This will contain some game spoilers.
Which one do you like most?
I played Infamous first and followed this with Prototype - and I'm glad for the order of it, because I think Prototype is superior. The games are strikingly similar, though.
Infamous is the story of a hero who can wield electrical powers. The powers are great - though all related to lightning. You can upgrade your powers to a maximum of 3 levels above the base power, but I found that the upgrade made minimal differences to the end effect. Harnessing electrical energy is many forms is a lot of fun. You can zap people, or cars or even walls and water - with different effects. You have at least ten different powers, and you can enter a melee state too, which is also relatively powerful. In Prototype you can morph your body into different weapons such as claws, huge hammers, a whip, body armour or a blade. The devastation of this game cannot be emphasized enough. I must have killed a million people through the game. You can slice through tanks and walls, and you're close to indestructible. The upgrades are enormously powerful, and change your weapon quite significantly.
In both games you can explore a city from one side to the next. In Infamous you can climb just about anything, so long as you have something to grab on to. You can't die from any fall due to your abilities, but water does kill you and there are certain 'abyss' areas which lead to your death if you fall into them. In Prototype you run up buildings as surely as you run along the road - no skill is involved you just carry on running. You can't die from a fall here either, and water doesn't harm you. In Infamous when you are mortally wounded you can merely hide for a few moments and your health returns to full. In Prototype you must either wait in seclusion while your health slowly regenerates or you must violently consume any living person within reach. In both games you can glide, which allows a certain degree of flying.
Both games have goal missions and bonus missions to earn XP to upgrade your abilities. The goal missions in Infamous are fun and improve on the story, but I found the bonus missions to be repetitive. This is not an exaggeration - as you move to other bonus missions you start to realize that it is identical to a previous one. Winning a bonus mission earns you points as long as you finish it, whereas Prototype delivers points based on the speed at which you finished it. I found the bonus missions in Prototype to be much harder than in Infamous.
In Prototype you have access to the whole city instantly, and can go anywhere, whereas in Infamous you are exposed to different areas separated by bridges as the story progresses. In Prototype you can make use of disguises, whereas in Infamous you cannot. Prototype provides no moral choices - you are an anti-hero slash villain, no matter how you look at it. In Infamous you can choose to be good or evil, and your alignment affects the population's response to you and the powers you have. Infamous has no cinematics, but rather some rather weak animations which hint at story progression - whereas Prototype had some great cinematics. Both games have a great story line. Infamous has a variety of bad guys to kill, and the bosses are all impressive and fun to play against. Prototype had monsters that will scare you as they get bigger, and the battles are epic. The scenery in Infamous is not as responsive as in Prototype. Prototype allows you to pick up cars or any loose object, whereas Infamous allows limited interactive scenery. Both games have great music. The graphics in both games are similarly impressive, but Prototype shows a carbon copy of New York which is a lot of fun to run through. Prototype is much more violent and dark than Infamous.
I've played both games twice. I found Prototype to be more enjoyable. You just can't beat a mean guy who is almost indestructible and can morph into the most harrowing weapons, who can cut through tanks, or throw cars at helicopters. Don't get me wrong - electricity is cool, and fun, but Prototype won by a long shot for me.
Hope this helps anyone who's trying to choose...
Wheel of Time board admin
Fan of Lanfear
Fan of Lanfear
Prototype vs Infamous
03/09/2009 05:14:33 PM
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I've thought about getting it when it goes on sale. Maybe on Steam.
03/09/2009 08:31:37 PM
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