Xbox News Guide

The story of the Xbox video game Prototype starts rather murky and continues to be so for most of the game. The player sees the world through the eyes of Alex Mercer, who has somehow acquired superhuman powers and awakened to a world that seems to have gone mad.

Mercer himself discovers that he has the ability to shapeshift and to absorb powers from the people around him. His shapeshifting powers can enhance his combat abilities, his ability to defend himself and his ability to sense things and due to the multiple ways that conflicts can be overcome, it gives players different ways to attain their objectives.

The main game itself is made up of thirty-one missions that will range from your basic seek and destroy missions to infiltrations of militaristic organizations to learn more information. The game play is fairly aggressive and the response to Mercer is often instantaneous and even something as simple as running through the city (or gliding, as you can unlock later in the game) can alert the Strike Teams, who are on the lookout for Mercer. Mercer’s powers can be evolved and enhanced through the completion of side missions and new moves are a terrific incentive to keep players going through the more frustrating parts of this game.

At first glance, Mercer seems indestructible; falls don’t hurt and there is nothing that can’t be leaped over or run around. Combat is going to get more complicated, though and this has been the source of accusations of clumsy and clunky game play. With all the moves that the character can learn, remembering how to trigger certain combat combinations is not always easy. That being said, the combat in Prototype is still a great deal of fun, if only because of the variety of combat modes and shapes that Mercer can take.

Playing Prototype is something that any dedicated gamer should at least try, and as one of the more interesting sandbox style games that have hit the market recently, it has certainly made its mark.

One of the places that the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare scores consistently well is with its graphics. Even its harshest critics have declared the visuals to be nothing short of stunning and impressively realistic. There is an impressive amount of attention to detail in the graphics and every bit of this intense game is given the same loving attention.

At times, the visuals that are provided with Call of Duty 4 are almost distractingly realistic, but this is the price to be paid for good rendering. As with the previous games, CoD4 has impressive sound effects, and the quality of being completely immersed in the setting is very strong.

As with previous Call of Duty games, there is a terrific arsenal of weapons that are available to the players. Some of the weapons that you can find or loot off of dead squad members or enemies include the P90, the MP5, the M249 and of course the ubiquitous AK-47. At the start, you begin with the M4 and the G36C.

Of course, one of the most eagerly anticipated aspects of Call of Duty 4 was the multiplayer mode, which can support up to18 players over Xbox live. There are sixteen maps that can be played on right out of the box with plenty of different game-types that can appeal to a wide variety of gamers. There is the Hardcore mode of play where one shot equals a fatality, compared to Old School mode, where there is a lot more jumping and video game physics.

Call of Duty 4 has topped the list of popular video games for years, which speaks to its impressive playability and the astounding way that its visual and emotional world engages the player at an emotional and viseral level. This game has shown itself to be a true winner.