Project Warlock

"If it moves, shoot it!" This was golden rule for all shooters from the early 90's and the same applies here. Positives: - Fast paced action that focuses on quick thinking and quick reflexes; - 60 levels spread across 5 distinct environments. A level takes up to 5-10 minutes to complete, so it's short & sweet. Each environment comes with its own set of enemies; - Visually pleasing enemies, their sprites and animations give them a "cute" look. Some are clearly inspired from 80's movies such as "The Thing, Robocop, The Terminator"; - Good soundtrack, reminiscent of the old Doom music; Negatives: - Limited lives. I can't understand why the developers would want you to lose all your progress. Just play the game on EASY, where you have unlimited lives. Not to worry, even on easy mode the game quite challenging; - No save/load system. If you stop playing, you need to start the level all over again. Worse, in some cases you'll need to replay several levels you previously finished. This is so infuriating, I ended up using cheats to teleport myself to where I previously left off; Project Warlock is one of the better retro-shooters out there, though it's held back by a couple of bad design decisions. (On a side note, many reviewers have complained about the brightness, that it's too dark to see anything. I'm happy to report this has been FIXED with a patch and now the brightness level is just right)

Bought this game years ago; I beat it at least once or twice a year now. Very well done; Some boss battles are rough and some levels are a bit dull, but overall very good experience. Soundtrack is great; weapon upgrade system is good, but some weapons have options that are noticeably worse than the counterpart; weapons feel impactful. Magic lacks offensive spells and melee lacks options. Both melee and magic work as occasional support tools instead of viable builds. This game is quite simple, but it has character. Easily my favorite FPS.

A fun retro FPS. Visuals are nice and sound is good. Aint much of a story, just some text at the end of chapters to move you along between zones. Gameplay is pretty nice. Each zone has a variety of enemies, even though some of them may be reskins with similar abilities to previous ones. There are 5 chapters and all end with a boss. I think some bosses could have been done better, but overall they were alright. Last boss is pretty chunky, so be prepared to shoot at him for a while. Level design seems alright. yet somehow I felt it could have used more variety. There are secret rooms in levels, but often you need to mass click the space bar in order to find them as there are no visual indicators for them. There are rooms where you need to shoot a hole through, but usually there are some visuals cues for those. I think these could have been done somewhat better. There is a decent variety of weapons in the game, as well as spells. You can earn collect upgrade points to specialize in them. You also gain levels and can upgrade your character in ways that also shows specialization. Beat the campaign in 6 hours in normal. Its a pretty good product for the asking price, so if you want some shooting fun, go for it.

tldr: Solid gameplay but boring level design and sounds/music. This game is fun. First and foremost it feels like Hexen or Heretic. The guns remind me of the weapons form both of the previously mentioned and Doom. But that is where I have to stop the comparisons. id had the best level design back in the day. They put together complex mazes that felt rewarding to explore. They filled them with traps and baddies and gave you more than enough ammo to deal with any problem you may come upon. Project Warlock's level are flat and boring. There are secrets to be found, but it is the same "off" textures to find them. I have yet to come across a puzzle, I am only in the second world at this typing. With fun gameply, level design needs to be done well in order to match. This game does not have it. The sound effects and music are hit and miss. I like the sounds of the guns and spells, but dislike that of the hero. They sound very muddled. The music is very bland and forgettable. What this game does well in my opinion are the guns, spells and leveling. Just like FPS of old, you find your armaments in the wild. The same holds true for spells. The only difference between the two is using them. The guns are automatically in your inventory. Spells on the other hand have to be unlocked with points at the hub. These points are also used to upgrade your guns. That being said, there are a finite number of these points to find. So, choose carefully. Your player can level up as you wipe out the beastiary and collect valuables. Each level gained yeilds a skill point that you can, inturn, spend on one of four attributes. Every five skill points awards a perk-point. I believe there are 10 or 12 perks you can choose form to augment your play style.

I'm enjoying the gameplay so far (I've finished the first Episode and some of the second). The ability to upgrade weapons and character stats is rewarding but with so many options I find it very frustrating you can have only one save file. The levels are designed in that familiar 90’s FPS style where you wander around, finding keys for locked doors and killing monsters that pop out of monster closets. It starts off a little slow but once you start getting upgrade points, it moves along at a faster pace. The levels continue to get more complex and I look forward to experiencing the rest of the Episodes. You have a pool of lives on medium difficulty (starting with 3); losing all your lives will end the game; easy mode has infinite lives; hard mode has 1. It’s refreshing to see a new game use this classic game design. There is a strange game bug with the Staff that I noticed: Switching to the staff and charging a shot too quickly sometimes causes it to not charge and fire properly. Hopefully they’ll fix this in a patch. The options menu has more video settings and gameplay settings than I'd expect for a game based around 2D sprites. Motion Blur, Ambient Occlusion, HUD options, customizable “Retro CRT” filters and more. Strangely, some levels in the first Episode are incredibly dark and require a light spell... unless you turn the graphics quality down. So, the light spell can be made pointless by menu options. I like the art design of enemy sprite models as well as their attack and death animations; The art direction for some environment textures is far too busy for me and I wish they’d have simplified some of them. But the color palette and lighting effects are very nice and compliment the overall style of the game. TL;DR - Fun gameplay (although it starts slow) - Some frustrating quarks that could be patched in the future - More than adequate settings menu - For the price, it's worth it; Just not an instant classic