Finishing the main story doesn't take very long. Similar to other open world action games, much of the player's time is taken up with exploration and completing challenges. Challenges make full use of Mercer's abilities and range from racing across rooftops to collect items, to killing as many marked targets as possible within a time limit. One of our favorites is the War scenario, where we had to kill the enemies of an opposing side before they could wipe out allied forces. Players can also happen upon randomly generated targets across the city, generally described as scientists or soldiers that are somehow linked to the virus or the conspiracy behind it. Consuming marked targets will unlock memories within the Web of Intrigue, revealing of small piece of the story of virus's creation, its spread and the military's response. However, these targets usually end up being citizens that run around the city in a blind panic, and they often end up getting killed in the crossfire or run over by a car before you can get close to them. Once this happens enough times, picking up these bits of intrigue become more of a hassle than they're worth.

Much of the game is spent in chaos. Every inch of the street is covered with civilians, cars, infected and military, so it's very easy to accidentally hit or pick up the wrong target. The target locking system helps to a certain extent, but the problem with it is that it does identify what you're locked in on. So, you think you're shooting at one thing but you're really hitting something next to it. At the same time, the crowded streets can throw off the target switching, which can be a pain when you're racing against the clock. It's also hard to tell where incoming fire is coming from when you decide to make a run for it. Yet, the game performs relatively well with high settings despite having so many things on the screen at once. The game suffered a few significant slow downs during scenes with heavy smoke, and the sound came out soft despite setting the game to max volume, but we generally saw good performance overall. As a quick note, although an effort was made to map the controls to the keyboard and mouse, this is definitely a game best played with a gamepad. Especially since the game includes more than a few quicktime events.

Building up points and unlocking new abilities is great, except that there's really no point to the game once you're done getting them all and playing through the story. Without a doubt, Prototype is a great game to play on a bad day, since there are tons of abilities to play with and the game doesn't judge you for going on a destructive rampage across the city. Yet, even though the PC game has a Games for Windows Live logo on the box, it doesn't support the GFW service (or any other) for achievements. So, there's no sense in replaying challenges for the perfect score, since there's no way to share those accomplishments with anyone. Eventually, even the most spectacular maneuvers get old, and the game has a tough time holding our interest in the late phases. This is when the absurdity of seeing tons of people leisurely strolling through Central Park, while over 68% of the quarantined city is getting torn apart, really sets in.

Upon completing the game, players can replay the whole campaign with all powers unlocked, which is a nice idea but there isn't much incentive to do it. The plot is decent, but not so deep that it can't be adequately understood with one play through. Plus, Mercer's sociopathic drive to get revenge against everyone remotely related to his creation at all costs doesn't exactly make him the most likable or engaging character.

Prototype provides a fun romp through the street of New York, where players are free to leave a wake of destruction wherever they go. The game does an excellent job of giving players incredible powers and setting them loose. Yet, players might find themselves a little unsatisfied once the dust settles. There's little replay value to be found in the PC version, since there's no achievement tracking or anything to apply Evolution Points toward after completing the game. It might be worth loading up Prototype for a few minutes to relieve some stress, especially after being stuck in traffic, but the memories consumed here probably won't stick around for too long.