Prototype (video game)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Ascended Meme: Conventions like New York Comic Con / Anime Fest that have Prototype booths set up allow fans to have their picture taken karate kicking (among other things) a helicopter.
    • In Prototype 2, the Penny Arcade comic showing Mercer karate-kicking a helicopter is used as the decal for an achievement involving karate-kicking a helicopter.
  • Catharsis Factor: For one thing, after picking up a human-class entity, the only usual options are to either hurl them or eat them.
    • The statistics page in the game tells you roughly how much you've vented to date.
  • Complete Monster: You. Granted, it's completely unavoidable. Likewise, the real Alex Mercer. He's the one responsible for the outbreak. To go further, on the Web of Intrigue, the guy bragging about making Blacklight ten times more deadly is Alex himself, who defends it by saying it was okay since he wasn't going to be the one using it.
    • YMMV on whether or not Blacklight-Alex really is a Complete Monster. He does start out as a sociopath, but once you find out the Awful Truth, is that really his fault? The only base Blacklight had was the original Alex Mercer's personality, and he was definitely a Complete Monster. However, Blacklight-Alex immediately cares about Dana, and the further he progresses, the more he becomes his own 'person' (so to speak) and moves further and further away from the original Alex Mercer. By the end, Blacklight-Alex has changed from Complete Monster to at least Sociopathic Hero, possibly even a Type IV Anti-Hero. You can't really blame him for starting out as totally amoral. It's literally a case of Not Himself; he didn't have a self at that time.
    • Hell, Blacklight!Alex, as portrayed in the Wildstorm comic might even be a type III; he goes out of his way to save 2 police officers trapped in an infected zone, and is extremely reluctant to harm an innocent, to the point where he only kills one innocent person (to get a disguise he desperately, desperately needs). General Randall even admits that Mercer "has a little hero in him."
    • If you keep up on the Web of Intrigue, McMullen and the others behind Hope, Idaho also count.
    • Blackwatch are an entire regiment of Complete Monsters. While they appear to be little more than scary supersoldiers at first, their truly evil nature comes to light in the Web of Intrigue. One relatively minor example is a Marine talking about how they leveled a building still containing survivors. When a screaming, burning woman walked out of the building, the soldiers merely laughed and shot her.
    • Even evident in the opening cinematic; Blackwatch soldiers kill zombies chasing a distressed woman, before turning the gun on her for no reason.
    • There's a Blackwatch pilot who giggles about the time he had fun shooting down a civilian airliner.
      • And their original purpose was to make viruses to kill ethnic minorities.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Oddly enough, despite the fact that the ground pounders are, frankly, pshycotic, the higher ups seem to genuinely have valid reasons for doing what they do. If the virus gets out, the human race will die. Hope Idaho was a delibrate test bed sure, but they did have a good point; they needed to know what it did. Even the final nuking of Manhattan was only done because one of the officers disobeyed orders and gave the evac order, which led directly to the collapse of military operations.
  • Crazy Awesome: Almost everything you can do in this game. Kick a helicopter to death, throw a car at it, throw another helicopter you just shot down at it, throw people at it... the possibilities are endless.
  • Creepy Sexy: Greene. She is pretty much equal parts really gross and strangely hot. One the one hand, she's certainly pretty, rather shapely, and the art director did deliberately design her clothing to be evocative of fetish outfits. On the other hand, she's The Virus, and it's visible; she oozes...stuff from every facial orifice, is perpetually covered in dried blood and pus, still has a shaven head from cranial surgery of some sort, speaks with the Voice of the Legion in cryptic statements, and has odd, stiff movements that definitely don't look human.
    • By extension, Alex also fits this trope. At least from what I hear from Fangirls.
  • Demonic Spiders: Leader Hunters and Supersoldiers.
  • Fandom Rivalry: There's only Prototype OR In Famous -- apparently, you're NOT allowed to like both.
  • Foe Yay: There's a disturbing amount of this between Mercer and Greene. Not to mention that the Supreme Hunter is effectively created in a metaphorical birthing scene after a metaphorical sexual moment between Mercer and Greene. And given the protagonist's true nature, it could probably be seen as Parental Incest as well.
  • Game Breaker: The Air Slash move using the Blade. On every difficulty but Hard, it can one-shot Hunters, Supersoldiers, any kind of tank, and even helicopters if you can manage to get above them. Leader Hunters go down in two. Double those figures on Hard. It tracks almost perfectly over significant distances, too. The only down side is the recovery time, which is small but noticeable.
    • And the charge-up time gives your enemies plenty of time to shoot missiles or tank rounds at you, interrupting the attack and sending you to the ground. As long as you have a clear shot it's a Game Breaker; the more heavy weapons fire you're taking, the more it leans towards Awesome but Impractical.
    • Any blade attack in general does significant damage. A couple of normal attacks with the blade will blow up tanks, without needing the charge up time for maximum effectiveness of any of the special attacks. Put on your armor and whip out your blade and you can slice your way through just about anything.
  • Goddamned Bats: A number of things.
    • First, those damn virus detectors. Their high-pitched whine and very short sabotage period render them almost too much of a hassle to deal with, and they'll be in every army base a few missions after you learn they exist. Worse yet, they get more numerous as you progress, making it near-impossible to shut them all down without getting caught. UAV versions show up, too, which can detect you almost twice as fast and follow you even if you leave scanning range.
    • Next is the helicopter Strike Teams, which are completely relentless. As you get stronger, they come in larger groups, and they eventually come with UAVs to detect you if you try to go sneaky. There can potentially be as many as four helicopters escorting five UAVs in the late-game. Even though they have to be called in by the military, the officers will do this within thirty seconds to a minute after you start a fight, and the window to kill the guy calling in the Strike Team is only a few seconds. What's worse, said guy can potentially be a tank. Thankfully, they're not terribly hard to kill, and it's even easier when you can skyjack the strike helicopters.
    • Third, there's the mid-level Infected civilians you usually fight during missions and events. Normally they're not so bad, just being about twice as tough as a regular Infected civilian and very fast. However, play during one of the events where you have to use a grenade launcher, and they are frustrating as hell. They run around like they're on a permanent sugar high and will constantly run right in front of you just as you fire your weapon, resulting in you blasting yourself onto your back over and over.
    • In New Game+ mode, it doesn't matter where you are - there are a couple of tanks on blow-up-Infected duty right around the corner and they always decide to turn down the street you're on. "Look dude, I was doing just fine cleaning up the Infected on this street all by myself. Why don't you try Lexington Avenue; I hear they're pretty thick over there."
  • Gorn: Anything that can be dismembered or turned into salsa will contribute to this.
  • Guide Dang It: The Web of Intrigue. Only about half the targets you need to consume will be easy to find, and you'll likely find them by accident or by consuming military targets. The rest only spawn in certain areas (even if the Infected have taken said areas over), and only if you've consumed the previous ones in the chain. As you fill out the Web, tracking them down becomes even harder. Worse still, they can be killed, and won't respawn for several minutes. You also have to be pretty close to ground level to get them to spawn in the first place, so a flyover with a helicopter will only work if you practically skim the pavement.
  • Large Ham: Alex really takes the long pork during his chase of Taggart.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Alex Mercer, both for his work in making the Blacklight virus, which was nasty enough before he got there, TEN TIMES as lethal as before. Also for unleashing it when cornered by Black Watch after he stole a sample. The player themselves can gleefully slaughter anyone they please, though civilians don't net you any EP unless they're infected. As well as Blackwatch infecting Hope, Idaho for no better reason than to test out the virus on people. Even the virus itself is disgusted by the actions of Alex Mercer and the higher-ups of Blackwatch.
  • Narm: "Taggart! You suicidal moron!"
    • Really, every all-caps line from Alex during that mission.
    • Very, very well summarised in this Youtube Video.
  • Player Punch: Congratulations! You're The Virus! As an added bonus, even though you're a deadly virus specifically designed to kill people on a massive scale, you're a better person than the original Alex Mercer!
  • That One Attack: The Tendril Barrage. Not yours, but courtesy of...
  • That One Boss: The second battle with the Supreme Hunter, aboard the Reagan. It wouldn't be so bad (big guy throws out an attack you can dodge, then hit him while he's recovering), except he's constantly getting shot at by aircraft, helicopters, and rocket-toting soldiers. This does next to nothing to him. But if you try to attack while a missile hits, you'll get knocked back and a decent chunk of health is knocked off. Depending on your luck, it ranges from frustrating to inducing the paranoia that the boss and military are working together to piss you off. The time limit doesn't help either.
    • In hard mode, the fight gets even more annoying because That One Boss is constantly blocking many charged attacks and happily uses new abilities copied off you such as the ground spikes. Throwing stuff still works, though.
    • Hard difficulty makes every boss That One Boss. Even Cross, the very first boss, becomes a nightmare to fight, if only because the delay between firing and going into counter-mode is vastly shortened, his grenades have a much larger explosion radius, and he both reloads and fires a whole lot faster.
  • That One Level: The three levels where you're infected with the parasite. Imagine the level where you first meet the Hunters times three. The only thing good about the parasite section is that its end gives you slick armor and the blade.
  • That One Sidequest: Getting Platinum medals. For instance, on the "Raid" War Event, which requires a time of 1:25:00. For every other event, getting Platinum is mostly a matter of skill. Not here. You have to use a grenade launcher, so no powers, and there's 18 Hunters out of 36 enemies kill. Moreover, the spawns are woefully screwed up. The game will sometimes withhold new targets for as long as 15 seconds, and just to spite you, it will do this on the very last enemy. If that weren't bad enough, it is literally impossible to succeed on your own. You have to count on a tank spawning to help. Just like the enemy spawns, it is completely unreliable, and you'll be lucky if this thing even shows up until halfway through. Assuming it does, you have to hope Hunters are the only thing on-screen for it to shoot, that it doesn't get bogged down in traffic, and that the Hunters don't gank it on sight before you can get their attention. It's basically a Luck-Based Mission.
    • Kill: Street Sweeper is just as luck based, but also requires much more precise positioning of Alex, lest you not get the kills needed.
    • All of the movement events except for Free Running and Corners(if you know the trick((Double air dash in the streets while heading to the 2nd last and last checkpoints)). Precise movement is required, with an analog stick at that. In most cases, one small mistake will cost you, and there are plenty of opportunities for a mistake. The worst two offenders are Eaves Jumping and Rooftop Runner. In the former, it's mostly a simple path, except you must run and airdash along narrow rooftop, and moving Alex to the side for a moment, even while not airdashing can cost you. The latter requires several sharp turns, with the camera being not too cooperative in helping you aim as you turn.
    • Kill: Irony also, but only because it can be hard to survive it. Getting the points isn't so hard, especially if you use the method of hijacking and parking tanks
  • The Woobie: Dana. She's one of the few characters in game who isn't evil or insane, her first scene in the game is a Blackwatch goon threatening to kill her, and things get progressively worse for her from there.
  • Woobie Destroyer Of Manhattan: You can't help but feel bad for Blacklight-Alex a lot of the time. Surprise! You died. Surprise! You have no memory. Surprise! You unleashed a plague onto Manhattan. Surprise! YOU DID IT TWICE. (Although only the first time was intentional.) Surprise! You're not really you! Surprise! YOU ARE The Virus. Surprise! The original guy was a Complete Monster! Surprise! You have a conscience now! Surprise! That means you feel like shit about everything! Surprise! Your not-sister's been kidnapped! Surprise! The city's going to be nuked! The guy just can't catch a break. Granted, this is later subverted by that very same conscience, which makes Alex decide that he doesn't want to make all of the people who get in his way die a horrible death because of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge after all. Just certain people.
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