[PROTOTYPE] or inFAMOUS?

As the mid-year gaming drought takes its course yet again its refreshing to see a few good titles come out this month in the form of Prototype and Infamous. If you have to choose only one game which one will it be?

First of all if you have only a 360 and no PS3 the decision has been made for you: Prototype, as Infamous is a PS3 exclusive. But if you have a PS3 (or both, like me) then you have to make a decision. The decision for me was also easy: I got both and you are welcome to do the same of course.

But which one is better? This is probably my first positive piece on this blog: Both games are freakin awesome sandbox games using cool super powers to cause devastation and give Jack Thompson a heart attack (just a side note: apparently he's appearing on an upcoming Penn & Teller: Bullshit, cant wait to hear Penn introduce him by saying "Then there's this asshole!")

So where was I? Oh yeah, both sandbox with cool powers. Infamous you posses supercharged electricity that you zap enemies with, Emperor Palpatine style. Where in Prototype you possess mutating abilities to turn your arms and hands into giant hammers, blades, whips etc. Both allow you to upgrade your powers with XP to create some cool weapons like arc lightning in Infamous or the really cool looking devastator attacks in Prototype

Both games take place in New York ala GTA. Like GTA, in Infamous they rename it to Empire City where as in Prototype it takes place in Manhattan and don't bother to hide it. Getting around in Prototype is easy because you can run up walls, jump really high and glide whereas Infamous its not so quick and easy.

Prototype mostly behaves like your typical 3D action game like Assassins Creed or Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (the latter was developed by the same guys) while Infamous, combat is mostly 3rd Person Shooter style, resembling GTA more with cover systems and everything else except the guns.

Prototype is the grittier of the two

Combat is the key to both games, I find it amusing that the enemies in Infamous are a lot smarter than the ones in Prototype. The former are supposed to be junkies while the latter are meant to be a highly trained military force. Enemies in Infamous will get you on almost every shot, but for what Prototype lacks in AI it makes up for in numbers. In Prototype there is a constant war between infected and the military and you are a 3rd side in this war, its pretty chaotic, while the junkies in Infamous are more organised and are fixed on you. In Prototype you can also disguise as key military personnel by absorbing them and inheriting their memories and health.

Both games tell good stories and have a comic book superhero vibe about it. In Infamous you don't need to be the hero, the morality system is present in this game, but to get the best upgrades you need to be all good or all evil which rewards consistency. Prototype you don't really know if your good or evil, Alex has no memories and learns more about himself the more he absorbs people that know him and the rest is a revenge plot.

Freakin lightning bolts!

The biggest difference where I go back to is how the combat plays out, weather Assassins Creed style or Uncharted style. Depends on your own personal tastes really.

Personally I found Prototype to be the one I had more fun playing but there also may be a bias considering how long I have been waiting for it while Infamous sort of surprised me out of nowhere (which was pleasant and refreshing). I would have thought though if I was going to have a bias it would be towards Infamous because Prototype was published by Activision and I hate Activision (future post about why) and its a shame that I didn't wait to buy it second hand so Activision wouldn't see a cent out of me... ah well there's always Modern Warfare 2.