Being an arch-villain in Prototype
My name is Alex Mercer. I’m the reason for all of this. They call me a killer, a monster, a terrorist. I’m all of these things.
A great opening line for a really interesting game experience. Alex Mercer is the unwitting agent of some sort of biological weapon/infection transforming central New York into a warzone complete with infected zombies and an overzealous military presence. The game is told in flashback, as Mercer ruminates from a rooftop on his journey as the city becomes more and more infected – it gives the game experience a dramatic irony I suppose, but also a rather hopeless fatalism.
Obviously any sort of human tragedy in New York, even a comic-book style one, is pretty near to the knuckle. The game belongs in that niche of paranoia thrillers that really place you in that zone between the public and the government. In true conspiracy style the public are sheeple, unaware of their fate and the method of control, and government is oppressive and overbearing. 9/11 conspiracists would love it.
What is weird is how little is really asked of you as Alex Mercer. It’s established from those first lines that you are a monstrosity, a anti-superhero with the power to gorily ‘consume’ innocent bystanders with the press of a button. Yet it’s never made clear how you should feel about this – I don’t think it’s perverse of me to wonder if perhaps I’m the problem here rather than the solution, and this is a common dilemma that has ruined so many game experiences for me in recent times. It’s just assumed that I will get on with the job of casually murdering people while the missions play out.
And something doesn’t quite work about the physical action here. The game gives you such freedom to simply scoot up buildings, and leap from rooftop to rooftop, that even the slightest impediment to that becomes an annoyance rather than a challenge. In Grand Theft Auto you have to respect the city – start a fight you cannot win and you’re in trouble, stand in front of a moving truck and you will be run down. Here none of that really matters – you’re gifted enough that you hop over cars or even plough through them, and as you speed through a crowd you simply pop civilians out of your way as you go.
You end up taking the depiction of a living breathing and utterly chaotic city on the brink of destruction totally for granted. Stand on a rooftop and you’ll survey a scene as fifty cars and hundreds of civilians engage in a pitch battle against tanks, soldiers, zombies and other monsters. But somehow it doesn’t really matter, because in the context of the game it never did. I never knew any other way. It’s like playing Super Mario Bros but you can see the ants you’re treading on underfoot.
So once again with a game I’m wondering where I stand here. I like anti-heroes. I like open worlds filled with glorious comic-book action and incredible detail. I like being Superman. But I end up just liking not loving, and just being but not believing. What started out as a novel experience has turned into a jumpy platform game with good graphics. And once again I feel like the bad guy. Not because I’m good or evil. But just because I’ve been forced not to care.
