1. Go to area near a hive
2. Turn on Infected Vision when on a rooftop
3. Look for infected water towers since it’s easier from afar
4. Destroy for ~10k EP + genetic material bonus
5. Repeat

I regarded it as a pretty quick way to obtain upgrades, personally.

Granted, they’re not much cop in combat with anything bigger than standard infected, but man are they entertaining. SLICEY SLASH

I’m pretty early on in the game though, haven’t unlocked the Blade ability yet. That might possibly best claws.

The thing I feel right now about the game is that it has no soul. The basic movement lack flow, basic attacks don’t t give me this feeling of power and even when I blow a tank up Idon’tt feel that powerfull.

Basically, I would like less mechanics with better overall realization. Not only powers are redundant as you point out, but they lack orthogonality…

For me it is almost like they were trying to have as much stuff as possible without even making sure they would tackle something as basic as a convincing jump.

I think the game have some fun stuff, but my first impression was quite bad because I thougt it felt unsatisfying to control that avatar. These are not the comment I did on my blog so feel free to go see what is there, I would be curious to have your thoughts on that… (it is the most recent post here: http://www.designcave.typepad.com).

Sorry for any bad typo, I am getting use to my iphone.

Jonathan

Spademan is indeed myself, though I’m now slightly disturbed that I seem to have unconsciously killed off my MVH avatar.

Actually I hadn’t realised until I drew this how many clothes Mercer wears. A shirt, a hoodie, an armless leather jacket AND a cold aura of dispassion. I guess being a heartless human/virus hybrid is pretty chilly work.

Also I think I’m going to start awarding more things ‘maximum spang’ as a verdict.

Are you spademan? I got confused because the victim looks like your MVH avatar.

PS Your TAG link needs a http://

http://snipurl.com/n8gag

Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

My other criticism of the story is that the web of intrigue is maddeningly elliptical and poorly organized. I love the concept, I just wish it was more easily searched (a list of nodes organized by topic or faction of the person consumed in addition to the web), had a bit more detective work involved (the other nodes revealed by consuming someone don’t just give the name of the target but also a brief description of how the person you consumed knows them and where they last saw them).

Still, I must applaud the web of intrigue for being an elegant way to get around skill-learning and backstory-discovering issues.

However, if there’s one vital change you’ve not yet touched on, it’s this: When you fall at high speeds, and then touch the side of a building while pressing the keys upwards, you should not immediately begin doing so. We all know deep in our souls that the proper thing to happen would be for us to first carve a 5-meter gouge down the building’s side, and only then launch ourselves back upwards.

Very much looking forwards to hearing your thoughts on the game’s overall layout and structure.

Also, I don’t have you pegged as the comics type, but you might find Abara interesting. It’s a one-volume Sci-Fi tale that may well have inspired Radical Entertainment, particularly with regards to Alex’s armor. The best description I can give is: take a Prototype, put him in a dystopian future designed by Team Ico, and give both him and the monsters the ability to move at bullet-time speeds.

It can be read online at http://www.onemanga.com/Abara/; the first chapter offers a nicely-contained piece of action.

iFail (“they stole my powers”): Yeah, I love the way they time it to come just as you’re getting used to the cool powers you’ve finally earned back.

nine (“ZP thinks whipfist was overpowered”): Heh. Whipfist is the one power that’s already meaningfully different, so even though it’s wildly out-damaged by other powers, it’s still handy as a hijacking tool. I want more of that “X is handy for Y” thinking.

The_B (“Airdash – are you using a 360 controller?”): No, but I will do next time. It’s a more comfortable layout, but I’ll miss being able to aim for shit – the targeting system is so bad I had to do most precision attacks untargeted.

EGTF (“fancy vision modes”): These really seem like design-doc hangovers. Something that sounded good on paper, perhaps when night was going to be dark or smoke was going to be a factor, and was implimented before it became clear there was no need for it. I expect at some stage it was going to be more work to remove than to leave in.

Ludo (“scrapping the claws”): Considered that, but they are a lot of fun. If crowds were worth attacking, and you could move while attacking, they’d be one of my favourites.
(“changing city territories”): Yes! I’m half-planning a second post about what they should have done instead of the linear plot spliced with fairground challenges, and this is part of it. I’d wanna avoid a situation where Mercer can just take and retake a block for each faction to grind his powers, though.

webrunner (“a player-style thing”): Even once I found Musclemass out-damaged my prefered powers, I rarely used it. I actually persevered with Whipfist even in situations it was ill-suited to, just because it’s fun.

The whipfist would provide low damage crowd control attacks with wide radius and the ability to grab faraway objects. The hammerfist: heavily localised high damage attacks which are good against vehicles. The blade: quick and devastating in a straight line, and particularly effective against hunters. It’s a typical rock paper scissors setup which is nothing new, but players would instantly grasp which weapons were right for different situations. A wealth of great combo upgrades like the ones mentioned would inject the variety and interest into the formula.

As mentioned in the post, narrowing the effectiveness of the weapon modes encourages players to use their whole arsenal in the course of a fight. Weapon switching would be made quicker and easier. The slo-mo wheel thing would be scrapped in favour of a toggle button, which is unwieldy with 5+ powers, but manageable with 3, or a button for each power 1,2,3 or D-pad directions.

Structurally I’d make a lot more of the dynamically changing city territories which, in the game’s current state, don’t have much real impact on the experience but is an idea with a lot of potential. The overlaps in military and infected control already are pretty well implemented war zones, but there’s no reason at all to visit these areas. The lame side missions would be scrapped and replaced with the ability for Alex to actually push back either the military or infected influence. Favouring one side over the other would lead to different power unlocks, armour and disguise skills from the military and mutation upgrades from the infected. This could even have main story ramifications which would suit Alex’s amoral stance. As an inhuman monster, he might not necessarily be averse to an infected city as his playground.

Alternatively, and favourably, I’d revamp Alex so that he’s not a twat.

I don’t know why they didn’t get around to programming it so as soon as you activated a power your gun was tossed aside or at least put on your back. As it is, you’re just left wondering how he pulls the trigger with blob/hammerfists enabled.

The thing that makes me sad about Prototype is that with a few more developer decisions like you’ve suggested made (“Stu, I know you like Predator and his fancy vision modes, but can you please tell me how the fuck they fit in with this game?”) to cut back on wasting time on superfluous elements, tweaking could’ve been applied elsewhere. It could’ve been absolutely superb that way.

I’m happy with flawed but good fun though. I do wonder if they’ll patch it up in a big way, tweaking with the damage dealing of each power could help even.

But aside from that I did quite enjoy it. Not sure if I can really see myself going back to finish all the side tasks though – or indeed the New Game + – heck, at first I thought I was going to go back for the last Web of Intrigue stuff I had to do but so far I’ve not really felt compelled enough to do that over newer games.

I mean, sure, the various combo-attack things (kick flip, body surf et al) might be cool – but by the point I think “oh, I might want to use that”, it’s far too late since the target’s already dead. And even if it wasn’t, it’d be easier just to punch them anyway.

And once you get the Blade’s air-attack thing, every other attack in the game (Whipfist and Devastators excepted) is instantly rendered worthless. Why bother switching to anything else, when a fully charged Air Blade strike will one-shot pretty much anything, while making you near-impossible to hit at the same time.

Other things I never “got”: vision modes (were they ever useful, ever?), Armor (surely not being able to dodge is crippling?), Musclemass/Hammerfist (didn’t see the point in the first; the second was soooooo slooooowwwwww). Perhaps I just wasn’t using them the right way?

I guess that says something good about the balancing doesn’t it?

PS, your comment repetition blocker just blocked me, after my last post… 24hrs ago?