Preview: Prototype

We spent much of Bionic Commando (our review, from E202, will be posted here tomorrow) pining for Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 and querying the dearth of worthwhile successors. There's Crackdown, of course, but the presence of its own imitators makes the lack of particularly good ones even more frustrating. But then, in a dark corner of Activision’s recent London games presentation, our champion appeared. Prototype was basically finished, and it took a Radical employee to yank us off the controls before we played 'too much'.

Until we’ve played more we can't say if the fun of its opening hours will extend much beyond - open world games of the plot-driven variety seldom pull it off. But it gets off on the right foot. Hero Alex Mercer’s movement along walls, rooftops, and the bonnets of cars is often dazzling. Much of this is thanks to animation that sees him glance convincingly off scenery and bystanders, or shapeshift between stolen identities while vertically fleeing a strafing helicopter. Much is thanks to an open world which is crowded, convincing, and electric with panic. Most, though, is thanks to the game's refusal to deliver action on a move-by-move basis, preferring instead to create show-stopping compounds. Mercer's arms mutate into blades, for instance, which often cut enemies right down the middle. Not that exciting, perhaps, but it is when part of a combo that ends with you elbow-dropping a tank.

The story's not bad, either, and wastes little time on dialogue when action says enough. Mercer's a bit of a Jason Bourne type, chased by everyone while struggling to remember why. He looks like an Ubisoft kind of super vigilante, cloaked beneath his hoodie, but he isn't overshadowed by some clunking great mechanic or a story that refuses to be ignored. There's a propulsion to both drama and action here that might well, one day, catch Hollywood's eye. In the meantime, we just have to hope the upgrade and optional mission systems can buff the game up to a good 20 hours or an excellent ten. As much as we love a good prototype, a production model tends to be better.