own creativity.

One of the reasons why I don't recommend Prototype is because it hasn't aged very well. Having played games such as Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Insomniac's Spider-Man, and InFamous: Second Son several times before Prototype, there are simply better "sandbox superhero" games out there for anybody to play. Not only that, but you can get good at all of them and pull off crazier stunts than you can in this game. It's to a point where one of the only reasons you'd choose to play this game over the others is because Web of Shadows and Second Son aren't on Steam as of me making this review. Even Web of Shadows has a similar "so edgy that it hurts" story that you'll look back on in retrospective and laugh at.

Within a vacuum, though, one of Prototype's biggest flaws is its emphasis on vehicle sections. You want to play as the badass who can morph his body into organic weaponry. You know, the prototype? So, why exactly am I driving around in vehicles that I need to keep undamaged or else I restart the mission? It's not easy, but it's not a fun kind of difficulty, considering the controls on vehicles such as helicopters is sluggish and annoying, which is the opposite of what you need when you're about to be blown out of the sky in a matter of seconds. Prototype also lacks any kind of way to allow your character to counter or resist sources of damage that will fling you all over the place. Explosions and Super Soldiers have the power to knock you back and interrupt anything you're doing, which is frustrating when they also relentlessly pursue you. This can make healing a chore, and adds ridiculous length onto missions as simple as "destroy this thing."

By far the biggest flaw of the game, though, is its boss battles. They range from mediocre to bad, and they continuously get worse as the game goes on. The final two boss battles are genuinely up there with some of the worst boss battles I have ever personally played through in video game history. Without spoiling the game, the average player would think the second-to-last boss battle is the final boss, but the game continues. The actual final boss is a previous boss that has simply been recycled. The only addition is a time limit, which causes more difficulty than the boss itself. What a way to end the game.

You should get this on a deep sale to mess around in just to see what kind of game it's like. However, you shouldn't take it very seriously. It's aged like milk, and the only real value it has now is nostalgia if you played it ten to fifteen years ago.

Hate zombies. Still like this game, although I suppose one could argue the word 'zombie' is not actually applied.
Upsides: Fascinating story and interesting characters.
Downsides: Stupid, somewhat immersion-breaking respawn time that makes a lot of the fighting particularly irritating. The story is worth the aggravation, but the aggravation does exist.
Note: Lots of tactics help with the more irritating fights. Not so much strategy, but lots of tactics - and if you can get your hands on a helicopter or get good with an assault rifle, those especially irritating detectors are much easier to take out. Sniping from rooftops works great. (The reason it's immersion-breaking: named in-game as new tech, they still get the literal hundreds I destroy every game-day and the thousands of troops, plus untold military vehicles of both ground and air variety - are still replaced many, many times before the game-day is out. Would probably be TOO easy if they stayed gone for a realistic period of time, but couldn't there be a happy medium of maybe three or four times a day?)

This game is the equivalent of buying a Ferrari, but it's only allowed to go 5mph on a guided rail system around your neighborhood.

The only way I was able to play this was on my Steam Deck. I don't understand how Activision, let alone Valve can even sell this when you literally have to go into your files and set up your computer in a way to even be able to run it. Then after you're done running it you have to go back into your files to set your PC back to normal or you wont be able to play anything else.

Take this off the store page or fix it.

i need refund because i can't stare game

A GOOD CLASSIC GAME I LOVED THIS GAME WHEN I WAS A KID BUT NOW I LOVE THIS GAME MORE THAN BEFORE

Note to Self: Remember to go to Task Manager>Details, right-click on steam.exe, Set Affinity, then only select 4 cores to use while you are wanting to play Prototype. Good game, couple of instances of jank. Very doable if you keep moving. Until fixed for modern PCs, I don't recommend.

Make sure you get the most popular mod on nexus.com to fix it from crashing.

This is a very good game to have came out in 2009. I will recommend to people who like gory games. (Listen to Seether for a better experience)

This game vanilla wise, without Nexus Mods is literally unplayable.

this game is so good and nostalgic for me

Remember to go to Task Manager>Details, right-click on steam.exe, Set Affinity, then only select 4 cores to use while you are wanting to play Prototype. Good game, couple of instances of jank. Very doable if you keep moving.

"Prototype: The Game Where You’re Basically a Walking War Crime"
10/10 - Would Consume Random People Again

Prototype is the only game where you can go from running up skyscrapers to drop-kicking a helicopter, all while looking like you just escaped a sci-fi horror movie. The story? Who cares. The gameplay? Pure chaos.

I spent 90% of my time running around, consuming random civilians, and yelling “I’m the main character!” at my screen.
Just don’t ask why I spent 20 minutes running up buildings and jumping off for no reason.
7.5/10, would lose my humanity again.

OKAY, Yes i ABSOLUTELY recommend this game. HOWEVER, current gen PC's have some compatibility issues. I found 3 links to help.

https://www.nexusmods.com/prototype/mods/52?tab=files.

This is on another comment to help. Nexus has fixes, but i SWEAR i found another elsewhere through a Reddit page...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3060187840

I didn't use this one, but It has links to fixes as well as step by step instructions.

And finally
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4cmh5eX38w

This helps if you have multiple cores. The game seems to have issue with More than 4 cores. This guy has a simple instruction bit on how to fix that, as well as links in the description.

That's 3 paths to get this Beauty going. Take your pick ;)

GL and game on!

a game ahead of it's time. too bad they won't make anything like this anymore...
gameplay 10/10
vehicle gameplay 5/10 (driving a tank gave me brain tumor, helicopters were alright)
story 7/10 (still interesting and intriguing)
graphics 10/10 for 2008
music 9/10

An absolute classic. Loved it 15 years ago, love it now.

Fucking crashes so much, such a shame too, I tried everything, even the mod that FIXES the crash, and it didn't work, I loved this game so much and now this slop doesn't work.

Long story short.
First 2/3's or so of the game are quite fun. New abilities are introduced fairly regularly, fights are fun with some tougher enemies sprinkled in.
The last third though. Oh boy. The game nose dives in story and mission design. Long quests with barely any payoff, horribly unbalanced boss battles and infinitly spawning enemies literally untop of you DURING said boss battles. Include random damage spikes, stealth mechanics suddenly being turned off for no reason in some missions, as well as a heavy focus on vehicle and weapon combat IN AN ABILITY BASED GAME means that this game is going from what would have been an easy yes to DO NOT BUY. Watch someone else suffer through this unholy nightmare.

Also doesn't work properly on modern machines without a bit of troubleshooting. its not hard but you can add that to the list of reasons not to play.

Very cool very good even after all this time

The traversal is amazing, truly gives you an amazing feeling like no other. Story is definitely a bit dated, but I'd say the gameplay is what really makes it stand out. Definitely worth a try :)

For its time, must've been really good, but man, I tried giving it a chance and I just couldn't play it after a few missions because of the controls and the spike in difficulty.

~ GAMEPLAY ~
🔲 Boring
🔲 Rock Paper Scissors
🔲 Fun
🔲 Hmm..........
✅ Entertaining
🔲 Ace
🔲 Godlike


~ DIFFICULTY ~
🔲 My grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 A challenge to be reckoned


~ GRAPHICS ~
🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
✅ Meh
🔲 Normal
🔲 Very Good
🔲 An original artistic direction
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece


~ STORY ~
🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Some lore
🔲 It's there for people who want it
✅ Well written
🔲 Leading to more in-depth researches/thoughts
🔲 A model to get inspired by


~ LENGTH ~
🔲 0 (No story)
🔲 Short
✅ Average
🔲 Long
🔲 To infinity and beyond


~ MUSIC ~
🔲 Just filling noises/No music
✅ Trivial and uneventful
🔲 Good and/or fitting the game's artistic dispositions
🔲 Memorable
🔲 Transcending whispers of a forgotten world


~ INTEREST ~
🔲 I would rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive and/or uninspired
✅ A good moment
🔲 Sticking out of the pack
🔲 You will remember it long after


~ REPLAYABILITY ~
✅ A one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years (or with mods)
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable (or almost)

Does not work by default. It will crash as soon as you try to start a new game. Download this nexus mod to make it functional: https://www.nexusmods.com/prototype/mods/52?tab=files. Beyond the annoyance of installing this fix, the game is super fun. Basically GTA SA in riot mode, but you're a super-mutant with crazy powers and parkour abilities that you use to fight the military and the monsters they've brought upon the city--hell, you even get to use some the military's weapons/vehicles/personnel against them.

Every Pc i try this game on....crashes. any setting its unplayable.....

Unexpectedly enjoyable experience, although i can understand that many players can find the game repetitive.

I mean, look, the game has flaws. It's an Activision superhero style game with all the repetitiveness that's associated with the type

But the story and gameplay are top-tier!

Play it, but also be forgiving of some really messed up 7th gen level design

An amazing childhood game, to make it work you need to download the fix from NexusMods website, no need to change your CPU core usage.

incredible gameplay and a good story

Unfortunately, the game does not run on new generation PCs, even though I reduced the number of cores...

It's a good game but you'll need to download a fix from the internet. Just google "Prototype game fix" and you should find the latest version.

It's a classic superhero with superpowers game. Find enemies, destroy enemies, story time, rinse, repeat. The movement in this game is top notch and still one of my favorite mechanics in any game by far.

i like this game since i was a kid ngl this is recommend to play but there's a random crash somtimes but still good

it is true that the game is dated for modern computers, however the community has provided not only start up and resolution fixes, they also have FPS and FOV fixes too :D