Superhero games are very much flavour of the month at the moment, and it is no secret that Sony's and Activision's Prototype are both titles in which the central character is imbued with special powers. While our very own Richard Walker beavers way on a review of Sucker Punch's challenger, we sat down today for some preview time with Radical's opus; one of the few Sierra titles to survive the cull that followed the merger to create Blizzard.

It's a good job Prototype survived, too, because what I experienced of the game's opening section today was very promising indeed. Forget perceived rivalry, Prototype is a game that knows what it wants to be - and Radical seem to have ploughed a very fertile plain indeed if this early promise can be continued beyond the opening few levels.

Enough vagary: time for some details. In the works for nearly four years, Prototype sees the player stepping into the angry and confused shoes of New Yorker Alex Mercer. Our (anti?) hero begins the game leaping around Times Square, ripping the life out of military personnel and any other hapless bystanders that block his path. This opening gives you a mouth-watering taste of the powers that will eventually head Alex's way, and of the destructive he is capable of. Even from the word go it is abundantly clear that Mercer is not your typical hero.

Introducing the basics of the world and a few controls through this bloody and dramatic opener, the game rewinds 18 days and shows you how this mayhem began. Cue a cut-scene in which Mercer is depicted dead, on a slab; two doctors preparing to conduct an autopsy. Before an incision can be made, however, Mercer awakens, prompting the doctors to flee. Talk of the experiments on the 51st floor can be caught as Mercer staggers out into the street, bleary-eyed, in the daylight outside what looks like some kind of genetics firm. A squad of crack guards are here to what looks like 'clear up', and having murdered the doctor, they turn on Mercer.

The game's protagonist is made of sterner stuff however, bullets failing to finish him off as we make our escape across the New York rooftops. So begins a more in depth tutorial section, the player discovering - one by one - Mercer's already unique powers, that will be added to over the course of the game. Running up buildings? Check. Leaping hundreds of feet through the streets? No problem. Most entertaining of all is perhaps the ability to leap from unholy heights without dying; although being able to chuck cars and other large chunks of scenery around is also a bonus.

Mercer is angry, confused and dangerous... he wants to know where he comes from and what bizarre fate has befallen him. But how will this side of the plot unfold? Well, as part of his strange powers Alex has the ability to 'consume' his foes; harvesting their relevant memories before they are merged within him. By munching on one hapless New York trooper in this manner he learns of his sister, and so begins a journey across the city to uncover his past.

If Mercer is the lead then the city itself certainly seems to be his co-star, Radical having brought New York to life in vast, glorious open-world detail. What impresses isn't just the scale of the city (which is, in the main, at your fingertips from the game's second level), it's the richness of what's on show. Pedestrians stroll (or flee, during the more dramatic instances); cars queue in traffic james. The world is tactile, your plaything, and from rooftops you'll be ripping air vents and other chunks of sub-structure to hurl at pursuing helicopters. The view from the top of skyscrapers (some of them suitably iconic) gives a hint at the playground before you; Radical having scaled down the city to compliment the gameplay while maintaining the sense of scale; the diversity.

Beyond the army, it looks like there will be a few otherworldly foes to tackle, bizarre beasts presumably with origins not dissimilar to your own, although it is the army that for the most part you'll be contending with in earlier levels. I've already mentioned the choppers but there are tanks too, while infantry come at you in numbers packing bazookas in addition to standard machine guns, which you can nab for your own use should you wish to. Combat is of course vital to the experience, and this is as smooth and effortless as it should be, primary and secondary attacks combing with leaps and other maneuvers to create wild frenzies of brutal death and destruction. Prototype is not a game for the faint-hearted, while some of the gore is shockingly vivid at times.

Some of the game's colourful language looks to continue this adult theme, and Radical seem to be making a point of dodging the moral conundrums that inFamous will present. Rather, the focus is on story, combined with fast-paced, action-packed open-world thrill-seeking. Cinematic would be one way of describing Mercer's tale by the look of things, but the mix of blades and fists is more visceral than most movies.

Prototype is earmarked as a singleplayer only game, and the focus on narrative and action appears to be polished to near-release standard from what we've played. Indeed, this taster of the game's auspicious opening left us hungry for to consume more and delve deeper into a sinister plot that threatens to consume New York.

Prototype is out on and in June.

By Luke Guttridge