3/5 ★ – peacebrendanp's review of Prototype 2.

Prototype 2 is slightly better than it's predecessor due to it being a trimmer game. The developer cut back a lot of the fat from the first game, which leads to the sequel feeling more focused, and ultimately an overall better experience than the first game. The upgrades and powers are more focused and easier to use and switch between. The game really doesn't incentivize the player to switch between different powers, but they all feel useful and unique enough to utilize. The writing is just as bad as the first, maybe even worse? There's a lot of things to say "fuck," or "bitch" at in this game. It's really high-brow, and only the cream of the crop will appreciate the absolute percision that was emplyed here to write some of these lines. It's absurdity at it's finest. The story carries impact initially, but honestly and ultimately ends up feeling pretty boring after the first hour. Heller has more interesting motives than Mercer in the first game. But, he is still penned as a guy that is angry and just wants to kill things. Mercer is boiled down to just a bad guy, with no interesting motives, and a way of speaking that sounds like a 13-year-old could have come up with the portrayal. The head-to-head these two have is uninspired, uninteresting, and dumb. The actual pacing and structure of the first game ends up being more interesting, with Mercer's story pacing the initial infection of NYC. This game follows the pacing through different "zones" or boroughs of NYC. While not as interesting, the setting ends up being more engaging, as the environments themselves are more detailed and pretty to look at. Downtown Manhattan has been infected for a longer period of time in this game, so it was cool to see that as well. NPC's are also more detailed and varied to look at. The world feels more structured, though it's missing a "je ne sais quoi" that the first game was able to create, which made the city feel much more chaotic. However, the extra details and variation in environment and NPC's here still conveys a distinct NYC that sells the vision the game aims for. All side-content here is more impactful and streamlined. While I didn't achieve to get 100-percent of the side-content, it is at a much more manageable to tackle it all, and it makes much more sense. There are infected lairs to clear, patrols to eliminate, and blackboxes to collect. In addition, there are actual side-missions that offer alternative stories to experience, though the stories are so forgettable that the missions are really just means to an end. All of these side activities provide rewards in the form of "mutations." These provide buffs to the player's character in the form of offense, defense, and locomotion. It makes the side-content actually feel meaningful in this entry. The traversal returns from the first game, and while it is better this time around, there are some small details that are missing that are slightly confusing. It's small, but in the first game, there were animations for sliding down buildings, which sold how powerful Mercer was. This time around, stuff like that is missing, However, the overall traversal feels better, and allows you to gain more momentum than the first game. Since the actual zones that you traverse feel independently smaller than the first game's world, traversing an area feels a bit quicker too. Combat feels better than the first game here as well. It just feels snappier, and more streamlined, with abilities feeling more intuitive, and controls feeling way better. There's a dedicated block button, which makes playing defense much easier than the first. The combat still feels pretty stiff and shallow at times though, and can be frustrating. It just feels much less frustrating than the first game's. There's a final battle sequence that feels like it was aiming to be cinematic, but feels pretty stiff. And, an ending that is so forgettable, that I can't even really fully recall what happened less than 24-hours after completing the game. Ultimately this game is fine to play. It's pretty uninspired, but feels like a refinement of the first game's mechanics. The art style carries from the first, and there is some different variation with weather and time-of-day here. The world is fun to traverse, but the story is pretty boring, and gameplay can feel a bit stiff at times. However, pretty much every mechanic from the first game makes a return here, and it's refined and improved upon to a point of feeling fully realized. If the gameplay and open-world design could combine with the story of the first game, then I think there would be something special here. There is still something about the traversal that wants to cut the player's momentum down, but it's still fun. Getting into a cutscene is a bore. I played it entirely on the Steam Deck, and it was a smooth experience the entire time. After Steam's recorded 10-hours (this feels wrong, it felt more like 8-hours), I'm good on this game and this series. I think this series is an interesting game when compared to game's like Infamous or Spider-Man, but I would take those two over this any day of the week. I guess my final thoughts on this would be: this game is a better game than the first entry, but it's not necessarily more interesting. When compared to open-world games from modern-day? This game feels like a "cute-little-game" from over a decade ago. Console Played On: Steam Deck (SteamOS) Game Played: 03/2025 - 04/2025 Review Written and Published: 04/06/2025