Posted on: November 15, 2020
Early Access review
kulfugl
Verified ownerGames: 244 Reviews: 4
Fine if you like Doom, but a bit generic
Prodeus has a lot of good things going for it, it plays well, looks good, is responsive and has a reasonable amount of options - with more to come, hopefully. The Early Access-release is missing a few things, the campaign is incomplete and there is no multiplayer still, which the developers have stated is in the works. The most immediate "issue" is how similar it is to the Doom-series in terms of enemies, levels and many weapons. If you're fine with that it's very good, but it doesn't have much of its own flavor, and some of the weapons and alternate fire modes are a bit similar or weak, particularly the Shredders vs the Chaingun and the Shotgun alt-fire. There's nothing new here, and while it does an adequate job across the board it lacks the attitude that was a big part of real retro shooters from the 90s. There's no outspoken player character like in Duke Nukem, or even much expression in the portrait like Doom and Quake. That said, I feel it does a better job at being cohesive than many other "boomer shooter" throwback games. It takes something that works, and iterates on it a little bit without straying too far. I feel it takes a lot of queues from Doom 2016 as well in terms of atmosphere, particularly the first few levels and the accompanying music, with later levels being much more distinct to Prodeus. A couple things that retro gamers might be apprehensive about is the reloading of some weapons and the checkpoint system. The former is a bit weird if you come straight from Doom and Quake, but makes sense in the context of Prodeus when you start getting more weapons to cycle between during encounters and reload during breaks in the action. The checkpoint system meanwhile does not reset enemies, meaning you won't be bashing your head against the wall if an encounter is particularly difficult or cheap - but most levels aren't that long, and you want to aim for zero deaths on the score screen. It's adequate. Overall, it's pretty fun.
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