Project Warlock

fun retro shooter with awesome sountrack

I watched someones fair online review of this and for £10 it's worth the few niggles which are primaraily limited to the options than the overall gameplay. The game first boots up in windowed mode and sets it's self in 800x600.... which would be fine if i wasn't running a super wide screen monitor, the slider that allows you to change the resoloution is a bit unclear as if you set the game to full screen before switching the resolution (as you would) it is blurred and can be difficult to make out along with many of the other options which have odd slider based movements taht don't feel as smooth as games like Dusk. However one you have the game set to how you wnat it the rest of the options are intresting with classic vissual modes like C64 and Gameboy that adds a nice flavour, theres also a tempriture slider that makes the world look hot or cold by changing the over all color scheme between red and blue. there are also some cool saturation and pixelization options like in Dusk but no intruder mode which could of been a good option. The game it's self is sublime with great ,usic and slick controls, theres no jump so space bar is set to activate switchies or to be hammered repeatedley as you hug the walls looking for secret rooms. the combat is great with Starting melle wepaons and a magic staff giving over later to more traditonal FPS weapons like shotguns and rocketlanuchers plus theres a crazy group of spells just to mix things up. The improvment of the characters stats allow you to play around with your style and make things more intresting and with the addition of lives somewhat feels a little a like rouge game at times, you can also imprve your weapons and spells but the currancy for these upgrades is the same so you perhaps an all magic character is possible. I am enjoying the game and for £10 it's just right.

Controls are intuitive and responsive. Graphics are awesome and really bring out the nostalgia. And the soundtrack is rocking. Bug report: ammo counts don't update while channeling certain spells (noticed with "Light"). Count does update after channeling stops, however.

I was really happy to see that Casual Mode saves your progress.. and I can still die, so it's not too easy. Great game!

A good shooter, with satisfying combat. The old-school episode-style level selection is good, but the last episode and all its levels are by far the weakest collection of levels out of all of them. The levels in the last episode are marred by mismatched textures and a generally much less coherent art-direction and layout than the preceding episodes, and ending the game with those levels is really a disservice to the otherwise great art-direction for the majority of the levels. My biggest problem with the last episode though, is that it introduces pits that you can fall into, which kill you instantly. Up until the last episode you didn't have to worry about this, and you could run, circle-strafe and generally just charge ahead and kill the enemies. But with the pits, it slows down the gameplay immensely, as you're now trying not to fall into those pits, as a single misstep can send you back to the beginning of the level. Aside from my issues with the last episode, the game has a general problem with a lot of the levels being too dark. You have a magic light that you get for free, but I'd rather not have that light and have the levels be a little brighter in general. Luckily, tweaking the brightness in the game works better than doing it on your monitor, but it does come with the downside that some of the secrets areas are completely blown out (Because they're so bright). I also had quite a few cases with z-fighting, mostly with decals on the walls, or bunched-up loot as well as the occasional secret wall that would clip badly when opened. Despite all the small issues with it, I still had a lot of fun, and would definitely recommend it. The shooting feels great, the weapon selection is good, and the upgrades are interesting. The enemy sprites are really good with cool death animations. Well worth the full price.