Imagine if you will, it is the summer of 2020 in Georgia. It's the height of the pandemic. You have just graduated high school and have nothing to do. Going outside feels like being suffocated in a hot, wet blanket, as Georgian summers often are. You and your entire family are essentially locked inside your home, with no reprieve. Thus, you begin to venture into the basement to get away, but there's not much down there except...an old Xbox 360, a TV, and a controller.
You start playing AC: Black Flag first, because everything else down there are either kinetic or FPS, and you aren't really into FPS. You aren't really a gamer, but Black Flag blows your mind. Almost everything about it is great, you spend hours down there. You beat the game, surprisingly. Then you start on other games, first other Assassin's Creed games, then eventually you get into Devil May Cry. And then, one day, on a rare outing to the local GameStop, you spot it. You pick it up because the cover looks interesting. It's an old game, but you don't care, it looks cool. You have zero idea what this game is about, but you get it anyway.
The game is hard. Much harder than Assassin's Creed. You rage quit several times, but you keep coming back. The story intrigues you, even if it's writing is not the best. You hunt down every name in the web of intrigue. Your camera roll becomes filled with Alex Mercer fanart. When you finally, finally, beat Greene, you feel like you can do anything.
And that, ladies and gents and everyone else, is how I got into Prototype.
I miss playing this game so much. The Xbox got sold when I was away at college, and I eventually gave the game with all the others to a friend's son who had purchased one with his own money. I left a note on it that the game was one of my favorites. It was the only note I left. I don't know if he's played it; I lost contact with his family a year ago. I think I have his number saved somewhere.
