Why I already love Prototype

When I begged and finally bribed my way into the Game Developer’s conference in San Francisco last year, a large part of my motivation for doing so was festooned on the banner hanging above the escalators towards the vaulted halls full of personal heroes and mouth-watering exclusive sneak peaks.

Activision was giving a big, exclusive presentation of their upcoming title Prototype complete with game footage, a panel discussion with the developers, and I desperately wanted in…

…I didn’t get in, but that’s another story. The point here is that I thought Prototype warranted my gatecrashing a game-designers only conference, because I think it’s doing a number of things that most games these days are not.

Prototype is an original IP. No matter what the CEOs say, the recession is hitting game development houses the same as everyone else, and the impulse among the more conservative managers is, maybe understandably, to funnel what money that remains into sequels and recognizable licenses. It’s nice to see proof that even in these dark times, the occasional original idea does still get the go-ahead, especially an original idea that doesn’t immediately seem like a knockoff of a dozen other “original” ideas.

Really, game developers, how many times are you going to make us play as the tough space marine (Gears of War, Quake, Doom, Halo), the World War II soldier (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms), or the streetwise gangster (Grand Theft Auto and all of it’s clones)? Why can’t I be an alien, or a zombie, or a stuffed toy from time to time? It was fun to step into the shoes of a twelfth-century assassin, because no game had ever let us do that before, and the novelty of the concept lead me to forgive a number of Assassin’s Creed’s shortcomings.

In that light, while shape-shifting lead characters are not new (Kameo: Elements of Power, Primal, Devil May Cry, Shadow Hearts all had shape-shifting lead characters) I can’t think of another example of this kind of protagonist in this type of game. Alex Mercer’s hypothetical ability to be as violent, or as stealthy as he wants with both having different effects on the world he inhabits is an intriguing concept all on its own. The execution could yet be fumbled (ask Stubbs how quickly brain-eating got old) but the idea catches the imagination without needing much help from the hype machine.

Dark Brooding Perfection

And this is a totally shallow reason, but I’m a totally shallow person, so I’m just gonna say that I like Alex Mercer’s style. He kicks ass and never takes names while wearing clothes that look both shadowy and completely grounded in reality. While I liked his character model more back before someone decided a Bruce Campbell chin suited him, his completely normal look just makes his powers that much more mysterious, and that much cooler.

For all this potential, the game could still fall flat if it fails in one department: the writing. If you’re going to have a dark, morally ambivalent anti-hero as your lead character, you better have some pretty strong characterization, and some pretty good back-stories, otherwise you end up lost in the hyper-emotional corn maze, like Hayden Tenno of Dark Sector, who tried so hard to be dark and conflicted that he just came across as weak-willed and inconsistent. If Radical Entertainment is really serious about this anti-hero thing, they should make case studies of Niko Bellic of Grand Theft Auto 4 and Kratos of God of War, successful protagonists with relatable, iron-clad motivations.

I’ve got all fingers and a couple of toes crossed that Activision does not squander this chance to create a truly compelling breed of protagonist. Of course it could all go very wrong. But if it goes right… Damn, but it could be epic.