Your interpretation of this game as a retelling of “Alex the Virus” becoming sentient is quite interesting. But I think you’re giving the game too much credit in this regard.

I don’t think I missed any “point” about the game, or its protagonist. I know he is a virus who takes the shape of a man, but that isn’t reason enough for the lack of rules in the game, or the methods by which you can destroy anyone/anything with no consequence. It also doesn’t explain how the implementation of their open-world system is self-sabotaging.

The “twist” came too late. The story wasn’t set up sufficiently for Players to suspend their disbelief that someone could be that callous and cruel. You’re led to believe from the start that you’re a human, doing horrible things to innocent people in your quest for vengeance while the military tries to neutralize you. Perhaps if one of the failure conditions was capture, I could believe that Alex was something important that the military wanted to study and likely replicate.

Because the “truth” about Alex/Zeus wasn’t revealed until the very end of the game, it’s hard for players (or me, anyway) to justify “Oh, so that’s why I brutally murdered thousands of people in a never-ending bloodbath”. The game had already made players complicit with the little information they received. They either liked its mindless violence, or were completely deflated by the end because this type of game has been done before.

I liked how the story was revealed in bite-sized portions. In a game with no set path, it makes it easy to give players story without relying on sequential narrative. But the problem was that the story and the game’s rules and mechanics were in constant disagreement with each other. How can I sympathize with a new life-form if I am constantly prompted to destroy anything that moves? Is my motive simply survival, or to figure out what I am?

Radical Entertainment have certainly set themselves up for a sequel. But it’s hard to determine a direction for this series. Do they scale it back and refine the strongest points? Do they include the good/bad morality play? How about leveraging technology like GeoMod 2.0 (which worked great in Red Faction: Guerrilla) so that the city itself can be destroyed?

Radical Entertainment needs to update their design philosophy before proceeding. As I said in the review, they are already behind the curve.

The only thing that drives him is residual memories he absorbed from the dead and real Alex.

In fact the player never get to play the real Alex at all, you play as the virus from the start.

And if you pay attention to “Alex” ending dialog it all fall into place.

A few days ago he didn’t exist. He was a lab experiement, a virus a plague, designed to kill and control others, but the actions of Alex through his death (and breaking of the vial) gave birth to “Alex”. At first “Alex” thought he actually was Alex.

A lot of people missed the “twist” or they didn’t miss it but failed to realize the impact.
“Alex” is a virus…that became sentient…First of his kind!

At the end he has a sense of self awareness.
And i truly hope they’ll make a sequel as I really want to see what path in history “Alex” will take. Good/Evil/Neutral(his own).

I believe this is the very first time I’ve played a game (or heard of a game) where you actually play a lifeform that becomes sentient.
I really hope this get turned into a movie script some day as that could bring out the more dramatic elements much better.

You see, I kinda agree with you that the game seemed like a action fest (and it was, and a very good one).
I just wish that they’d added more story telling, more acting, and more realizations by “Alex” because there is a gap between the story telling and action.

The action makes him seem like a cold mechanical killer, but the story depicts him as a new lifeform discovering the world and itself.
So it feels like two halfs loosely sewed together. Which is a shame as the story has way more potential. (hencing hoping for a sequel or movie adaption).