Prototype's continuity is set in New York. Well, it's set in "New York Zero," which is what the city has become after an apocalyptic biological disaster. Still, it's New York, home of some of the most famous athletic venues in the world.

The original Prototype, set entirely on Manhattan, featured a Madison Square Garden-style building, even if because of licensing restrictions, the game couldn't really describe it as such (though it did offer a landmark collectible.) MSG reappears in Prototype 2, scene of a late-game boss battle inside the "Red Zone," which is a thoroughly overrun Manhattan.

But Prototype 2 begins in other boroughs, one of them recognizably the Bronx. Naturally that meant a cameo by Yankee Stadium, and it too is the venue for a super-powered badass throwdown.

This is "Rosman Stadium," at least I think that is the facility's name, judging by the ruined sign I inspected before jumping in. I asked Radical how "Rosman Stadium" got its name, and the answer was quite simple. It's named for Ken Rosman, the head of the studio that made the game.

In the game, it has been converted into a staging ground for the Blackwatch corporation's "Project Orion". Here's a video of how you'll throwdown in the mission set there. The alternate future outcome for this so-called hallowed ground isn't so unbelievable to my mind. I have every faith those fascist Yankees are would salute and do the bidding of those authoritarian Blackwatch bastards.

Owen really liked Prototype 2's James Heller. I can see why.

[YouTube - Thanks, Tim!]

Because Prototype 2 is out this week, artists involved in the game are now able to share their work. One of those is Venezuelan César Rizo, who did a lot of environment pieces for the game.

Rizo has been a professional concept artist since 2005, and has worked with companies like Radical Entertainment and Relic.

You can see more of Rizo's work at his personal site.

In very few games have I truly inhabited the persona of a goddam-right-I-am badass, whose demonstrations of power were as personal as Prototype 2's. And it's not because I've imagined any of the superpowers you wield in this game, or how I'd perform with them. It's because of the very normal, very pissed-off man in charge of them.

He's a husband and a father and a black man. I'm an unmarried white dude with no kids. He can make physics-defying leaps from rooftops, transform his right arm into an enormous blade, or shapeshift into the image of his adversaries. I can drive a riding lawnmower and scoop the cat box. But James Heller's frustration in managing what has been imposed upon him—the mind-boggling destruction of a city, the death of loved ones, and even the bestowing of weird superpowers—is probably how I'd react to it, too.

Like Heller, I wouldn't give a damn who concocted what or why or spread it how—I'd want to put a stop to it all as simply as possible. And if the story of Prototype 2 is as frustrating to me as it is to Heller, then its all-out action is also just as satisfying. If you take the time to think about your foes, and especially your defenses, you can put together some truly eye-popping action sequences. There are far weaker selling points for a video game, of course.

The problem, though, is that Prototype 2 isn't that hard. Perfect example is the "bio-bomb," in which you inject some helpless stooge with time-bomb virus and then hurl him at whatever's bothering you. It's very entertaining but a little too powerful. Some long engagements and boss battles may not transition completely to rigid quicktime events—others will, no doubt—but they do carry a here-do-this-now style of direction that some may find off-putting. Especially in the mayhem of the Red Zone, shoved up against tall buildings and under their awnings, you will need the onscreen hints to keep track of what to do in this biological battle royale, as the camera always feels poorly positioned and a step behind the breakneck pacing.

Prototype 2 is a single-player only, open-world third-person action game, same as its predecessor. There isn't as much to do in its environment as I would prefer for the open-world genre, but what you do in it is comprehensively destructive. It's befitting of the work of a studio that used to make games about The Incredible Hulk (and whose history in so doing forms some of the intrigue behind Prototype's making, as well as the characters' abilities within it.) Sure, you can pick up a rocket launcher and bazooka a nettlesome gun emplacement, but it's a lot more fun to pick up a car and do that. The first game encouraged the creative use of power and the second extends the same invitation.

While I found Heller to be an interesting character, I'm not dwelling much on the game's continuity, probably because I came to it late. I didn't play the first Prototype when it released in 2009 and made myself acquainted with it only in preparation for this review. Suffice to say, the protagonist of the original, Alex Mercer, does quite a heel turn, though he was never a truly noble guy. A splendid indoctrination video available in the game's main menu, followed by the tutorial level, helps set the game's paranoid tone. Ultimately, though, the only thing you're really sure of is who you can't trust: and that would be the brainless mutants of New York Zero. Several impersonation missions and a few sequences before the game's climax left me wondering why Blackwatch, the corporation ostensibly responsible for this bioweapons disaster, was my adversary. The answer is basically that they're stupid, which is par for the villain course, I suppose.

Prototype was received as good-but-not-great, though it did provide some visceral thrills, and it becomes apparent about half a dozen missions in that Radical Entertainment is sticking to that formula. The open-ended action—the mayhem you create in the open world, not the set pieces—just feels like it was tuned to accommodate button spammers, of which I am one, admittedly. The fact a power upgrade will automatically equip was a little off-putting, and speaks to an optimization for more casual players. I solidified my impression of Prototype 2's difficulty when I picked a fight with a Blackwatch base in open-world play, slaughtered all of the ground personnel and they sent the attack helos after me. I just waited it out on a rooftop, redirecting the missiles back into the choppers with my shields trait. I took a few hits, but I was never seriously threatened in it, or in any alert situation, really. There are some difficulty spikes once you get to the red zone of Manhattan, but nothing fatal to your efforts.

Loads of gamers will want to jump into that kind of action, and it is fun, if not entirely challenging. I suppose the insane difficulty level you unlock after the first playthrough will deliver a more complete experience. But Prototype 2's real artistic asset is a remarkably well acted Heller. His lines could have easily been twisted into the kind of macho nihilism that makes antiheroic roles so cliché. Here, Cornell Womack—in a superb voice-acting job—communicates genuine unhappiness with the entire situation. Heller is pissed off that he has been forced to take responsibility for something he cannot understand, and that the only people he can truly trust are really powerless to change any of it.

Some may find Heller's swearing gratuitous. Thanks to Womack, who seems to care why Heller is spewing invective, I find it evocative of an interesting character. "Did I say I was a fuckin' hero, you piece of shit?" he snarls, convincingly. Because Heller doesn't want any of this. In a balletic boss fight atop Madison Square Garden against the real evil behind New York's devastation—not the Blackwatch goons, nor the mutant infected, but a combination—Heller dismisses his enemies with "Fuckin' pieces of shit." I've said exactly that many times at the end of a big video game battle. Either I understood his anger or he understood mine, but either way, the connection was made.

Acting is just one component of a narrative, though. Heller's digust will mirror your own as you try to drain the swampy tale of Prototype 2. Stories in the science-fiction conspiracy sub-genre all run the near-fatal risk of making everything a reversible lie. There is too much of that going on too early in Prototype 2 to make the game understandable, especially when juxtaposed with the game's relentless—and much more satisfying—action.

Yes, as everyone is well aware, there is a showdown with Mercer in this game. And if the runup to it and Heller's motivation comes straight from the instruction manual for a summer popcorn sequel, there is one sequence where another adversary's character change is well timed and enlightening. It told me something about both him and Heller. Prototype 2 may be a typical story, but it is not a mindless one.

The bottom line question for me in considering a video game is whether it is fun. Prototype 2 is, enough that I want to give the entire story another go around playing a little more expansively—picking up collectibles, grinding and ranking up Heller so I can see everything he has to offer, and competing in and completing the challenges and side missions offered by Radnet and Blacknet. It is fun being a badass, and I want to inhale that a little more deeply.

But outside of giving you a more admirable character, Prototype 2 doesn't do much that is different from its predecessor. It does a decent job of disguising a typical plot but, when everything is fully revealed, what you're left with is pure action. In the end, that's what makes it recommendable.

Here's something I didn't expect in Prototype 2: A human bowling minigame. That's the best way I can describe "Collateral Damage," one of the Radnet challenges that the game will be offering week-to-week, with character skins, experience points, powers and other goodies as the payout.

Radical Entertainment went with these Radnet games instead of online multiplayer, which developers felt would be little more than a tack-on feature inconsistent with the game's main design. Activision set Radnet aside as a launch-window exclusive in order to encourage early purchases of new copies. It doesn't cost anything extra, but Radnet-enabled Prototype 2 will only be on shelves for about seven weeks after the game's launch, which was today.

Here's Collateral Damage. There were two other challenges, one a check-point race, the other a combat goal (land six hits on a Brawler, a huge-ass mutant), but this one is the most interesting to look at, and for me turned into a surprising time-suck. It's an early attempt; I promise I did gold medal this thing, to which Heller gave a hearty "Hell fuckin' yeah!" It's not in this video but I swear he swears.

As the short menu introduction shows, completing all of these challenges will unlock a mutation, some XP, and a skin letting you play the game as Alex Mercer, as Evan Narcisse correctly guessed back in January. There will be four other groupings of challenges with their own payouts released to June 7, with downloadable content extensions on May 8 and May 29.

There is no gameplay in this Prototype 2 trailer, which went out late Friday. But there is some rather badass live action, explaining the backstory of protagonist James Heller. He is burning alive with the Blacklight virus—and his desire for revenge upon Alex Mercer.

Prototype 2 arrives April 24. If you're wondering about the vocals, yes that's Johnny Cash. He is singing "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails.

Tim Schafer's the three-million-dollar man, thanks to a record-breaking Kickstarter his Double Fine development studio launched to fund a new adventure game. While work should be starting soon on that crowd-funded creation, the respected designer showed off a project that probably won't ever happen at a lecture last night at New York University's Game Center.

Using an Xbox 360 development unit, Schafer demoed two prototypes of a project called Specs built to take advantage of the Kinect motion-sensing camera. The main goal of the game was to give players a way to solve puzzles by using gestures to make characters react emotionally to elements in the environment.

Specs was to tell the story of a cursed, sentient artifact, which was the persona that controller that gets passed on from character to character. In the video above, you'll see an early prototype where only the emotions of love and hate were implemented followed by a later one where gestural input makes more emotional prompts available.

By the time second prototype was being worked on, Schafer and the Double Fine knew that they wanted Specs to be played through multiple times with a variety of endings available. The whole demo also serves a showcase for Schafer's trademark humor, as well as giving insight as to how game design really happens.

If you were a video game reporter in New York, you'd know who the Hip Hop Gamer is. He's the guy who walks around with a WWE Championship belt—except, he makes his interviewees wear the belt while he's talking to them. (Hey, I've done it! I've just declined his offers to rap with him!)

The man isn't just the city's most enthusiastic game reporter, he also appears to be one of this year's go-to soundtrack guys. He's got a song in the new Twisted Metal, and here he is rapping a song for Prototype 2 that will be in the game.

Congrats, Hip Hop! But I prefer the a capella version.

Update: A spokesperson for Prototype 2 bears some bad news. As much as the developers of the game liked the song, they were unable to get it into the game. At least HHG's got Twisted Metal!

Prototype 2: Official Theme Song Is Here " WELCOME TO NYZ " Performed By HipHopGamer [YouTube]

You know what sold me on the original Prototype? Protagonist Alex Mercer leaping onto a helicopter and punching his way inside. I'm sure Prototype 2's James Heller is a compelling new hero, but what about the whirlybirds? Ah yes, here they are.

Radical Entertainment and Activision, keen on the importance of proper helicopter destruction and hijacking to the game's success, have released a selection of screens and a pair of videos demonstrating how Heller will interact with the game's true starts.

Explosively, it seems, is the order of the day. That's just fine.

Prototype 2 is due out April 24 in North America. I'm holding out for helicopter action figures.