The battle with this giant tentacle thing is just AWFUL to play. From the pure guesswork involved in when it's going to attack, to the use of slow motion in all the moves destroying the feel of the battle, its just a terrible sequence. Not to mention if all the soldiers die you have no way of getting any health back!!

Absolutely hating this right now, and it feels cheap as hell being continually hit from off camera by the tentacle attack!!

From another thread:

"The big thing is that I think the combat is sloppier than in the first game. Attacks will home in on your character because they want to have you use a quicktime dodge mechanic by hitting A at the right time. The problem is that I will manual dodge attacks (like a thrown car) and clearly jump out of the way just for them to suddenly change trajectory and home in on me because the game does not want me to dodge. It wants me to wait for a quicktime prompt even if I am out of the way I still get the prompt and take damage though the attack misses. This happens constantly but it is not every attack so I do not know when I should be trying to dodge and when I should just wait for a prompt."

The hydra fight is a glaring example of this.

Keep yourself targeted on it.

Dodge to the side when it rears back.

Keep firing the rockets at it at all times.

It's really not that hard, even on Extreme. People just need to adapt.

You might want to put the game down then. Or return it, or trade it it, whatever.
Cause that boss is going to be a standard enemy in a whole bunch of missions further down the line.
And there will definately be enemies that are way way harder and feel cheaper then the Hydra tentacles ever do. I'm talking several orders of magnitude here.
 
That said it only took me one death to learn how Hydra's worked.
Shoot rockets at it that are all around the room.
Simply dodge left or right when it is going for a grab.  (there is no guesswork there is a clear windup animation)
Done.
Wasn't very hard. /shrug

Just dodge back and forth until it attacks then pump some rockets into and start dodging again. It's not that bad but yeah this game sucks.

I loved the first Prototype.
But that dodge/block mechanic in 2 is in no small part responsible for ruining the game in 2.
No longer are you aproaching each battle with a "do whatever the fuck you want" attitude, instead it is a repetative timing based BS of dodge/block to win. They basically had to design the combat around it.
Same shit is used from start to finish of the game.

@EndlessLotus said:

Keep yourself targeted on it.

Dodge to the side when it rears back.

Keep firing the rockets at it at all times.

It's really not that hard, even on Extreme. People just need to adapt.

Gamers these days don't know the meaning of 'adapt' I'm afraid.

I'll admit that was a bit of a rage post, I did manage to beat it soon after!!

I still think the combat in this game is worse though, just the feel of it doesn't have as much weight as the first game. As much as I like combo'ing more than one power together, I loved equipping them by holding the button to get the animation in the 1st game, which they took out on this one!! Anyway all the tentacle stuff is totally BADASS though, it kinda looks like The Thing got loose in the city when there's loads of body's strung up between traffic lights haha!

Yeah, the tendril's are probably the second best weapon, right behind the sword.

Oh, and it'd be if, from now on, you also list what difficulty you're on. That changes the strategy a bit....

Uh, the Hydra's tentacle attack is used when you get too far from it. Bring rockets up close and just tap the jump button from time to time. It's not tough at all.

Also, if you die it isn't even a big deal. You'll start right there.

I did actually die once or twice on this. I put this mostly down to me being an idiot though. My brother's already finished the game and he said he was the same. At first I just ran around like a fool eating dudes and using rockets which works to a point, then my brother pointed out that the dude's really made to fuck you up from a mid-range distance so after a few rockets, just charged up to him and started wailing on him with claws. He could still spin around with his whip attack but I was away from that attack he does where he grabs you with his tongue and tries to crush you immediately after. Did the trick easily.

In short, that big tentacle is actually the idiot. Punish the idiot!

@Tennmuerti I actually don't think the enemies get that much worse as you go on. Mostly because you become really powerful. Those Orion dudes can be kinda jerks but that's more annoyance than anything. Thwarting the "double A to leap away and escape danger!" skillz I learned from Bruce Wayne himself.