This Week In Retro: [PROTOTYPE] (Patreon)

June 9, 2009: Alex Mercer takes a bite out of the Big Apple

by Diamond Feit

Grand Theft Auto III didn’t have much hype when it arrived in the fall of 2001, but word-of-mouth spread quickly and convinced a lot of people (myself included) to pick it up. When Rockstar launched Vice City just one year later, the word was out: Open-world games where you run amok in a major city now qualified as a genre all its own.

Not everyone wants to drive around shooting gangsters though; some players prefer to dispense justice, not mayhem. Fortunately, the early 21st century also saw the rise of the superhero genre, as titans from the comic book world leapt onto the silver screen and, through timely-released licensed games, consoles in our living rooms. Whether you controlled a career criminal, a supercop, or a costumed vigilante, publishers eagerly courted players to visit their make-believe metropolis with the promise of absolute freedom. Advance the story at your leisure, explore rooftops and alleyways for collectibles, and do what you will to the hapless citizens roaming the city streets.

Amidst this big-budget sandbox gaming boom, a darker take on the genre arrived in the summer of 2009. Instead of a famous hero or villain, players control a man troubled by his missing memory named Alex Mercer. Instead of stealing cars or spraying Uzis, Alex has mysterious powers that give him superhuman speed, agility, and strength. Most importantly, in Radical Entertainment’s [PROTOTYPE], the people of New York City serve as Alex’s primary food source, making Manhattan Island the world’s biggest buffet table.

As so many games do, [PROTOTYPE] begins in medias res with Alex fighting for his life in Times Square. The full might of the United States military attempts to subdue just one man along The Great White Way, attacking him with a coordinated ground and air assault. This might sound intimidating but in truth, this battle serves as a tutorial for players, giving them an ample assortment of targets to swat from the sky, smash into the pavement, or simply snack upon.

While Alex may look like an ordinary pedestrian, his powers grant him extraordinary control over his entire body. Players have their pick of different weapons to form from Alex’s arms, each with their own set of offensive capabilities. Alex’s legs give him a vertical leap that would make even the New York Knicks jealous, while also enabling him to run up sheer vertical surfaces at a sprinter’s pace. He cannot fly, but he can airdash and glide over great distances, guaranteeing he'll never get stuck in traffic again.

This introductory trial-by-fire comes to a dramatic conclusion before flashing back 18 days earlier to Alex Mercer lying dead in a morgue. Against all odds, his condition improves, which scares the hell out of the two scientists who planned to perform an autopsy. Alex stumbles out of the laboratory only to encounter a firing squad armed with assault rifles who do not hesitate to blow him away. Again, Alex succeeds in not dying, instead leaping over a concrete wall and onto the streets of Manhattan.

This return to Alex's past also resets his abilities to their base levels, another common video game tactic of giving players a taste of their character's potential only to roll them back to square one. The military hounds Alex across midtown with an attack helicopter as players learn to cope with his depleted skill set, although even in this confused, unstable state Alex can easily outpace New York taxi cabs on foot. When a near-miss missile knocks him down, Alex ends the chase by lifting a car over his head and tossing it straight into the chopper's hull.

Once Alex sets out on his own in the City that Never Sleeps, players guide him around town to try and piece together his memories and come to terms with his current situation. In addition to all his fearsome combat potential, whenever he consumes another person's body, he gains access to their memories. [PROTOTYPE] dubs this series of side-missions the Web of Intrigue; as Alex tracks down specific individuals connected to his past, he fills in the blanks and learns the truth about why a virus is spreading in Manhattan and where he fits in this man-made disaster.

Since Alex must follow high-profile targets into crowded spaces and even secure facilities under heavy guard, avoiding suspicion plays a major role in [PROTOTYPE]. Luckily, Alex's peculiar skills also enable him to take on the appearance of anyone he's ingested. Not only does this afford him a general air of anonymity, his shapeshifting powers can also get him out of a jam. So long as Alex can put something between him and his pursuers, he can instantly lose them by ducking out of sight and taking on a different form.

Players cannot sneak their way through the entirety of [PROTOTYPE], especially not once the virus starts to spawn monsters with a taste for blood. As each chapter of the story unfolds piece by piece, the situation in New York City deteriorates. The military takes a more aggressive stance, installing special sensors that can see through Alex's disguises. The monsters grow in strength and number, eventually taking over entire neighborhoods in Manhattan. Both factions attack Alex on sight, leaving him as the loneliest party in this three-sided war.

[PROTOTYPE] drew me in with its uncommon blend of over-the-top combat and quiet stealth sections, but its New York City setting absolutely kept me coming back for more. Most developers create their own fantasy world for these kinds of games, one that they can sculpt and shape to their liking without any concerns for realism. Radical's recreation of Manhattan takes a fair amount of liberties, reducing the overall size and complexity of its famous skyline, but it's still a suitable enough facsimile of the real thing that it tugged on my homesick heartstrings when I first played it all those years ago.

If [PROTOTYPE] has a glowing weak spot, it is Alex Mercer. While ably voiced by Hollywood actor Barry Pepper, Alex just lacks a strong personality or character arch befitting the narrative. I know video game protagonists tend to serve as ciphers for the player to imagine themselves as rather than a person to empathize with. Yet even in a crowded field of grouchy white men starring in 2009 AAA video games, Alex Mercer is bland to a fault. I couldn't even tell you how his story ends without looking it up first, officially making Alex less memorable than the nameless mute who starred in GTAIII.

[PROTOTYPE] moved enough copies to warrant a sequel in 2012, [PROTOTYPE2], which turns Alex into a villain for a new hero to topple in order to save New York from utter destruction. [PROTOTYPE2] also sold well, topping the US charts for April that year, but by publisher Activision's standards, "it did not find a broad commercial audience." This meant no more [PROTOTYPE] games and no more Radical Entertainment, a frustrating and all-too familiar sequence of events in the industry even today. Both games remain available on digital storefronts for modern consoles and Steam, generating profit for Activision, but the men and women who turned New York into a sandbox not once but twice see none of that money. Alex Mercer might be a bore, but he's clearly not the real monster of the franchise.

Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but xer work and opinions exist across the internet.