Imagine waking up with no idea who you are or where you came from. Then, you discover you're the most powerful human on earth, caught in a three-way war between yourself, the military and mutated creatures who've taken up residence in New York City (as opposed to NYC's current crop of real-life mutants).

That's the basic plot behind Sierra's new free-roaming action game, starring Alex Mercer, a shape-shifter and failed military experiment known as The Prototype. The military, not one to air its dirty laundry in public, wants Mercer taken out of the picture. So they send out the big guns to take down a seemingly normal guy wandering around Manhattan in sneakers and a hoodie.

When the action gets heated, Mercer's special powers come in handy. He can transform his hands into razor-sharp spikes and gore enemies with the dexterity of a kenjutsu master. He can also pull off surprise attacks by jamming his spikes into the ground and have them pop up underneath troops, cars and tanks in hot pursuit. When the battles get tough, Mercer can grow an exoskeleton and ram through cars, tanks and oversized enemies.

He can also take the path of least resistance and assume other people's identities. The transformation isn't pretty -- he kills his target and then sucks up their entire body -- which adds to his density (which we assume plays an important role in his powers) but also allows him slip into some new skin. Ideally, he could use the new identity to escape harried situations, but in a recent demo of the game the new face didn't seem to make much difference -- the enemies knew their target and were ready to take him down regardless of whose skin he was in.

Continue...