VideoGame Gameplay's and Improvement, Story is a Dissappointement
First the good. Overall the gameplay is a vast improvement. The usefulness of the powers is better realized for each one. The graphics are better. The map has more areas. And their is a greater variety of enemies.
But now for the bad. Some of the more amusing, or varied powers from the first game are gone, like patsy or airstrike. The moment you master shield bashing, all challenge is gone from the game. You can kill nearly every enemy in the game simply by repeadly hitting the block button. And somehow it still feels like their is less to do than the original.
And of course the story is a letdown compared to the original. It's like it was written by someone who just read the spoiler free synopsis of the plot. All the plot twists and sequel hooks from the first game are ignored, in favor of a more generic, inferior rehash of the first games plot, with a more generic protagonist. Somehow Alec Mercer's character is utterly different, and a rip of of Resident Evil 5's Albert Wesker.
In short, play the game, skip the story, and if you liked the story for the first game, avoid this like the plague.
VideoGame This sequel just ruined the franchise as a whole.
This is my review on P2. I just feel like it was total crud to me in the department of story, characters, and setting. The gameplay and graphics of this game were BADASS but the story and characters despite them being more human were total crap for me.
It's like the new team of developers and writers didn't like the story of the first game because they thought that it was nothing new like the idiots on YouTube that are arguing with others of this franchise. I just get the feeling that they missed a mark of what Alex Mercer stood for.
Alex is a symbol for a science experiment being better than it's creator and the organization that made it, a harbinger of death upon the scumbags of the world, and a catalyst for fear on the vile creatures on the planet. In P1 they were speaking of Mercer, Greene, PARIAH and other runners as if they were gods that can't be stopped forces of nature in the skins of humans mind you. In P2 they throw all of that out of the window for a crappy game that's a superhero game for the twisted people that hated both P1 and Mercer.
This game disrespected the Prototype series to a high degree and the thing the developers said with this 'End of Mercer's story' thing didn't sit well with me as it did the stupid, brainless, heartless, and prideful people who are in reality complete psychopaths.
As a stand alone game, this game is pretty good. As a sequel this game is nothing but absolute b-rated Hollywood crud to a very high standard. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying this sequel is bad just not very good as people are making it out to be.
VideoGame What. Just... what.
I made a preorder for the PC version a few months before this game was released.
I'm getting a refund as soon as I get the chance.
Honestly? The gameplay looks fun. The graphics are better. Maybe the controls handle better too - I wouldn't know. But this game's mess of a 'plot' is so unfaithful to its predecessor that I'm just going to pretend it never existed. None of the loose ends from the first game are wrapped up. And 'Mercer' doesn't act like Alex Mercer at all. With no ingame explanation, he's turned from 'What (the human) Mercer did... was unforgivable.', 'I know now that releasing Greene was a mistake.' and 'You bastard. You could have stopped this, and you let it all happen.' to a generic villain. He's acting like a combination of the human Doctor Mercer and Elizabeth Greene. Even his speech patterns don't mesh with Prototype's protagonist - he rambles on and on about making the world perfect when the first one was blunt and concise. He's a brilliant plotter - Prototype's Mercer was unable to come up with any plans on his own more complex than 'kill everything in sight'. Antagonist!Mercer abandoned his sister without remorse, whereas the two were devoted to each other in the first game. He's so unfaithful to his first rendition that I really don't have any trouble looking at him and saying 'No, this guy isn't Mercer at all'.
Maybe this game's selling point wasn't the plot. But that's what murdered it for me.
VideoGame A Mixed Bag
This game is ridiculously fun while it lasts. The combat is a lot easier to get a handle on than the original, in no small part due to the tutorial bits you are given whenever you gain a new power. The revamped powers all have their niche, the changes to the consume mechanics were nice (stealth consuming is a lot easier now), the hunting feature is cool, and the new additions (tendrils, biobomb) are all very cool. Moreso than the original, you feel like an unstoppable abomination of science tearing his way through all that opposes you. Blacknet makes hunting down targets a bit easier than just randomly running around Manhattan, hoping for the "Consume this guy" icon to appear on the minimap. Adding the evolved to Blacknet targets was also a cool twist, by the Red Zone, you're never sure if you're chasing a normal human or a shapeshifting monstrosity.
However, I burned through it very quickly. I completed the game twice and unlocked all achievements in short order. I wasn't in marathon gaming sessions and my attention was divided, but still, I ran out of things to amuse myself with faster than I did with the original, or any other sandbox game I've owned for that matter. Aside from upping the difficultly to Insane (and the Radnet challenges), there's not a lot that makes me want to return to NYZ. Speaking of difficulty, the game really is rather easy; in my first playthough, by the middle of the Green Zone, the only things that ever posed a threat were Juggernauts. The Brawlers, Orions, and Evolved were fairly easy to deal with, and the military went from a minimal threat to a complete joke by the time you set foot in the Red Zone. Even the much hyped Heller vs Mercer battle was too easy. It looked cool as Hell, but it's awesomeness was undercut by the fact that it wasn't particularly challenging.
That said, the gameplay of P2 is rather solid; even if the replayability is limited, it's still a blast to play. As a fairly big fan of the original, I could go on a tangent about the story, but it's easier to just say that though I liked Heller, I liked the original's story and Mercer too, and felt the game dropped the ball in how it continued the plot. All in all, I don't regret purchasing Prototype 2, it is fun; but at the same time, it's got it's fair share of down sides.
VideoGame A vast improvement over the original.
I'm going to get this out of the way first: Yes, Alex Mercer isn't the protagonist. Yes, some people call "character derailment". If it really bothers you, pretend he's a clone or something and try not to let it ruin your enjoyment of what is otherwise a fantastic game.
They took everything that made Prototype less than perfect, and they fixed it. The graphics, a serious weakness of the first game, are absolutely stellar (although they're designed for HDTV, and if you don't have one, some areas will seem a little murky). The range of enemy types is broader - there are twice as many types of Infected - and while Heller doesn't have any more powers than Mercer did, every power he has remains useful throughout the game. While the optimum strategy with Mercer was often to steal a military weapon or run around throwing cars, with Heller you'll want to get up close and personal to use your powers. The side-missions aren't exactly "integrated into the story", but they do at least make sense for Heller to be doing, and they're fun rather than medal-chasing.
You might have seen the trailer for the Hunting power - if not, look it up - but you really do have to use it to understand just how amazing it feels. There's nothing like picking your target out of a crowded boulevard, dropping on them from a hundred feet up, and eating them alive to make you feel like an unstoppable monster (oh, that's another thing - the targeting of the grab attack has been VASTLY improved. Consuming people mid-fight or picking up stuff to throw is no longer a crap shoot).
Unlike the original, this game has a strong thread of humour. Several moments are genuinely and intentionally funny, and while the overall situation is just as nightmarish as the original, the game itself is nowhere near as unrelentingly dark.
As for negative points: The camera can get a bit screwy at times, but no more so than in the first game. A lot of the backstory exposition and conspiracy-theory plot from the first game is missing, which is a shame. The game is definitely easier than the original (although it does have an unlockable Insane Difficulty). You can't choose when to buy new power boosts - you're forced to whenever you level up.
Finally, there is a LOT of swearing in this game. You don't want to play this with young kids in the room unless you want to expand their vocabulary.
VideoGame An Invigorating Sequel
Prototype 2 is a great lesson in how to shake up a series' style and structure while still retaining what makes it fun to play and improving its entertainment value elsewhere. Its predecessor was a solid game, but one that very much felt hindered by limited graphic capabilities and an emphasis on wild, destructive gameplay over a story with characters worth caring about; that's what its sequel improves upon.
To start with, we completely avoid Bag of Spilling on ol' Alex by taking control of James Heller, a Marine who's just lost his family to the infection and wants nothing more than to kill Mercer as revenge...but of course, the plot evolves quite beyond that through a series of well-done twists, all carried by excellent voice acting and stunning animation for the pre-rendered cutscenes. The characters are all memorable in their own ways and feel like real people - or, at least, believable sociopaths when it comes to the villains.
Then there's the gameplay: echoing another review below, this game puts a lot more emphasis on actually using your POWERS to fight rather than the nearest tank or chopper, and it does so by 1) making melee combat much more fluid and rewarding with the ability to keep two distinct arm forms on separate buttons so you can switch between them on the fly instead of needing to bring up the power wheel every time, and 2) giving you some tendril-related abilities that let you restrain enemies, as well as opportunities to strike foes when they've left an opening in their attacks. The parkour also feels much faster and more horizontal-oriented, as we've largely exchanged skyscrapers for more standard-sized buildings that don't take 5 minutes to run up the side of - did I mention that the cityscape looks so much better here with all the color and added detail, too?
Finally, there's the matter of Alex Mercer himself. Now, I won't deny that the change in his characterization is...jarring (it's hard to call it a Protagonist Journey to Villain when we don't really even see the journey part) and that said transition should've been explained properly in-game rather than left to inference and (I think) a set of interquel comics; however, ultimately I don't really mind it. Having to contend with the character you spent dozens of hours playing as, upgrading, and watching the personal journey of in the last game as an antagonist is always an interesting route to take for a video game sequel, and Mercer is no exception to that, as he feels menacing from the second you see him all the way up until Heller fulfills his promise, and the plot is that much more intriguing and ominous with him and his army working in the background, always appearing at unexpected times. I personally might've tweaked his involvement in a few ways, but ultimately I'm satisfied with what we got.
The worst part of all this is, well, that there won't be a Prototype 3 - I had hopes after playing it for the first time at launch that Radical could make a full-fledged interquel game that would return Mercer to playability, have him actually meet and contend with PARIAH, and ultimately change to his inevitable villainous role across the course of the story by seeing humanity's flaws or what have you, but thanks to ol' Bobby Kotick and the toxic cesspool that is Activision, such a game never even had a chance of getting the greenlight, so we're stuck with this dilogy. Both games are good, but 2 is indeed superior.