Ever since the videogame adaptation of Spider-Man 2 was enriched by open world game design, it seems to have defined the language through which superhero worlds are presented in games. Open worlds seem a perfect fit for the “one hero defends a city”setup in games like the subsequent Spliderman titles and Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction to which Prototype is a spiritual sequel of sorts.
This year, Radical Entertainment’s multiplatform Protytype and Sucker Punch’s (Sly Cooper) Playstation 3 exclusive inFAMOUS are two very good superhero games that use many of the same mechanics and came out within a month of each other. Competition and comparisons are inevitable.
Despite the similarities between the games figuring out which one is better is probably pointless. This is about how the games are the same and how they are also fundamentally different.
Two Similar Superhero Games
Both games give players liberating powers over movement and combat to enjoy in an urban playground. inFAMOUS is a game where players receive powers over electricity in a fictional urban warzone. In Prototype, players receive superior strength and shape-shifting abilities in a similarly war-torn Manhattan.
The electrical powers players use in inFAMOUS take a clever route by approximating elements of shooters while breaking the usual limits of shooters with the twist that they are super powers. At the same time, players have an impressive yet fairly precise range of movement – able to survive great leaps and climb nearly any structure. Eventually the combat and movement powers can be used in tandem to create interesting mixes not unlike combos in a fighting game.
Prototype offers players a similar empowerment by letting players literally leap buildings in single bounds. A surprising amount of variety is gained from the ability to take the forms of enemies to gain their abilities and go into disguise. This let’s players learn to use different weapons and drive vehicles like APCs and helicopters and also develops Prototype’s storyline.
What furthers this variety for both games is the RPG-like experience point system through which upgrades and new powers are gained. This comes as a bit of a surprise given the nature of Prototype compared to inFAMOUS.
Two Different Open World Games
InFAMOUS and Prototype are definitely the same kind of game, but what separates them is their varying areas of focus. inFAMOUS could be called a more polished game or Prototype a simpler game, but that belies the entertainment unique to each one.
For the most part inFAMOUS is a game about control, conveyed in strokes noticeably finer than those of most open world games. The enjoyment from the game’s powers mostly comes from mixing them in skillful combos. Players are also judged by how they take notice of innocent bystanders. Even though inFAMOUS’s moral dichotomy comes off as heavy-handed, it still shows a much higher level of attention than Prototype.
As opposed to inFAMOUS, Prototype concerns itself with fast movement and outright destruction through stock fodder and stops there. The city of Manhattan in Prototype actually feels much less recognizable than inFAMOUS’s fictional Empire City. The buildings, people, and enemies – who all look like they’re from a PS2 or Xbox game in high definition, are simply tools to be jumped off of and utterly destroyed respectively – often comically.
That’s not to say that Prototype is less fun than inFAMOUS. Despite the act being somewhat dumb, it’s still very fun to toss a car at a helicopter, watch it crash onto a crowd of people, and then throw the ruins of that helicopter at another helicopter or a tank. For some people it’s probably just as enjoyable as launching lightning bolts while grinding on power lines in inFAMOUS.
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