Prototype was a hotly anticipated open-world action game that was originally supposed to release last year. After an impressive showing at GDC, Prototype continued to dazzle the media until one day it slipped to a 2009 release and then disappeared off the radar.

Not any more. Prototype is back, and before its big re-reveal at the CES in Vegas, they’re going to give us a little teaser.

If you head over to the Prototype website, you’ll find a countdown timer. Counting down to what? Good question, but I would guess it’s counting down to the Consumer Electronics Show that starts tomorrow, January 8th. That’s when we’re presuming Prototype will be officially shown to the world in its latest form.

Not content to wait a whole extra day, G4 snatched up an exclusive trailer that will air tonight on X-Play. While I’m sure it will be awesome, I really just want to see the game in action and maybe get my hands on it. Too bad we aren’t going to CES this year…

Regardless, you can tune in to G4 tonight and check out X-Play for the new trailer. Hopefully it comes with a release date announcement as well.

I can imagine being a little disconcerted, waking up with creepy super powers that you’re not quite sure how you got. I suppose I can also imagine being a little pissed, which is how the main character Alex Mercer feels about the whole thing.

Since our last look at Prototype during this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, the co-op mode has sadly been cut, but hopefully it just means the game will be that much more polished when it ships later this year. Jump the cut to hear about features you will get to see…

At Sierra’s spring event we saw shape-shifting powers different from the ones usually shown off, like a snarly whip fist. Go ahead and whip the Infected right in half–that’ll show ‘em. This game is rated M and it knows it.

Another of these mutations, which you unlock throughout the game with evolution points, gives Alex blades for hands, which of course, means another pile of body parts.

Alex has also scored some new moves that aren’t specifically tied to a monstrous change in appearance. In one, you stomp an enemy and literally surf on the body until friction prevails, at which point you can jump off and make a targeted kick at a new victim. Another recently added feature is the “flying squirrel move” used for gliding in the air, giving you extra control when you get knocked off a building, or keeping you from being completely knocked off in the first place.

The demo took place partly during a mission to destroy rooftop “sniffers,” which are out sniffing for you. Seemed like a fairly typical “kill x” mission, to be honest, but there will also be parts where you’re infiltrating military bases in disguise, so variety seems insured.

“Disguise” in this case, means appearing to be your latest absorption victim, whether a marine or a pedestrian, via more creepy shape-shifting. It originally sounded like you would be able to carry at least a number of these bodies to select from, but the process has been streamlined to just include one.

If you do blow your cover, you can either duck out of sight and swallow another person whole with your sinister black tendrils, or, more comically, point to the next marine (in the demo’s case) over and convince everyone that he’s the Prototype. They’ll shoot him to pieces!

There are definite areas of spit-shine needed, even though the Parkour twists and vaults still impress us. Unfortunately no hands-on as of yet, but we’re interested enough in the game that not playing it makes us antsy– a good sign.

The original Mafia game was a bit overlooked in the wake of GTA3 and its ilk, but I thought the old-timey setting, vintage cars and weapons, and Scorcese-like story were pretty awesome. Now, long overdue, comes the sequel.

These screens are jaw-dropping. Of course, I bet if GTA4 was rendered on a high-end PC, it’d look pretty stunning as well, but I am holding out hope that this serious open world crime game will live up to my fond memories of the original.

In the original Mafia, you could drive outside of the city limits and into the countryside for spectcular shoot-outs, and this was ages before San Andreas. One mission had you speeding through abandoned city streets at night in an ancient Formula 1 racing car, just so you could sabotage it for a race the next day. Even the ending stayed with me for a long time, because of its last, great twist. Enjoy these screens of Mafia 2.

Prototype is what Crackdown would be if you were a bad-ass instead of a superhero. Crunching cars beneath your feet, running up buildings, literally smashing peoples’ heads into the ground, and absorbing dead bodies into your own — just some of the things you will be doing as Prototype’s main anti-hero, Alex Mercer.

During GDC, we were presented with a brief explanation of the background and inspiration for Radical’s new game. Essentially, when players are given an open world to do whatever they want, they always behave badly. Radical have embraced that fundamental human desire to be naughty and designed a game that is gritty, disgusting, and fucking awesome.

As you can tell from this slide, the basic structure of the game is to “Kill guys and take their stuff”. It’s much more than that, though. There’s a war going on between the Infected and the Military, and you’re in the middle. You can play the two against each other, or help one side fight the other — whatever it takes to accomplish your goals.

Alex has no idea who he is (except that his name is Alex Mercer, apparently) and absorbs peoples’ brains to help himself figure it all out. He accomplishes that in many ways, all of which involve killing people in super-awesome expressions of love. We witnessed a man’s head getting forcibly squished into his own chest cavity, but we also saw such classics as the basic head-exploding curb stomp. Awwww, how cute…

Once people are absorbed, Alex’s biomass increases. This effectively let’s him smash things easier and grow huge claws and so forth. You can also assume the identity of the absorbed people to blend in easier or open special abilities. For example, assuming the identity of a high-ranking military official let’s the player call in air strikes!

Alex can also steal vehicles, including tanks and helicopters. Both hijacking maneuvers include spectacular gore-splosions, but Alex somehow manages to keep his white hoodie nice and clean. Of course, you can just avoid direct contact by tossing the tank at the helicopter, destroying them both.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Eric Holmes and Tim Bennison may have a little Prototype in themselves.

After the presentation, one of the Radical guys just sat there and played the game for 15 minutes while we all watched. It looked amazing, and they claim the graphics are far from complete. I asked about a release date, and they say they are really hoping for this year, but there is no official release scheduled.

Oh, they also let slip that there will be a full-blown cooperative mode, as well as the possibility of “other multiplayer modes” that they aren’t ready to discuss. Stay tuned and we will give you all the information as we get it.