Gossamer
June 14th, 2009, 19:29
intro --
Before we get started, I want to ping your attention spans at this little bit of noise. What if you, sir, happened to be somewhat of a god? What would it feel like? What could you do? To be put simply, quite a lot of things. Well, lets find out just what kind of game this is.
Prototype is a game with quite a large history. See, Activision has been on the Spiderman bandwagon for quite a while now. all the way back to the first introduction so they've had quite a few attempts at creating an amazing view of Manhattan. In many ways, they've been trial-and-erroring a good deal to make their open-world vision possible.
Am I saying Web of Shadows is similar to Prototype? Well,... yes I am.
"How so, Goss?"
Well.... I'm sorry, I don't think we've been properly introduced.
"Oh I'm just a randomly generated metaphor from your brain to help query this format."
Well, that's just fine by me. Carry on.
"So how is this possible, Mr. Gossamer?"
Well, unnamed voice. I'll tell you; First of all, many of the missions are similar. Note that there aren't as many things going on in-game in WOS as there is in Prototype but many of them involve you going about and destroying "hives" of symbiote egg-sacked... things; fighting monsters and flying around the place like you're late for a business meeting. You do the same in Prototype but with huge buildings and a tank. Also... Manhattan looks surprisingly similar.
I might research that a little better, I'd actually like to get screenshots of the same locations in each game to see if they both just use the same Manhattan.
Does this mean Prototype and WOS are both relevant rip-offs of eachother?
Well... yeah, but.. is that a bad thing?
No, they both rule!
--storyline
You sir, are Alex Mercer. You have awoken to the sound of people hating you and a terrible urge to just get the **** out of wherever you happen to be. Before you know it, you feel odd; but a good kind of odd. You have the ability to survive bullets and you can jump very... very high, lift cars and all that business. For sustenance you can devour people like an odd reverse mitosis by shoving them into your body and merging with them thereby gaining access to their appearance and their memories.
Why is all of this happening? Well, an evil corporation...
WAIT, STOP STOP STOP! An evil corporation?! Like these!?
http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:MUgnlthVswd8jM:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/Kojima_Pro_Logo.jpg
http://www.thesporadicgazette.com/fictional_logos/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/umbrella_corporation_logo.gif
Well, I didn't say it was very.... big in the originality department. YES, this is a vengeance story(like every video game... almost ever). Anyway, an evil corporation; the evil...er...est has been producing a very bad virus and you just happen to be one of the 1% out of the 99.999999999999999999% that can survive it; you and some teenage psychopath that attempts to destroy the city via controlling the virus.
Basically this is a "who am I?" kind of game, and you must fill in the question by opening up the story which is kind of interesting. It's sort of interesting.
"BY GOD WHO MADE ME THIS WAY!??"
"I'LL KILL WHOEVER DID!!"
"I'M MAD GODDAMNIT, I THINK I'LL GO DESTROY THE GOVERNMENT!!"
That's how it works out.
--gameplay
Prototype is fun, so much fun that no matter how bad your day at work was; it will ammend it with full-on fury. Here's where this game lacks::
-storyline
-graphics
-originality
-design
-....BUT NOT FUN!! THIS GAME IS A BLAST!!
Why is it fun? Imagine being Hancock from that crappy Will Smith movie and being able to do practically anything you want. My god, you can push someone; they'll ask you just WTF you think you're doing being all pushy. Then you pick them up and toss them into oblivion. It's GREAT!
Either I'm easily pleased by violence or I just like people getting what's theirs.
And OOOOHHH the atmosphere. Never before have I encountered a game with such atmosphere. When the infected come crawling, everything goes sepia and ghostly. When you cause chaos, the city goes ballistic. People run and scream and cower and cars burn forever with gorgeous smoke and flame. This game does an amazing job at "pandemonium".
Really, 99% of this game feels like all hell is breaking loose. It feels like the apocalypse is occurring and you're the main ordinance.
--graphics
No, it an't here. This isn't your Crysis or Fallout 3 but it's understood. The game was meant to run on basic hardware which in some regards is a good thing.
Lets put it this way, my 8600gts can max this game out.
There are a few good things; the character model is outstanding, as well as the transformations but for the most part; that's a design issue and not a graphical one. The effects are also very nice; there are amazing blurring effects and the explosions, smoke, gunfire and things of that nature are all done very well.
Now there's one other thing. The animations in this game are amazing. Everything is fluid and brilliant. When you are going to fast and turn around; your feet skid the asphalt and burn up the road. When you drop from 200ft in the air to ground zero; it causes a huge shockwave effect that blasts up the earth and everything around you.
It feels amazing. You feel amazing.
--presentation
Very nice, actually. The game does a good job at telling the story and being somewhat unique. Everything is very polished and nothing feels undone. The cutscenes are very movie-quality as well as the voice acting and dialogue. It's a good thing.
--final words
Oh, I'm sorry I was just tossing a car into an airplane at 300ft up in the air while dropping into an outcrop of tanks covered in infected citizens while ten thousand people run around screaming for their lives to end quickly with four wild tentacles coming out of the earth all the while helicopters and police-squads arm themselves for what they believe to be the end of time while you stand there ready and waiting for the big bang to re-occur by your hands.
Go buy it.
8.5/10 for me, fellows. :p
Before we get started, I want to ping your attention spans at this little bit of noise. What if you, sir, happened to be somewhat of a god? What would it feel like? What could you do? To be put simply, quite a lot of things. Well, lets find out just what kind of game this is.
Prototype is a game with quite a large history. See, Activision has been on the Spiderman bandwagon for quite a while now. all the way back to the first introduction so they've had quite a few attempts at creating an amazing view of Manhattan. In many ways, they've been trial-and-erroring a good deal to make their open-world vision possible.
Am I saying Web of Shadows is similar to Prototype? Well,... yes I am.
"How so, Goss?"
Well.... I'm sorry, I don't think we've been properly introduced.
"Oh I'm just a randomly generated metaphor from your brain to help query this format."
Well, that's just fine by me. Carry on.
"So how is this possible, Mr. Gossamer?"
Well, unnamed voice. I'll tell you; First of all, many of the missions are similar. Note that there aren't as many things going on in-game in WOS as there is in Prototype but many of them involve you going about and destroying "hives" of symbiote egg-sacked... things; fighting monsters and flying around the place like you're late for a business meeting. You do the same in Prototype but with huge buildings and a tank. Also... Manhattan looks surprisingly similar.
I might research that a little better, I'd actually like to get screenshots of the same locations in each game to see if they both just use the same Manhattan.
Does this mean Prototype and WOS are both relevant rip-offs of eachother?
Well... yeah, but.. is that a bad thing?
No, they both rule!
--storyline
You sir, are Alex Mercer. You have awoken to the sound of people hating you and a terrible urge to just get the **** out of wherever you happen to be. Before you know it, you feel odd; but a good kind of odd. You have the ability to survive bullets and you can jump very... very high, lift cars and all that business. For sustenance you can devour people like an odd reverse mitosis by shoving them into your body and merging with them thereby gaining access to their appearance and their memories.
Why is all of this happening? Well, an evil corporation...
WAIT, STOP STOP STOP! An evil corporation?! Like these!?
http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:MUgnlthVswd8jM:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/Kojima_Pro_Logo.jpg
http://www.thesporadicgazette.com/fictional_logos/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/umbrella_corporation_logo.gif
Well, I didn't say it was very.... big in the originality department. YES, this is a vengeance story(like every video game... almost ever). Anyway, an evil corporation; the evil...er...est has been producing a very bad virus and you just happen to be one of the 1% out of the 99.999999999999999999% that can survive it; you and some teenage psychopath that attempts to destroy the city via controlling the virus.
Basically this is a "who am I?" kind of game, and you must fill in the question by opening up the story which is kind of interesting. It's sort of interesting.
"BY GOD WHO MADE ME THIS WAY!??"
"I'LL KILL WHOEVER DID!!"
"I'M MAD GODDAMNIT, I THINK I'LL GO DESTROY THE GOVERNMENT!!"
That's how it works out.
--gameplay
Prototype is fun, so much fun that no matter how bad your day at work was; it will ammend it with full-on fury. Here's where this game lacks::
-storyline
-graphics
-originality
-design
-....BUT NOT FUN!! THIS GAME IS A BLAST!!
Why is it fun? Imagine being Hancock from that crappy Will Smith movie and being able to do practically anything you want. My god, you can push someone; they'll ask you just WTF you think you're doing being all pushy. Then you pick them up and toss them into oblivion. It's GREAT!
Either I'm easily pleased by violence or I just like people getting what's theirs.
And OOOOHHH the atmosphere. Never before have I encountered a game with such atmosphere. When the infected come crawling, everything goes sepia and ghostly. When you cause chaos, the city goes ballistic. People run and scream and cower and cars burn forever with gorgeous smoke and flame. This game does an amazing job at "pandemonium".
Really, 99% of this game feels like all hell is breaking loose. It feels like the apocalypse is occurring and you're the main ordinance.
--graphics
No, it an't here. This isn't your Crysis or Fallout 3 but it's understood. The game was meant to run on basic hardware which in some regards is a good thing.
Lets put it this way, my 8600gts can max this game out.
There are a few good things; the character model is outstanding, as well as the transformations but for the most part; that's a design issue and not a graphical one. The effects are also very nice; there are amazing blurring effects and the explosions, smoke, gunfire and things of that nature are all done very well.
Now there's one other thing. The animations in this game are amazing. Everything is fluid and brilliant. When you are going to fast and turn around; your feet skid the asphalt and burn up the road. When you drop from 200ft in the air to ground zero; it causes a huge shockwave effect that blasts up the earth and everything around you.
It feels amazing. You feel amazing.
--presentation
Very nice, actually. The game does a good job at telling the story and being somewhat unique. Everything is very polished and nothing feels undone. The cutscenes are very movie-quality as well as the voice acting and dialogue. It's a good thing.
--final words
Oh, I'm sorry I was just tossing a car into an airplane at 300ft up in the air while dropping into an outcrop of tanks covered in infected citizens while ten thousand people run around screaming for their lives to end quickly with four wild tentacles coming out of the earth all the while helicopters and police-squads arm themselves for what they believe to be the end of time while you stand there ready and waiting for the big bang to re-occur by your hands.
Go buy it.
8.5/10 for me, fellows. :p