Alex Mercer, protagonist of the gory actioner Prototype, has become the villain. (Don’t you hate it when that happens?)

Prototype 2 finds Mercer — still possessing all of the awesome power he mastered in the first game —  infecting a new character named James Heller with the Prototype virus. Heller is the antithesis of Mercer, a family man with an actual moral code. But when Heller loses his family and is infected with the virus, he turns on Mercer, and in the words of developers at Radical Entertainment, “sets out to murder his maker.”

I never played the first Prototype, but I wonder how gamers will react when the character they played as in the first game is now their assassination target? And how do they resolve a story like that without writing themselves into a corner? Kill Heller and leave gamers feeling that they wasted every minute they spent with this new game? Unsatisfying. Kill Mercer and repeat the cycle with Heller as the bad guy in Prototype 3? Yawn.

The dev diary above shows off this new plot twist, as well as an early look at gameplay. Radical also sent out this movie-style poster for the new protagonist. Prototype 2 doesn’t arrive until sometime in 2012, so I guess Heller’s revenge will have to wait.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds Teaser Trailer

There’s a whole new world out there that I know very little about, never having caught the game system bug.  I was more interested in reading the comics, my level was PacMan and I extended myself to early Sonic The Hedgehog, that’s about it.  (Have you read the Sonic titles from Archie by the way? They are pretty cool in their way, chewing gum for my brain.)

Still, the trailer looks pretty cool.  I for one want to know how characters from the Marvel Universe  are mixing it up with characters from Street Fighter and Resident Evil to boot.  Sounds like it could be a pretty cool story, but no, I don’t want to aggravate my thumbs and lose hours of my life that seem to have disappeared anyway.  If only I was some chronal conglomerate and could manage my time via double accounting! Now, when the virtual reality games start coming out, that’s a whole new matter.

I was talking with my local comic shop manager about the rash of titles cashing in on the gamer market, and he felt that although it could attract new readers to the market, the quality was something left to be desired. I confess, it comes to something when I thought the Resident Evil films were better than the comics. Still, I like those films.

So I decided to branch out, and dug through the back issue bins, and drew out the Prototype series by WildStorm.  Told that Prototype was a really cool game, I had high hopes for the title.

Now I won’t criticise too much, because it was okay.  Mediocre to good, but not brilliant, not as engaging as I would have hoped.  Something tells me that what makes a good game does not necessarily translate into the new medium.

My next target will be the World Of Warcraft series, but that seems more of a role-playing system with a fleshed out universe than a strict beat-em up. So I hold higher hopes. Then again, remembering DC’s old AD&D title, I could be wrong.

My recommendations this week – Fantastic Four #578 and Zenescopes The Waking #3.  And do I dare expose myself to Hulked-Out Heroes #2?

It’s a prototype that allows Wolfenstein 3D to be controlled from a second device connected up using a crossover audio cable.

The Wolfenstick runs without having to jailbreak the iPhone and has been developed using the iPhone OS 2.0 AudioToolbox APIs. It shows off what’s possible now, as well as being a taster of some of the cool hardware mods that may be developed and released when iPhone OS 3.0 comes this summer.

Here’s a demo video of the Wolfenstick in action.