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''[[The Thing (Film)|The Thing]]'' [[X Meets Y|meets]] ''[[Kirby]]'' meets ''[[The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction]]'' meets ''[[Crackdown]]''. [[Gorn|Put inside a blender]] and [[I'm a Humanitarian|made sure it]] ''[[Memetic Mutation|swirls]]''.
''Prototype'' is an open world sandbox game developed by Activision and Radical Entertainment (Not to be confused with Free Radical Design) released in June 2009. The game stars Alex Mercer, a [[Easy Amnesia|man with no memories]] and a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|large chip on his shoulder]] who [[Waking Up At the Morgue|wakes up at the morgue]] as a [[Voluntary Shapeshifter]] with the ability to [[I'm a Humanitarian|absorb anyone he comes into contact with]]
But '''never''' [[Dueling Games|confuse it]] with ''[[In Famous (Video Game)|In Famous]]''
As often seen those days, ''Prototype'' spans multiple media. Much like ''[[Gears of War]]'' and ''[[Halo]]'', the backstory of some characters along with some events unseen in the game are explored in the six-parter ''Prototype'' comic book published by ''Wildstorm''.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Action Commands]]: You need these to sabotage stationary virus detectors, hijack stuff, and counter [[Super Soldier
* [[Alpha Strike]]: The player can do this by first dropping artillery from a high point, then dropping Alex as artillery(read: Bulletdive Drop) just before the actual one finishes, then unleashing a devastator immediately after recovering. If the main threat isn't obliterated by then, it means trouble.
* [[Alternate History]]: Some [[Wild Mass Guessing|theorize]] this, as there is a place that LOOKS like Ground Zero, but only one tower is missing. However, Hope, Idaho, is a real, {{spoiler|non-nuked}} town, so this does still fit here.
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* [[Attack Backfire]]: If Specialist Cross isn't trying to blow you up, it is a bad idea to use the Whipfist on him. That cattle prod of his will make you regret it.
* [[Attack Reflector]]: Although almost randomly, the Shield power will nevertheless deflect small arms bullets from the front. If you're close enough, it'll take out the shooter.
* [[Aura Vision]]: Two
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Several of Alex's higher-end moves.
** The king is the Bullet Drop. It's the most expensive move in the game, and the most useless except when you're having fun. It consists of (preferably) going as high as possible, gliding over the target, then dropping like a bunker buster missile. It releases a giant shockwave and will kill damn near anything save bosses. Stack Musclemass on top of that and you get a truly devastating combo. It is easily Alex's single most powerful move. However, it has several drawbacks. First, it takes a lot of time to set up. Second, you have to eyeball your target to get a good hit, though the power of this move is such that even a minor miss will kill the target. Third, because of the setup time, the only things this move will ever reliably hit are tanks, buildings, and one boss. The cost is also so prohibitively large that you can't even manage to pay for it without grinding.
** The Groundspike special attack of the Claw power. It's fairly powerful and has near-perfect accuracy. However, it has a very limited range (around the length of four cars) and a huge cool-down time. At maximum distance, it takes about a couple seconds for the attack to hit, and slightly shorter for Alex to retract the spikes, during which he is completely immobilized. Expect your enemies to capitalize on this. The net result is that using this attack will likely be more damaging to you than to your
* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: The Muscle Mass power, full stop. It doubles (initially) the power of all your attacks and special moves, save for Devastators. Once you get it upgraded, you will tear through helicopters, Hunters, and Super Soldiers like a man possessed, despite further violating several of the already-violated laws of physics in-game.
** Armored fighting vehicles and/or helicopters are the best way to deal out heavy damage, rather than relying on your extensive array of awesome powers. This is especially true when attacking buildings. Only the Groundspike Graveyard is more effective, and that eats up Critical Mass health.
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* [[Button Mashing]]: The description for the Air Combo clearly states to press the primary attack thrice ''right after'' giving something or someone the Uppercut Launcher. Due to the animation and brief slow motion delay, it's just better to mash the attack key until the combo goes through. An additional unlock called the Spike Driver acts as an extra finisher move to knock the target back down to the ground.
** Claws are fast enough to just keep tapping the attack button in the midst of elite zombies and below.
** This is usually the reliable way to get [[Super Soldier
** It is the most effective way to ensure that you successfully hijack a vehicle overtly, as you run the risk of being blown off very quickly once the hijack sequence starts in the middle of other hostile vehicles.
** One of the available ways to handle a particular boss twice in the game whenever you damage him enough over a short period.
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** You even get an achievement for it.
* [[Character Development]]: The protagonist slowly becomes more heroic throughout the game. He starts out as a monster on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], but by the end {{spoiler|he's putting himself at great risk to save the city from a nuke}}.
* [[Charge Meter]] & [[Charged Attack]]: Most moves can be charged for greater effect, even non-offensive ones. Charging certain attacks to the max is required to perform [[Limit Break
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|Greene's enigmatic "I am your mother" before she took off is actually a tip to tell you that the Alex you're playing as isn't the real Alex Mercer.}}
** Whenever Alex consumes a Web of Intrigue target, he'll suddenly fall to his knees and grasp his head in pain. {{spoiler|1=Captain Cross will invoke this weakness in order to inject you with the parasite, and one of the Web of Intrigue videos you can unlock prior to the battle has McMullen note this weakness.}}
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* [[Die, Chair, Die!]]: Tables, sofas, and refrigerators, too. Practically anything that can't be destroyed can still be pretty well trashed. There are fair few objects that can't be interacted with at all.
* [[Disconnected Side Area]]: The USS Reagan appears fairly early in the game. Attempts to reach it are met with '''[[Drop in Nemesis|very lethal]]''' force until {{spoiler|you reach the last mission}}.
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: Oh, so very, ''very'' much when {{spoiler|the real Alex Mercer released the Blacklight virus into Penn Station}}, which was full of innocent people, and quite possibly doomed all of Manhattan or ''worse''
** Blackwatch's general response to ''anything''. In fact, sometimes they will kill you just for <s>shits and giggles</s> existing.
** What Alex does to most of his victims. Except for maybe {{spoiler|Randall and Taggart}}. Some people would argue that what happened there was more along the lines of [[Karmic Death]] in action.
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* [[Every Bullet Is a Tracer]]: Every fired munition is made to look visible. Bullets, grenades from grenade launchers, tank shells even...
* [[Every Car Is a Pinto]]: After a few hits, any vehicle will first burst into flames, and if hit again, explode spectacularly, even if all you were doing was smashing the roof. However, a realistic reaction [[Rule of Fun|wouldn't be as fun]], especially when using cars as projectile weapons.
* [[Evil Counterpart]]: The Supreme Hunter. It shares some of Alex's attacks, such as the groundspikes and tendril barrage. {{spoiler|And it can shapeshift.}} For that matter, the [[Super Soldier
* [[Evil Is Easy]]: The game actively encourages you to eat people, since your health won't regenerate fully on its own. Couple that with the rather abundant supply of civilians in the early game, and it is very tempting to chow down on them rather than grabbing acceptable targets. Granted, eating a civilian costs you your military disguise, which any casual player will probably keep on hand, but that is trivially easy to get back. By the mid- to late-game, though, there are enough Infected/Military zones that eating civilians isn't worth the time, since they provide the least health of any consumable target.
* [[Evil Matriarch]]: Elizabeth Greene. {{spoiler|Granted, she does have a tragic backstory. But considering how she vents after being freed... damn...}}
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* [[Genre Savvy]], {{spoiler|[[Better to Die Than Be Killed]]}}: {{spoiler|1=McMullen knows that Alex can [[Brain Food|consume him for information]] only if his brain is intact, so he shoots himself in the head.}}
* [[Glass Cannon]]: Military forces can't take much punishment from Alex (even tanks and helicopters are destroyed pretty quickly if you use the right powers), but they can deal a lot of hurt before going down, especially on Hard mode. They don't do jack against {{spoiler|the Supreme Hunter, though}}.
* [[Godzilla Threshold]]: By the time you {{spoiler|kill Elizabeth Greene}}, 80% of the city is infected. As such, the state of the city is SO far around the apocalyptic bend that the ostensible cherry on Blackwatch's villainy sundae -- {{spoiler|nuking Manhattan}}
* [[Gone Horribly Right]]: Apparently, in addition to trying to find cures for the various strains of Redlight, certain members of Gentek ({{spoiler|including Alex Mercer}}) were, for some odd reason, tasked with making the virus ''even more'' dangerous than it already was. Three weeks and millions of corpses later, they succeeded in that venture.
* [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]: The original Redlight virus was supposed to {{spoiler|affect and kill people with certain ethnic backgrounds}}. During its trial run, however, it simply laid low for a while and then turned ''everyone'' into ravening monstrosities. Including, apparently, local wildlife.
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* [[Instant Death Radius]]: Captain Cross and the Supreme Hunter have ridiculous melee skills, and it's generally a bad idea to try and go toe to toe with them. With Cross, he'll start swinging around a cattle prod like crazy trying to hit you, and he will succeed. The Supreme Hunter will knock off half your health if it can hit you, but it pauses between attacks. Inverted with tanks, where you ''want'' to get real close. With a few exceptions, most things that get within melee range of Alex tend to die fast.
* [[Instant Expert]]: As a neat side effect of Mercer's memory absorption ability, if you want to pilot or operate advanced military technology, all you need to do is find someone who does, and [[I'm a Humanitarian|consume them]].
* [[Interface Screw]]: The game says that the auto-targeting system will automatically choose the most relevant or dangerous threat, and won't target non-combatants when enemies are in the area. The game is lying on both counts. If Alex is faced with a tank, a building the mission wants you to destroy, {{spoiler|a giant blob of Infected flesh throwing rocks at you}}, or a basic common infected, the auto-target will sometimes randomly choose the basic
* [[Interface Spoiler]]: The powers menu spoils the number (and distribution) of powers.
* [[It Got Worse]]: The first Hunter fight.
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* [[Jerkass]]: Alex Mercer himself. {{spoiler|The human Mercer tops it}}.
* [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]: Almost literally. To actually understand the plot, you have to piece together bits of it on the "Web of Intrigue." Unsurprisingly, you gain these pieces by [[I'm a Humanitarian|consuming people]].
* [[Kamehame Hadoken]]: Alex can do an imitation of this, wherein he thrusts his arms forward and releases a blast of pressurized air straight forward that will kill any human-sized thing nearby. One of his [[Limit Break
* [[Kill and Replace]]: Alex does this all the time {{spoiler|and technically, that the Blacklight virus is Alex at all could be an example}}. Also, {{spoiler|the Supreme Hunter to Cross}}.
* [[Knight Templar Big Brother]]: Alex to Dana. Subverted in that {{spoiler|the real Alex Mercer apparently didn't give much of a damn about her}}.
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** Another one looks like Ellen DeGeneres.
* [[Lead the Target]]: This is done automatically for non-homing weapon projectiles on a targeted entity. The AI does the same as well.
* [[Le Parkour]]: Alex Mercer is basically what every ''traceur'' dreams of being. He can run at speeds in excess of 40
* [[Lightning Bruiser]]: Alex is insanely fast, durable, and powerful. Even with the armor power, which slows him down (but also increases durability), he's fast enough to run up walls. Hunters and Super Soldiers are also both fast and strong too.
* [[Limit Break]]: They're called Devastators.
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* [[Neck Snap]]: The upgraded Stealth Consume uses this.
* [[New Game+]]: Go ahead. [[I'm a Humanitarian|Eat New York]].
* [[New Powers As the Plot Demands]]: Alex's new powers can appear regardless of the [[RPG Elements]] of the game. Some that aren't forced on him during the mission have remarkably accessible
** The game won't let you start some of the earlier missions if you don't have certain abilities bought yet. Which doesn't mean you will have to use them, like the fist shockwave thing.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Near the beginning of the game, Alex frees [[Sealed Evil in A Can]] [[Big Bad|Elizabeth Greene]], turning what had previously been a minor, controlled outbreak into the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. To be fair to Alex, though, it's made perfectly clear that they had already lost containment (all the guards are dead, the room is filled with infected biomass, and Greene's cell is open), and moreover it's suggested in the strategy guide that Greene could have escaped whenever she wanted. [[Person of Mass Destruction|They couldn't contain Alex, they can't contain her]].
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* [[One-Hit Polykill]]: The special attack for Whipfist can pierce anything non-environment up to its intended target and damage anything along the way. Since the appendage retracts, the bladed end will also continue to damage anything on its way back to Mercer. Most human-class enemies succumb quickly to this, resulting in a [[Perfectly Cromulent Word|gibtacular]] display.
* [[One-Man Army]]: Mercer.
* [[One-Winged Angel]]: {{spoiler|Elizabeth Greene}} has one. In a partial subversion, it isn't {{spoiler|her}} true
* [[Out of the Inferno]]: The first run-in with Hunters concludes with a base burning down... and Alex standing unscathed in the ruins.
* [[Outrun the Fireball]]: At the end of the story, {{spoiler|Mercer fails to outrun a nuclear blast, but this allows him to demonstrate his [[Nigh Invulnerable|Nigh Invulnerability]] by rebuilding himself [[From a Single Cell]].}} In-game, you'll probably find yourself going "ohshitohshitohshitohshit..." as you attempt to outrun the fireballs {{spoiler|Elizabeth Greene's [[One-Winged Angel]] form}} spits out whenever you get too close for too long.
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** Blackwatch in general. There's the odd exception, but on the whole, they're presented as a [[Ax Crazy|totally psychotic]] and completely monstrous [[State Sec|black ops]] [[Armies Are Evil|operation]], headed by [[General Ripper|an extremist general]] whose [[Number Two|second-in-command]] is a [[Ambition Is Evil|power-hungry]] [[Dirty Coward|coward]].
* [[Punch Catch]]: The method by which Super Soldiers counter your button-mashing attacks while they're in blocking stance.
* [[Punch Clock Villain
* [[Punched Across the Room]]: Certain normal melee attacks do this when charged up. The snapkick power can kick someone across a city block. Add base Musclemass, however, and charged attacks more or less dissolve what they hit. Upgrading it makes ''every'' Musclemass attack turn people into mush.
* [[Quest for Identity]]: Alex's original goal. When he finds the truth, [[Foregone Conclusion|he doesn't like it]].
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* [[Rated "M" for Manly]]
* [[Reading Your Rights]]: "You have the right to be ventilated. I have the right to burn your home and [[Kick the Dog|shoot your dog]]. Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you?"
* [[Real Is Brown]]: Largely played
* [[Recovery Attack]]: Hunters and Super Soldiers have a small knockback radius around them when they get up from being knocked down. Does little damage but it does knock Alex back quite a bit.
* [[Red Right Hand]]: Depending on the powers you have active, your arms can range from giant freaking claws, to cudgels, to a tentacle. This is kinda
* [[Redshirt Army]]: Every army that isn't you... But special mention goes to the Marines, since they were set up by Blackwatch to take the blame for the damage the virus has done (and what Blackwatch plans to do to cover it up).
* [[Red Sky, Take Warning]]: The area around infected Hive buildings. Fly high enough and it's more like Red Sphere Take Warning.
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* [[Too Soon]]: This game was clear evidence that invoking this trope in regards to 9/11 is now a [[Dead Horse Trope]].
* [[Transformation Sequence]]: By holding down a quick-change arrow on the D-Pad, instead of the claws or whatever just appearing, you get a fairly cool sequence for them. [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|Even for the Vision powers.]]
* [[Unfinished Untested Used Anyway]]: General Randall insisting on the deployment of [[Super Soldier
{{quote| '''Peter Randall:''' "What's the word on the new round of test subjects?"<br />
'''William Demeza:''' "Sir, they're testing off the charts. No ill effects at present. No evidence of the unmodified virus!"<br />
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* [[Whip It Good]] / [[Whip Sword]]: The Whipfist. Though not an actual sword, but slices up things as viciously as the Claw or Blade power would.
* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: Inverted, but also played straight, possibly. Mercer tells Dana how the memories of everyone he [[I'm a Humanitarian|eats]] are swirling inside his head, and by the end of the game, you will likely have consumed a third of your total kill count. That cannot be easy to deal with. However, rather than driving him crazy, which he already was to be eating people regularly, he actually gets more heroic as the plot moves forward.
** However, at the part where you're eating people to hone your Infected Vision, when your progress gets to about 80%, Alex suddenly flips out and groans "So many minds at work... All talking, all dying..."
* [[Wolverine Claws]]: [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|The Claw power]].
* [[The Worf Barrage]]: A double subversion in the intro cutscene where the grenade-shrugging Alex appears to have been finally defeated by a larger explosive ordnance ie. a rocket. The trooper who took the shot proceeds to help a nearby surviving Blackwatch officer, who then reveals himself to be Alex [[Impaled With Extreme Prejudice|to deadly effect on the trooper]].
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[[Category:Action Adventure]]
[[Category:Xbox 360]]
[[Category:Third
[[Category:Play Station 3]]
[[Category:Wide Open Sandbox]]
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