Directed Fun Versus Meta-fun

I had an idle thought while playing Prototype yesterday. A lot of reviews out there are complaining about how bland the world is and how your character has a variety of attacks and powers but no challenges that make you fully utilize the options that are available to you.

I wonder if I'm just finding fun in different places than a lot of reviewers out there, or if I'm just far more easily amused (could very well be the latter point!). One of my favorite things to do in Prototype thus far is to harass random pedestrians. If you slowly walk in Prototype, your character gives anyone near him a little push (a bit like Assassin's Creed, but more of a forceful push). Most of the pedestrians admonish you or flip you off while military-types will shove you back or start verbally berating you.

Which makes it all the more satisfying to grab them by the throat and have your way with them. >:)

Depending on how I feel, I may a) just absorb the overly confident pedestrian in a maelstrom of bone and blood, b) throw them at a car, often bouncing them off hoods and into other vehicles, or c) run away with them to consume them out of sight, like a predator which has just caught its prey.

This particular meta-game that I play is probably where I feel the most like a HUGE JERK in Prototype. If I'm just destroying the military or rival mutants during regular missions, I feel more like my character is a force of nature that harbors no particular malice towards NY citizens even if they (almost always) get swept up as collateral damage.

In this way, I feel like Prototype is not entirely unlike Assassin's Creed, where you have to make your own fun to really get the most out of the game. It's just that this game has the tools to make your metagaming interesting, unlike Assassin's Creed.