FPS old school que faz lembrar Doom ou Quake.
Shooter bastante competente, mas que peca pela pouca variedade de inimigos e cenários.
Se gostam deste tipo de FPS, Prodeus é uma boa escolha.
Shooter bastante competente, mas que peca pela pouca variedade de inimigos e cenários.
Se gostam deste tipo de FPS, Prodeus é uma boa escolha.
Prodeus is a smooth game in terms of combat and everything but there are a lot of problems with the game as well.
The respawn option is crap. you restart and you go back to your "nexus" point or your checkpoint with full health and all the monsters you killed are still dead. The only way to circumvent this, is to do a full restart which will restart you from the very beginning.
The monsters are basically straight-up rips of Doom monsters. The lack of variation makes the game seem generic.
I like the implementation of the leaderboards and the map creation and this game is by no means terrible, It's a decent game.
It's not super memorable, but a good way to pass the time.
The respawn option is crap. you restart and you go back to your "nexus" point or your checkpoint with full health and all the monsters you killed are still dead. The only way to circumvent this, is to do a full restart which will restart you from the very beginning.
The monsters are basically straight-up rips of Doom monsters. The lack of variation makes the game seem generic.
I like the implementation of the leaderboards and the map creation and this game is by no means terrible, It's a decent game.
It's not super memorable, but a good way to pass the time.
Le vrai Doom 3, mais gné arf quoi ...
I'm fuming. First BoundingBox mutilated what made secrets a compelling level design technique in the first place by changing most of them from powerups that aid in your completion of a level into a collectible shop currency. Then they have the audacity to start locking these currency locations behind powerups stuck in the ingame shop. What makes this extra fucking obnoxious is that Prodeus is so mind numbingly easy that only scoreplay has a hope of being compelling. Scoreplay that you cannot effectively engage with until you've 100%ed the game because there are no leaderboard categories and these powerups and unlockable weapons provide players with new advantages. The utter incompetence of design on display here is genuinely fucking infuriating. There's not even any ingame communication to aid the player in figuring out how the actual scoring system even WORKS. It's the laziest possible implementation I've seen in a long time.
So now I'm paranoid about wasting my time in a level searching for ore that I might just not be capable of collecting without the double jump. This doesn't compel me to explore thoroughly, I'm just going to look up a 100% guide because this is fucking stupid. No part of the experience is enhanced by having a shop system. Even the shop is badly designed. Rather than a quick to access menu it's a physical time wasting fluff "level" that requires a loading screen. Every level suffers from a unity loading screen. Even restarting them.
The entire production is riddled with cripplingly idiotic decisions. Community maps are locked behind a third-party account. Unlike in any of the actually well designed id shooters that Prodeus is unimaginatively aping.
Nexus Points are Vita Chambers and Vita Chambers were never good. There's no in level saving systems because the devs genuinely couldn't figure out how to implement one into Unity. I'm serious. That's their excuse. There's supposed to be an update "soon" that finally implements saving.
Nexus Points mean that there is absolutely no middle ground between "this game is mindless and uninteresting garbage" and "merely barely okay on max difficulty if you always full restart after death". Speaking of difficulty. It's the lazy boring method of tweaking enemy HP and Damage values by percentages. It's the same low enemy counts regardless. I think maybe they also get more accurate? But I can't be bothered to test because Very Hard was already too much of a snooze so I lack a solid point of reference. The devs claim that they designed Prodeus around "medium". l o l
What's most frustrating is that every part of Prodeus that isn't unique to Prodeus can be some occasionally fine Doom action. It looks good. The guns are fine. The music is pretty good. The levels are "okay".
But every single design decision that deviates away from the source material of Doom only serves to make the game worse. Even the map system is bad. Having an agonizingly slow scroll speed.
Prodeus will never be better than "just fine", and even then only under extreme self imposed challenge.
- - -
Now that the "Prodean" enemies are being introduced more regularly there's been an extreme difficulty spike, however when it comes to dying in a split-second from the trickier encounters near the end of a long level I just wish I could have a normal checkpoint for my first run.
- - -
Yeah the deeper I get into the campaign the angrier I get. The nexus points are a serious problem and it's absurd the devs left early access with them implemented even though they're the most common complaint levied against the design. Dying in a split second near the end of 20 minute mission is awful, but continuing from a nexus point feels cheap. I detest every single defender of Prodeus who claims that any of this is fine because it's a "score attack game" meanwhile the devs have carelessly slapped every single difficulty onto the same leaderboard and effectively declared that you aren't allowed to play the "real" Prodeus until you find all of the worthless macguffins. Every single time I begin to enjoy a level it's ruined by my hyperfixation on just how irredeemably awful the overarching design is. I'm torn on refunding it because I can see that it does eventually become fun.
I just realized precisely why I hate this. Prodeus is the Euroshmup of FPS games. It fails to understand score design. Implements a worthless shop mechanic, and in the spirit of giving the player a health bar just makes the player immortal. Dying is such a measly score penalty that you can often see people who didn't pull off a deathless run on the max difficulty placing in the top 50 spots. Fucking unforgiveable, and I wish to reiterate, there is NO ingame indication of how well you're doing scorewise until after you finish a level, and I only believe that headshots contribute to score because a random forum post claimed they did.
This entire game needs an overhaul.
- - -
I gave up on performing deathless Ultra Hard clears after the prodean enemies became common occurances. The "elite" units among them can be just mean on Ultra Hard. Which is especially frustrating given the average length of the lategame missions.
The penultimate mission was really good though (no prodeans). Now if only the rest of the game was also good. The game still feels unfinished. Not all of the weapons were properly implemented. You never acquire anything for the second and third energy weapon slots.
So now I'm paranoid about wasting my time in a level searching for ore that I might just not be capable of collecting without the double jump. This doesn't compel me to explore thoroughly, I'm just going to look up a 100% guide because this is fucking stupid. No part of the experience is enhanced by having a shop system. Even the shop is badly designed. Rather than a quick to access menu it's a physical time wasting fluff "level" that requires a loading screen. Every level suffers from a unity loading screen. Even restarting them.
The entire production is riddled with cripplingly idiotic decisions. Community maps are locked behind a third-party account. Unlike in any of the actually well designed id shooters that Prodeus is unimaginatively aping.
Nexus Points are Vita Chambers and Vita Chambers were never good. There's no in level saving systems because the devs genuinely couldn't figure out how to implement one into Unity. I'm serious. That's their excuse. There's supposed to be an update "soon" that finally implements saving.
Nexus Points mean that there is absolutely no middle ground between "this game is mindless and uninteresting garbage" and "merely barely okay on max difficulty if you always full restart after death". Speaking of difficulty. It's the lazy boring method of tweaking enemy HP and Damage values by percentages. It's the same low enemy counts regardless. I think maybe they also get more accurate? But I can't be bothered to test because Very Hard was already too much of a snooze so I lack a solid point of reference. The devs claim that they designed Prodeus around "medium". l o l
What's most frustrating is that every part of Prodeus that isn't unique to Prodeus can be some occasionally fine Doom action. It looks good. The guns are fine. The music is pretty good. The levels are "okay".
But every single design decision that deviates away from the source material of Doom only serves to make the game worse. Even the map system is bad. Having an agonizingly slow scroll speed.
Prodeus will never be better than "just fine", and even then only under extreme self imposed challenge.
- - -
Now that the "Prodean" enemies are being introduced more regularly there's been an extreme difficulty spike, however when it comes to dying in a split-second from the trickier encounters near the end of a long level I just wish I could have a normal checkpoint for my first run.
- - -
Yeah the deeper I get into the campaign the angrier I get. The nexus points are a serious problem and it's absurd the devs left early access with them implemented even though they're the most common complaint levied against the design. Dying in a split second near the end of 20 minute mission is awful, but continuing from a nexus point feels cheap. I detest every single defender of Prodeus who claims that any of this is fine because it's a "score attack game" meanwhile the devs have carelessly slapped every single difficulty onto the same leaderboard and effectively declared that you aren't allowed to play the "real" Prodeus until you find all of the worthless macguffins. Every single time I begin to enjoy a level it's ruined by my hyperfixation on just how irredeemably awful the overarching design is. I'm torn on refunding it because I can see that it does eventually become fun.
I just realized precisely why I hate this. Prodeus is the Euroshmup of FPS games. It fails to understand score design. Implements a worthless shop mechanic, and in the spirit of giving the player a health bar just makes the player immortal. Dying is such a measly score penalty that you can often see people who didn't pull off a deathless run on the max difficulty placing in the top 50 spots. Fucking unforgiveable, and I wish to reiterate, there is NO ingame indication of how well you're doing scorewise until after you finish a level, and I only believe that headshots contribute to score because a random forum post claimed they did.
This entire game needs an overhaul.
- - -
I gave up on performing deathless Ultra Hard clears after the prodean enemies became common occurances. The "elite" units among them can be just mean on Ultra Hard. Which is especially frustrating given the average length of the lategame missions.
The penultimate mission was really good though (no prodeans). Now if only the rest of the game was also good. The game still feels unfinished. Not all of the weapons were properly implemented. You never acquire anything for the second and third energy weapon slots.
(from original post in 2022) meh
Not much to say, this game is very much what you see is what you get. Yeah it borrows a lot from DOOM and others, but the good level design and satisfying guns make for a great time. There's even an included level editor and browser, so you can play lots of high quality community creations as well.
A couple major issues: the checkpoint system is too forgiving, you simply respawn without really losing anything, so I recommend playing on hard or even very hard so enemies can actually cause an inconvenience (You can switch difficulty anytime). Final few levels drag on, and theres no ending, it just teases the DLC while also having a really lame boss fight.
Despite a couple problems though this game was a really good time, not everything needs to reinvent the wheel, just being really good at rolling can be enough to be worth the time.
A couple major issues: the checkpoint system is too forgiving, you simply respawn without really losing anything, so I recommend playing on hard or even very hard so enemies can actually cause an inconvenience (You can switch difficulty anytime). Final few levels drag on, and theres no ending, it just teases the DLC while also having a really lame boss fight.
Despite a couple problems though this game was a really good time, not everything needs to reinvent the wheel, just being really good at rolling can be enough to be worth the time.
The world's wettest boomer shooter. Although the mechanics are nothing particularly new or exciting, its a shooter with good guns, great level design, and reactive enemies. The presentation is uniformly excellent, with really beautiful crunchy visuals and sound effects. I only got truly lost in a level once during my 6 hours in the campaign, thanks to the intuitively crafted maps and signposting. Looking forward to revisiting this one someday with co-op or in user created maps.
Competently designed but I found it seriously lacking in originality. Most of the game is techbases, the gameplay is Brutal Doom with the edginess scooped out, and right as it starts showing off new and interesting level themes it ends on a wet fart of a final boss. Hate to say it, but I was seriously disappointed. Maybe a sequel could spice things up?
Retro grafikleri ve boomershooter mekaniklerini kendisine örnek alan prodeus görünen o ki sırtını sağlam duvara yaslamış.
90ların başlarında doğmuş olmama rağmen ilk doomla tanışmam 2000lerin başı gibi olmuştu. Teknolojinin günümüz kadar yaygın olmaması haliyle alım ve erişim gücünü de kısıtlıyordu. Ben Doomla yeni yeni tanıştığım sıralarda seri 3. Oyuna kadar uzunca bir süre rafa kaldırılmıştı. Allah'tan doom 3 ü tam çıktığı zaman oynamıştım ve ilk üç oyunu birbirine yakın zamanlarda oynadığımdan aralarında karşılaştırma yapabiliyordum. üçüncü oyun seri için şaşırtıcı düzeyde radikal bir değişiklikti. Adeta bir St.Anger, Reroute to Remain gibiydi. Peki doom 3 ü diğer doom oyunlarından ayıran ne idi? Bir ipucu vereyim, zamanında insanlara eğreti gelen hatta Doom'un tekrar reboot etmesine neden olacak bir günahı vardı, oyun gerçekten fena olmasacda eski doomlardaki tempo yoktu. Daha monoton ve gerilim ağırlıklı bir oyundu, tekinsiz hissettiriyordu, düşmanlara karşı tehditmişsin gibi değil acizmiş gibi hissettiriyordu başka bir seri için bu kabul edilebilir bir durum olsa da doom serisinin imajı için alışıldık bir durum değildi bu durum. Sevdim mi? Sevdim tabi orası ayrı. Günler günleri kovaladı derken 2016 da yenilenmiş bir şekilde doom yeniden peydah oldu. yapımcı ekip bu sefer doom 3 e tam zıt giden bir çizgide dizayn etmişti yeni oyunu. Bir kesim "işte doomun olması gereken gerçek formu bu" diyerek bağrına basmış, bir kesim de "doom 3 ile yeni bir başlangıç yapan seri hikayeli fps kategorisinin başyapıtı olabilirdi" demişti. Ben ikisine de kısmen katılıyorum ama ikinci yolu seçseydi muhtemelen quake 4 ten çok farklı bir şey çıkmazdı ve eninde sonunda yok olup giderdi. ilk yolu seçmesinin ardından geçen 8 yıl sürede öyle bir saygınlık kazandı ki ortamların örnek alınan havalı çocuğu oldu bir de üstüne Eternal ile gücüne güç katınca arcade fps türünü tekrar canlandırmış, günümüz oyuncularına da 90'lardaki fps deneyimini modern bir şekilde tattırmış oldu.
Gelelim bu çorbada bizim de tuzumuz olsun diyen Prodeus'a. bounding box'ın ilk oyunu, kendisine özellikle doom 1 ve doom 2 modu olan brutal doom'u fazlasıyla örnek almış. Çatışma dinamikleri, partikül efektleri, oyunun temposu brutal doom'u re-skin yapmış gibi sanki. Yapımcı ekip çakallık yapıp:
-kanka bu modu biz oyun yapsak mod olmaktan çıkarsak üstüne biraz cilayıp yeni gibi sunsak nasıl olur?
-valla bize farkmaz hacıt yapak bir görek
demiş olabilir.
Bu durumdan kesinlikle şikayetçi olduğumu söyleyemem çünkü doomu arcade fps kategorisinde tekelleşmiş bir şekilde görmektense yeni yorumlanmış oyunları oynamayı tercih ederim.
Bunları geçersek Prodeus'u 2016 doom'unun stilize piksel grafikli brutal doom versiyonu diyebilirim. Oyun içi tempo trafiği yine doom 2016 gibi, savaşa gir, terini at, dinlen, etrafı keşfet ve tekrar savaşa gir. böyle bir döngü etrafında, biraz da 90'lar dizaynında ilerliyor prodeus. 5-6 saat gibi kendini de sonlandırıyor.
Müzikler ortalamanın üstünde, insanı gaza getiriyor ama temponun azaldığı noktada kendisini tempoya göre senkronize edememesi bazen kulak tırmalayabiliyor. Grafik stilini beğenmiş olmama rağmen ilk oynayışta pek alışamadım. Düşük çözünürlüklü sprite grafiklere fazla fazla alışık olmama rağmen renk paketindeki kontrast sorunları ve dokuların çevreden ayrışamaması bir tık bende kafa karışıklığı yaratmış olabilir. Bilmiyorum.
Bunlar dışında bölüm dizaynı ara ara can sıkıcı olabiliyor. Her bölüm kendi içinde keşife açık ama öyle dağınık bir harita tasarımı var ki insan yolunu sık sık kaybediyor. Bu noktada Prodeus'un puanını kırıyorum. kompleks bir harita dizaynı üstüne anlaşılır bir tasarım kurgulayabilirdi ama olmamış. Sırf bu dizayndan dolayı Dar alanlar insanın içini bunaltıyor, geniş alanlar ise baş dönmesine sebep oluyor.
Lafı uzatmadan Prodeus için doomdan iyi örnekler almış ama eternal'ın da bir tık gerisinde kalmış diyebilirim. Umarım oyun ve bilhassa tek oyunculu fps kuraklığı yaşadığımız şu günlerde prodeus gibi örnekleri daha sık görürüz.
90ların başlarında doğmuş olmama rağmen ilk doomla tanışmam 2000lerin başı gibi olmuştu. Teknolojinin günümüz kadar yaygın olmaması haliyle alım ve erişim gücünü de kısıtlıyordu. Ben Doomla yeni yeni tanıştığım sıralarda seri 3. Oyuna kadar uzunca bir süre rafa kaldırılmıştı. Allah'tan doom 3 ü tam çıktığı zaman oynamıştım ve ilk üç oyunu birbirine yakın zamanlarda oynadığımdan aralarında karşılaştırma yapabiliyordum. üçüncü oyun seri için şaşırtıcı düzeyde radikal bir değişiklikti. Adeta bir St.Anger, Reroute to Remain gibiydi. Peki doom 3 ü diğer doom oyunlarından ayıran ne idi? Bir ipucu vereyim, zamanında insanlara eğreti gelen hatta Doom'un tekrar reboot etmesine neden olacak bir günahı vardı, oyun gerçekten fena olmasacda eski doomlardaki tempo yoktu. Daha monoton ve gerilim ağırlıklı bir oyundu, tekinsiz hissettiriyordu, düşmanlara karşı tehditmişsin gibi değil acizmiş gibi hissettiriyordu başka bir seri için bu kabul edilebilir bir durum olsa da doom serisinin imajı için alışıldık bir durum değildi bu durum. Sevdim mi? Sevdim tabi orası ayrı. Günler günleri kovaladı derken 2016 da yenilenmiş bir şekilde doom yeniden peydah oldu. yapımcı ekip bu sefer doom 3 e tam zıt giden bir çizgide dizayn etmişti yeni oyunu. Bir kesim "işte doomun olması gereken gerçek formu bu" diyerek bağrına basmış, bir kesim de "doom 3 ile yeni bir başlangıç yapan seri hikayeli fps kategorisinin başyapıtı olabilirdi" demişti. Ben ikisine de kısmen katılıyorum ama ikinci yolu seçseydi muhtemelen quake 4 ten çok farklı bir şey çıkmazdı ve eninde sonunda yok olup giderdi. ilk yolu seçmesinin ardından geçen 8 yıl sürede öyle bir saygınlık kazandı ki ortamların örnek alınan havalı çocuğu oldu bir de üstüne Eternal ile gücüne güç katınca arcade fps türünü tekrar canlandırmış, günümüz oyuncularına da 90'lardaki fps deneyimini modern bir şekilde tattırmış oldu.
Gelelim bu çorbada bizim de tuzumuz olsun diyen Prodeus'a. bounding box'ın ilk oyunu, kendisine özellikle doom 1 ve doom 2 modu olan brutal doom'u fazlasıyla örnek almış. Çatışma dinamikleri, partikül efektleri, oyunun temposu brutal doom'u re-skin yapmış gibi sanki. Yapımcı ekip çakallık yapıp:
-kanka bu modu biz oyun yapsak mod olmaktan çıkarsak üstüne biraz cilayıp yeni gibi sunsak nasıl olur?
-valla bize farkmaz hacıt yapak bir görek
demiş olabilir.
Bu durumdan kesinlikle şikayetçi olduğumu söyleyemem çünkü doomu arcade fps kategorisinde tekelleşmiş bir şekilde görmektense yeni yorumlanmış oyunları oynamayı tercih ederim.
Bunları geçersek Prodeus'u 2016 doom'unun stilize piksel grafikli brutal doom versiyonu diyebilirim. Oyun içi tempo trafiği yine doom 2016 gibi, savaşa gir, terini at, dinlen, etrafı keşfet ve tekrar savaşa gir. böyle bir döngü etrafında, biraz da 90'lar dizaynında ilerliyor prodeus. 5-6 saat gibi kendini de sonlandırıyor.
Müzikler ortalamanın üstünde, insanı gaza getiriyor ama temponun azaldığı noktada kendisini tempoya göre senkronize edememesi bazen kulak tırmalayabiliyor. Grafik stilini beğenmiş olmama rağmen ilk oynayışta pek alışamadım. Düşük çözünürlüklü sprite grafiklere fazla fazla alışık olmama rağmen renk paketindeki kontrast sorunları ve dokuların çevreden ayrışamaması bir tık bende kafa karışıklığı yaratmış olabilir. Bilmiyorum.
Bunlar dışında bölüm dizaynı ara ara can sıkıcı olabiliyor. Her bölüm kendi içinde keşife açık ama öyle dağınık bir harita tasarımı var ki insan yolunu sık sık kaybediyor. Bu noktada Prodeus'un puanını kırıyorum. kompleks bir harita dizaynı üstüne anlaşılır bir tasarım kurgulayabilirdi ama olmamış. Sırf bu dizayndan dolayı Dar alanlar insanın içini bunaltıyor, geniş alanlar ise baş dönmesine sebep oluyor.
Lafı uzatmadan Prodeus için doomdan iyi örnekler almış ama eternal'ın da bir tık gerisinde kalmış diyebilirim. Umarım oyun ve bilhassa tek oyunculu fps kuraklığı yaşadığımız şu günlerde prodeus gibi örnekleri daha sık görürüz.
Prodeus was a random pick from the Playstation Plus catalog. I was in the mood for something different and it's been awhile since I played an classic arcade style FPS and that is exactly what Prodeus is. It is very much inspired by Doom. Prodeus by default has a really stylized classic sprite design that blends really well with it's aesthetic while still looking "next gen", however if that's not your thing you can actually activate the 3D models and turn off the various screen effects but I thought it was pretty cool. The gameplay is super hectic and fast pace very similar to Doom 2016. Although Prodeus still has old conventions such as health and armor pick ups and ammo is preloaded unto the maps. No health regen here. It does have a controversial check point system in that once activated on a map you can infinitly respawn there and pick up where you left off, which in turn makes Prodeus a rather easy campaign playthrough. That is if you don't care about ranks and unlocks.
The level design in Prodeus I thought was really well done. The maps and objectives are pretty varied and I thought that they did enough interesting stuff to push forward. The enemis are very much inspired by Doom grunts and imps and the like. So you know what to expect there. I do wish there was a tad more variety to them but it's functional to the gameplay. Prodeus though is longer than I wanted to be. There is about 30 stages and each one takes about 20 min to complete so I think it's a hefty campaign. The story is minamal and not even worth noting. I hope text box endings are to your liking. That's minor problem in a game like this as the moment to moment fighting was intense and completing the stages were fun, it just wears out after awhile. Overall it's a pretty solid Doom 2016 clone and if you really liked that and wanting more I'd say give Prodeus a try. I wish I could have tried the multiplayer but I couldn't find a room after so many tries.
The level design in Prodeus I thought was really well done. The maps and objectives are pretty varied and I thought that they did enough interesting stuff to push forward. The enemis are very much inspired by Doom grunts and imps and the like. So you know what to expect there. I do wish there was a tad more variety to them but it's functional to the gameplay. Prodeus though is longer than I wanted to be. There is about 30 stages and each one takes about 20 min to complete so I think it's a hefty campaign. The story is minamal and not even worth noting. I hope text box endings are to your liking. That's minor problem in a game like this as the moment to moment fighting was intense and completing the stages were fun, it just wears out after awhile. Overall it's a pretty solid Doom 2016 clone and if you really liked that and wanting more I'd say give Prodeus a try. I wish I could have tried the multiplayer but I couldn't find a room after so many tries.
So far I am quite impressed!
I really like this game. It's trying to look like a 90s Boomer Shooter but plays like Doom 2016. It's a combination of that really comes together nicely. I didn't like any of the weapons. They all felt slightly off. But the ending rivals Rage for most disappointing. It's probably worst to be honest. Rage got a cutscene that didn't make any sense. Prodeus gets a text box telling you you beat the game. I thought that maybe like the Boom Shoots of old there was some separate episodes available that wraps everything up. There isn't, games done. Baffling.
Loud, intense, and unapologetically old-school, Prodeus offers a rip-roaring good time in its single-player campaign. It lacks a distinct throughline in its design, and the story is remarkably flat, but the package offers engaging FPS action.
Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2022/12/01/now-playing-november-2022-edition/
Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2022/12/01/now-playing-november-2022-edition/
I wrapped the campaign on this retro-FPS yesterday and am pretty torn on the whole package. It was clearly initially inspired by DOOM 2016, but seems to evolve into its own thing by the end of it. Level design is extremely inconsistent throughout, with the first 10 or so levels being quite dull before opening up to some genuinely great Tech Bases. Early on in their development, the team picked up Dragonfly, a very well-regarded DOOM mapper to work on levels. I don't know the level breakdown, but there's such a stark shift in map quality about a third of the way in that I wouldn't be surprised if that's where Dragonfly stepped in and took the reins.
Unfortunately Prodeus kinda fumbles a bit towards the end, with a weird insistence on swapping out actual ammo pickups in later levels with little pads that just passively refill your ammo infinitely? I really don't like this change, as it basically means that you can use your rocket launcher/grenade launcher or any other scarce-ammo weapon to your hearts content in the back stretch. If used sparingly - this could've been a cool cathartic moment, but unfortunately it just comes across as kinda bland.
My other big gripe with the game is the enemy roster and encounter design. They do better towards the end of the game, but on Normal difficulty, the encounters are never protracted enough to make them feel worthwhile. Their idea of ambushes throughout the whole campaign is dropping a few Imp-equivalents and calling it a day. It's just super limp. They borrow almost their entire enemy roster from DOOM, but I don't think they do as good a job of differentiating enemy roles as was done in their inspiration. In DOOM, every enemy type serves a very specific purpose, and they just never realize that in Prodeus.
Also, this is a minor gripe, but the dynamic music paired with short encounters means that tracks almost ALWAYS end too soon. It's WEIRD. Other than that, the game's presentation is great. It looks phenomenal - I really like the chunky pixel look they have going, and while it definitely suffers from visual clarity, the ways that enemies explode like viscera balloons is immensely satisfying in the moment.
Overall, it's a better game than it initially appears, but really doesn't stick the landing. I probably wouldn't recommend it to folks that aren't genre diehards, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the upcoming DLC
Unfortunately Prodeus kinda fumbles a bit towards the end, with a weird insistence on swapping out actual ammo pickups in later levels with little pads that just passively refill your ammo infinitely? I really don't like this change, as it basically means that you can use your rocket launcher/grenade launcher or any other scarce-ammo weapon to your hearts content in the back stretch. If used sparingly - this could've been a cool cathartic moment, but unfortunately it just comes across as kinda bland.
My other big gripe with the game is the enemy roster and encounter design. They do better towards the end of the game, but on Normal difficulty, the encounters are never protracted enough to make them feel worthwhile. Their idea of ambushes throughout the whole campaign is dropping a few Imp-equivalents and calling it a day. It's just super limp. They borrow almost their entire enemy roster from DOOM, but I don't think they do as good a job of differentiating enemy roles as was done in their inspiration. In DOOM, every enemy type serves a very specific purpose, and they just never realize that in Prodeus.
Also, this is a minor gripe, but the dynamic music paired with short encounters means that tracks almost ALWAYS end too soon. It's WEIRD. Other than that, the game's presentation is great. It looks phenomenal - I really like the chunky pixel look they have going, and while it definitely suffers from visual clarity, the ways that enemies explode like viscera balloons is immensely satisfying in the moment.
Overall, it's a better game than it initially appears, but really doesn't stick the landing. I probably wouldn't recommend it to folks that aren't genre diehards, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the upcoming DLC
A chunky Doom clone that very much bears a resemblance to Doom Eternal, but with the sprite-based entities reminiscent of classic Doom, the only thing I disliked was the difficulty, as I found the difficulty was either too easy or too hard, and with the game favouring arenas filling with waves of monsters and checkpoints that made death only a minor inconvenience I didn't stick with it to the end.
I cannot tell you what Prodeus is about or any plot details; the game is narratively spartan. But goddamn does it feel amazing to play. There were certain shootouts where the entire room, from floor to ceiling, turned red (or blue) with blood. This game has some of the most satisfying gore, it is perfectly thick and red and leaves trails in the environments; tasteful as fuck. Despite certain guns being numerically better than others and the sheer quantity of them, I still used almost the entire arsenal in each level. Each gun is useful in a very specific case and the developers do a good job at varying enemy placement and environment layouts to ensure that there each gun is given its time to shine. Furthermore, the sounds of each gun are titanic. Certain guns boom, others whoosh or thock. When shooting different guns in quick succession, the guns create an unmistakable rhythm of death.
Prodeus is a very light game: pop in, play a couple levels, quit. It really does not have enough material, story or variety beyond its (admittedly rad) visual gimmick to sate the price tag, but if you see it in a bundle, it is worth giving a shot.
Prodeus is a very light game: pop in, play a couple levels, quit. It really does not have enough material, story or variety beyond its (admittedly rad) visual gimmick to sate the price tag, but if you see it in a bundle, it is worth giving a shot.
Initially good impressions that became marred by poor multi-weapon binding (why default to the lowest power weapon in your possession instead of the strongest?), weird performance issues (Linux, via Proton, other reports indicate similar experience on ProtonDB), and a strong dislike of the secrets -> in-game shop system.
You know how sometimes a game gets remade and it looks exactly how you remember the original looking, but then you look at the original and the remake looks WAY better in nearly every way? Prodeus is that for Doom. That's the short of it.
The long of it is that this is one of the best bomber shooters of the last 5 years. It doesn't lean into movement as much as something like Dusk, Ultrakill, or Turbo Overkill. When I say it's like the original Doom, it is almost just as grounded gameplay-wise. But what it lacks in any focus on platforming or areal combat it gains in satisfying secret hunting and gunplay. Not only are secrets well hidden, but many of them are easily found, but are behind high ledges and far jumps that later abilities will allow you access to.
And the gunplay itself is just SO good. It's chunky in the way shooters of the Build engine were in the early 90s, but enemies just POUR our blood to an absurd degree. Even the smallest dudes shoot geysers that literally end up dripping from the ceiling. I'm no gorehound, but the extreme violence makes the gunplay feel all the more satisfying, with rooms and arenas being covered in various fluids at the end of every combat.
And the game does look like Doom, but it's not strictly pixel-based. I read somewhere that the game uses 3D models but puts pixels around them. Its effect makes it so that each side of every model looks a bit like a 2D image, but has multiple 2D images to show for each possible angle you look at a model at. It's hard to explain, but striking as soon as you see it. But beyond this novelty, there are a lot of really neat visual setpieces to see throughout the game, and despite skipping though all of the text and ignoring the story, these visual flairs were more than enough to keep me engaged until the end.
There's nothing all too unique about the game mechanically, or artistically, outside of what novelty is gained by sticking so much to its old-school shooter roots. But it does a lot with this tried and true formula, and I was very happy to eat this whole bag of comfort food down to the last crumb.
The long of it is that this is one of the best bomber shooters of the last 5 years. It doesn't lean into movement as much as something like Dusk, Ultrakill, or Turbo Overkill. When I say it's like the original Doom, it is almost just as grounded gameplay-wise. But what it lacks in any focus on platforming or areal combat it gains in satisfying secret hunting and gunplay. Not only are secrets well hidden, but many of them are easily found, but are behind high ledges and far jumps that later abilities will allow you access to.
And the gunplay itself is just SO good. It's chunky in the way shooters of the Build engine were in the early 90s, but enemies just POUR our blood to an absurd degree. Even the smallest dudes shoot geysers that literally end up dripping from the ceiling. I'm no gorehound, but the extreme violence makes the gunplay feel all the more satisfying, with rooms and arenas being covered in various fluids at the end of every combat.
And the game does look like Doom, but it's not strictly pixel-based. I read somewhere that the game uses 3D models but puts pixels around them. Its effect makes it so that each side of every model looks a bit like a 2D image, but has multiple 2D images to show for each possible angle you look at a model at. It's hard to explain, but striking as soon as you see it. But beyond this novelty, there are a lot of really neat visual setpieces to see throughout the game, and despite skipping though all of the text and ignoring the story, these visual flairs were more than enough to keep me engaged until the end.
There's nothing all too unique about the game mechanically, or artistically, outside of what novelty is gained by sticking so much to its old-school shooter roots. But it does a lot with this tried and true formula, and I was very happy to eat this whole bag of comfort food down to the last crumb.
Prodeus is 90% a tech demo for the idea of meticulously laying sprites over every angle of a 3D model. It does that very well, and it looks good. But only the last two levels of the game are really interesting at all.
I hope the Elder Veil expansion fixes this problem.
I hope the Elder Veil expansion fixes this problem.
Game is a blast to play. If you enjoy boomer shooters and love every little thing that they have to offer down to the clicks and sounds this is definitely a game I would recommend.
Game-play is go around the arena and shoot these enemies that have a variety of strengths and weaknesses. There's also little things you can do here and there that can freshen up the game-play loop. My favorite part being that I can play this online with my friends like why wasn't this thought of sooner. Story exist but it mostly is there to show you how much you can do with the user created levels.
The fact that you can create your own levels give this game a good way to receive support from fans of the boomer shooter genre. I had fun with the communities levels and am hope to create something that can be liked by at least one other person.
Overall this is a wonderful love letter to boomer shooter fans and is worth every penny. Can't wait to continue creating levels for this community.
Game-play is go around the arena and shoot these enemies that have a variety of strengths and weaknesses. There's also little things you can do here and there that can freshen up the game-play loop. My favorite part being that I can play this online with my friends like why wasn't this thought of sooner. Story exist but it mostly is there to show you how much you can do with the user created levels.
The fact that you can create your own levels give this game a good way to receive support from fans of the boomer shooter genre. I had fun with the communities levels and am hope to create something that can be liked by at least one other person.
Overall this is a wonderful love letter to boomer shooter fans and is worth every penny. Can't wait to continue creating levels for this community.
Competent boomer shooter, but can feel very samey as time passes on. Entirely sure the last 2 areas are just quake maps, but overall feels like it lacks an identity of it's own.
Option to put the music in midi mode is brave and cool.
Option to put the music in midi mode is brave and cool.
Looks like a copy of Brutal Doom, plays like a copy of Brutal Doom. Just mindless shooting, exploding and blood again and again. Perhaps some people like it, but for me DooM is not about this, but good sound design and music, distinct and interesting enemies, and creative and interesting to explore maps. Prodeus does not deliver that.
Great level design and combat unfortunately undermined by a boneheaded "checkpoint" system that respawns you without losing any progress in the level (enemies that you killed already stay dead). It's being removed as an option as a later update though so I'll update this later when the elder veil comes out.
The game is a great boomer-shooter. The graphics and atmosphere are great. The weapons are fun to use. It's a bloodbath. However, I think what makes this game more special than tons of others comes from a design subtlety in the gameplay. You feel the need to find orbs and secret areas in the game because you can only access new weapons thanks to them. And since you are in need of new weapons, you constantly want to examine even the darkest corners of the map. I wanted to constantly open the 3D map and observe the indentations and protrusions you jumped over. Despite these, the game has thought about distributing plenty of orbs that you can easily access, considering the players who do not want to do this. I had a lot of fun finding the orbs. At many points, it requires you to use your practical intelligence and look at the map in more detail. I wish it had adopted a slightly larger and more puzzle-oriented structure. I have another complaint here. Most of the time we can go back to get the irbu we missed on the map, but sometimes I experienced times when it was not possible to return. Of course, it may be difficult to adjust this for such detailed and magnificently thought-out sections, I can understand that, but this situation could still be a little more elaborated. Enemy variety could have been a little more. Other than that, it was a pretty good game. I think it is one of the best boomer-shooter games of modern times, especially in terms of design.
A really nice callback to classic Doom while also being it's own thing and incredibly artistic with it's retro art style. It's a little bit hard to follow what's happening sometimes, narratively, and the ending was very anti-climatic literally ending with a shortly paragraphed text, but this is how most of the story is explained to the best of it's ability anyways.
I really enjoyed the first half of this game, it was a little repetitive in areas I guess, but the enemy types weren't all that bad. I got annoyed in the second half, it felt like the game should have ended already and was really dragging out pulling me into a different dimension with the worst bits of the game but I liked how it kind of went back to form at the end and the final level was like a test of your ability which was really fun.
I liked it, but I don't have much to say about it, because it is what it is from start to finish. It tries to make things feel different and becomes more of an annoyance than a breath of fresh air.
I really enjoyed the first half of this game, it was a little repetitive in areas I guess, but the enemy types weren't all that bad. I got annoyed in the second half, it felt like the game should have ended already and was really dragging out pulling me into a different dimension with the worst bits of the game but I liked how it kind of went back to form at the end and the final level was like a test of your ability which was really fun.
I liked it, but I don't have much to say about it, because it is what it is from start to finish. It tries to make things feel different and becomes more of an annoyance than a breath of fresh air.
Came at a time of boomer-shooter fatigue. Incredible visual style, just plagued with boring enemy types and uninspired level design.
Prodeus is Doom 2016 without the glory kills nonsense. Kickstarted by a handful of ex-Raven Software and Irrational Games people, it's mechanically solid and has great music, but some baffling design decisions hamper its potential, namely overly spongy enemies, locking some of the best ugrades behind well-hidden secrets and, above all else, the fact that you essentially cannot die.
That's right, in every level except the arena that serves as a final boss, whenever your health reaches zero you instantly respawn out of a conveniently placed checkpoint, with full health and ammo and no penalty whatsoever beyond giving up some of your score, which serves no purpose beyond leaderboard placement.
When Prey did something less forgiving than that in 2006 people got incensed, when Bioshock did it one year later people dismissed it, and now that Prodeus does it nobody cares, despite the fact that it pretty much demolishes any semblance of challenge the game might present. All of the tension of combat is gone once you know you can just die and respawn and pick up where you left off, and it is, in fact, far more efficient to just die and respawn than it is to waste time and effort looking for health and ammo pickups. Usually the respawn points are in the same room as the big encounter that might kill you, so there really is no penalty to you losing.
How is combat then? It's good, as mentioned before it's Doom 2016 with the key difference that guns are designed to actually kill enemies, instead of putting them in a drowsy state for an unskippable Mortal Kombat fatality animation every few seconds. The gallery of monsters is precisely what you expect: zombie, shotgun zombie, fireball imp, chaingunner, chunky melee-oriented monster, kamikaze lost soul, flying blob that shoots fireballs, flying blob that vomits kaamikaze lost souls. It's Doom, except for how much of a damage sponge each enemy is. It takes two point blank shotgun shells or three headshots with the plasma rifle to down the most basic zombie and sometimes up to four for a shotgun zombie. This eats through your ammunition fast, especially considering the low max stocks (30 shells for your shotgun without a costly upgrade) and how high the fire rate is with certain weapons, especially the minigun, which can drain your ammo reserves in a matter of seconds. If there's something that both Doom and Serious Sam taught us is that economizing ammo is antithetical to the fun factor os a fast paced shooter like this and should never be a major concern. It is no surprise then that the most entertaining levels in Prodeus are those late games ones that contain ammo refill platforms, which removes the penny pinching needed to conserve your ammo and allows you to cut loose and have fun.
The arsenal is what you'd expect: pistol, shotgun with sniper alt fire, super shotgun, rocket launcher with grenade variant, plasma gun with the homing beacon alt fire from Resistance Fall of Man, railgun doubling as a tesla gun from Wolfenstein, plus a number of unlockable weapons you are unlikely to ever use, since they are locked behind the discovery of an ungodly amount of secrets around the levels, as are mobility upgrades such as double jump and airdash, as well as an ever so necessary bandolier to carry more ammunition. Both the plasma gun and super shotgun need to be unlocked, and you'll want to do so, as they are easily the best guns in the game, even though the way the latter was handled is bizarre to say the least: ever since Doom 2 introduced the super shotgun it's been a tradeoff between increased firepower vs double the consumption of ammo and slower reload, which didn't make the basic boomstick obsolete; here you have this quad barrel beast which can fire without delay, reloads faster and deals more damage per shot than the basic conterpart while firing the same amount of the same ammo (wrap your head around that one), plus it can discharge all barrels at once to deal massive damage to even the strurdiest of foes. There will be no reason to ever use the normal shotgun again, unless you need the precision alt fire, a role shared with multiple other guns.
Locking mobility upgrades behind secret hunting is a questionable choice, as many players might never find enough hidden tokens to afford them, thus missing out on the best the game has to offer in term of movement: when you're zipping around double jumping over acid pits and airdashing out of the way of incoming fire it's some of the finest moments a shooter can offer, too bad these are missable upgrades and as such the levels can't be designed with them in mind.
On the tecnical side, the game is less than stellar: while the game aims at a steady 60 frames even on consoles, performance is poor, with frequent and long load times, common frame drops around the 30fps mark and even occasional freezes lasting up several seconds, guaranteed to get you killed (don't worry though, remember: no consequence for dying...). The art style is bizarre to say the least: in the ocean of retro-themed shooters on the indie market, it is not uncommon to see intentionally low resolutions and low detail models and sprites, but Prodeus takes it to the next level by replacing all of the enemies with sprites that do not billboard like in most 1990s FPS, rather they can be viewered from sixteen different angles per level, meaning at eye level, from above and from below, which must heve been a massive amount to work to get working.
Unfortunately, for all that effort, the gimmick doesn't even look very good: stationary objects especially will jerk around unnaturallyas you strafe around them and I suspect this was not what the developers had intended for the visual effect. Not only that, but I can't think of a single 90s shooter that did this, so it doesn't even look authentic for what it pourports to mimic. Fortunately you can toggle an option which replaces all enemy sprites with polygonal models, which is an absolutely massive improvement, which sadly does not affect dropped weapons and item pickups.
There are around 30 levels in the base campaign, with a lot more content available for free in the workshop menu, thanks to a robust map editor. What comes with the base game is well designed, with very Quake-like multilayered fortresses and moon bases filled withs ecrets. It's great stuff, but easy to get lost in due to the flatness of the color scheme, usually a belend of brown and greys that ends up feeling doisorientating due to lack of signposting. Thankfully an 3D automap is present, which is composed of a low-poly version of the current level, which you can noclip through at will, to get your bearing that way.
In conclusion, Prodeus is a mixed bag: while the action is solid and frenetic, its acts of self-sabotage keep it from being a truly excellent shooter. Maybe if they reworked the difficulty to remove the instant respawns, increased damage output just a tad and optimized performance a bit more it could really be something special. Even so, it's a good retro shooter that is worth playing, especially if you were frustrated with the Doom reboots and wanted the same thing but without some of their most glaring flaws.
That's right, in every level except the arena that serves as a final boss, whenever your health reaches zero you instantly respawn out of a conveniently placed checkpoint, with full health and ammo and no penalty whatsoever beyond giving up some of your score, which serves no purpose beyond leaderboard placement.
When Prey did something less forgiving than that in 2006 people got incensed, when Bioshock did it one year later people dismissed it, and now that Prodeus does it nobody cares, despite the fact that it pretty much demolishes any semblance of challenge the game might present. All of the tension of combat is gone once you know you can just die and respawn and pick up where you left off, and it is, in fact, far more efficient to just die and respawn than it is to waste time and effort looking for health and ammo pickups. Usually the respawn points are in the same room as the big encounter that might kill you, so there really is no penalty to you losing.
How is combat then? It's good, as mentioned before it's Doom 2016 with the key difference that guns are designed to actually kill enemies, instead of putting them in a drowsy state for an unskippable Mortal Kombat fatality animation every few seconds. The gallery of monsters is precisely what you expect: zombie, shotgun zombie, fireball imp, chaingunner, chunky melee-oriented monster, kamikaze lost soul, flying blob that shoots fireballs, flying blob that vomits kaamikaze lost souls. It's Doom, except for how much of a damage sponge each enemy is. It takes two point blank shotgun shells or three headshots with the plasma rifle to down the most basic zombie and sometimes up to four for a shotgun zombie. This eats through your ammunition fast, especially considering the low max stocks (30 shells for your shotgun without a costly upgrade) and how high the fire rate is with certain weapons, especially the minigun, which can drain your ammo reserves in a matter of seconds. If there's something that both Doom and Serious Sam taught us is that economizing ammo is antithetical to the fun factor os a fast paced shooter like this and should never be a major concern. It is no surprise then that the most entertaining levels in Prodeus are those late games ones that contain ammo refill platforms, which removes the penny pinching needed to conserve your ammo and allows you to cut loose and have fun.
The arsenal is what you'd expect: pistol, shotgun with sniper alt fire, super shotgun, rocket launcher with grenade variant, plasma gun with the homing beacon alt fire from Resistance Fall of Man, railgun doubling as a tesla gun from Wolfenstein, plus a number of unlockable weapons you are unlikely to ever use, since they are locked behind the discovery of an ungodly amount of secrets around the levels, as are mobility upgrades such as double jump and airdash, as well as an ever so necessary bandolier to carry more ammunition. Both the plasma gun and super shotgun need to be unlocked, and you'll want to do so, as they are easily the best guns in the game, even though the way the latter was handled is bizarre to say the least: ever since Doom 2 introduced the super shotgun it's been a tradeoff between increased firepower vs double the consumption of ammo and slower reload, which didn't make the basic boomstick obsolete; here you have this quad barrel beast which can fire without delay, reloads faster and deals more damage per shot than the basic conterpart while firing the same amount of the same ammo (wrap your head around that one), plus it can discharge all barrels at once to deal massive damage to even the strurdiest of foes. There will be no reason to ever use the normal shotgun again, unless you need the precision alt fire, a role shared with multiple other guns.
Locking mobility upgrades behind secret hunting is a questionable choice, as many players might never find enough hidden tokens to afford them, thus missing out on the best the game has to offer in term of movement: when you're zipping around double jumping over acid pits and airdashing out of the way of incoming fire it's some of the finest moments a shooter can offer, too bad these are missable upgrades and as such the levels can't be designed with them in mind.
On the tecnical side, the game is less than stellar: while the game aims at a steady 60 frames even on consoles, performance is poor, with frequent and long load times, common frame drops around the 30fps mark and even occasional freezes lasting up several seconds, guaranteed to get you killed (don't worry though, remember: no consequence for dying...). The art style is bizarre to say the least: in the ocean of retro-themed shooters on the indie market, it is not uncommon to see intentionally low resolutions and low detail models and sprites, but Prodeus takes it to the next level by replacing all of the enemies with sprites that do not billboard like in most 1990s FPS, rather they can be viewered from sixteen different angles per level, meaning at eye level, from above and from below, which must heve been a massive amount to work to get working.
Unfortunately, for all that effort, the gimmick doesn't even look very good: stationary objects especially will jerk around unnaturallyas you strafe around them and I suspect this was not what the developers had intended for the visual effect. Not only that, but I can't think of a single 90s shooter that did this, so it doesn't even look authentic for what it pourports to mimic. Fortunately you can toggle an option which replaces all enemy sprites with polygonal models, which is an absolutely massive improvement, which sadly does not affect dropped weapons and item pickups.
There are around 30 levels in the base campaign, with a lot more content available for free in the workshop menu, thanks to a robust map editor. What comes with the base game is well designed, with very Quake-like multilayered fortresses and moon bases filled withs ecrets. It's great stuff, but easy to get lost in due to the flatness of the color scheme, usually a belend of brown and greys that ends up feeling doisorientating due to lack of signposting. Thankfully an 3D automap is present, which is composed of a low-poly version of the current level, which you can noclip through at will, to get your bearing that way.
In conclusion, Prodeus is a mixed bag: while the action is solid and frenetic, its acts of self-sabotage keep it from being a truly excellent shooter. Maybe if they reworked the difficulty to remove the instant respawns, increased damage output just a tad and optimized performance a bit more it could really be something special. Even so, it's a good retro shooter that is worth playing, especially if you were frustrated with the Doom reboots and wanted the same thing but without some of their most glaring flaws.
Prodeus feels like a Doom wad that became it's own thing, but later on, started to run out of ideas, so it mostly just copied what made Doom Eternal enjoayble for everyone, and ran with it.
It is not a bad game, some of it's design decisions are very questionable (the shop is a mess imo) and the campaign is a bit too long for what this game offers, and introduces a gun/mechanic so late, that it kinda makes it unnecessary.
The gunplay is great tho, the game is bloody as hell, and the enemy variety is nice, some weapons feel punchy, and every gun has a secondary fire.
Decent game, but nothing noteworthy.
It is not a bad game, some of it's design decisions are very questionable (the shop is a mess imo) and the campaign is a bit too long for what this game offers, and introduces a gun/mechanic so late, that it kinda makes it unnecessary.
The gunplay is great tho, the game is bloody as hell, and the enemy variety is nice, some weapons feel punchy, and every gun has a secondary fire.
Decent game, but nothing noteworthy.
It's a special sort of game where I can utterly trash the story (seriously, I could barely make heads or tails of it) but it still was in serious contention for my 2022 GOTY. Prodeus is a Doom clone that feels more of a spiritual successor than anything, with briskly laid-out levels funneling the player through challenging, visually-appealing encounters that nevertheless make one feel powerful against the forces of sort-of-hell and... sort-of-heaven? Again, no clue was happening with the story there.
Pensé que me iba a gustar más, pero se me hace muy bola, las armas no me gustan el como funcionan