It’s interesting to look back and see how first person shooters have evolved since the days Death. What used to be a genre that was more focused on single-player experiences exploring levels and slaying monsters is slowly becoming something more focused on multiplayer experiences. In recent years, it seems like the old-school design philosophy is getting more and more undercut in smaller-scale shooter projects, and the newest product in the line is Prodeus. Developed by Bounds Box Games, a team comprised of industry vets and Doom modders, this new ‘explosive shooter’ has done a great job in delivering carnage Classic shooter with some light modern touches.
Like its predecessors in the same genre, Prodeus is quite light on the narrative. The premise places you in the role of a common space sailor on an asteroid that serves as a battleground between two warring alien factions. Or something like that. It doesn’t really matter; Prodeus is more interested in just putting the one-man army’s worth of guns in your hands and pushing you to make every move. Those of you who appreciate the focus on the story in the latest installment Death or Wolfenstein As a result, the reboot can be a bit disappointing here, but we promise that the raw thrill of battle will quickly make you forget that you care who you are playing or who you are. What are you fighting against?
Gameplay in Prodeus follows the old-fashioned shooter design, where the focus is on navigating mazelike levels with combat-focused arenas, while cutting down on anything that stands in your way. The Bound Box has clearly done its job in creating a moderate game feel, as nearly every weapon feels crispy and impressively satisfying. The shotgun blasts and rockets will have your enemies actively exploding in a rain of blood, and being bored walking through a corridor full of monsters with a shotgun always feels great.
You gradually grow your arsenal as you progress through the levels and while there are obviously some weapons that are better than others at things like crowd control or taking out bigger enemies , it seems that Prodeus never falls in Doom Eternal trap of all, except that you need to use specific weapons for specific enemies. Each weapon has a secondary ability activated via ‘ZL’ – such as an explosion on your side weapon or a shotgun that fires into your light-based arc cannon – which gives giving each weapon a little more utility beyond its obvious use.
The movement itself feels Excellent, especially when you find the toggle to keep your character active. We are happy to be reminded of Quake once we get a feel for the kind of fast, hardcore controls on offer here and the more intense all-out battles you take on in the larger arenas that really push you to take advantage of your players. How nimble your object is. The only downside here is that gyroscope control is not an option at the time of writing. While you can perform well enough using the Joy-Con’s sticks, they don’t seem to have enough travel for what your action requires; We recommend using the Professional Controller if you have one.
When you’re not busy fighting for your life, there’s a lot of discovery that needs to be made to help break the action down a bit. Each level has secret rooms and routes that have things like additional health, armor, or ores that you can use to buy new guns and abilities in the shop on the world map. Some levels even have a secret exit. Given how sneaky some of these secrets are, it’s almost certain that you won’t find everything on your first level run (sometimes you really can not) and this adds some replayability to the main campaign. It’ll still only take you about ten hours or so to erase everything, but we’ve been impressed with how fast that runtime is. The balance between the battles and the quieter explorations is pretty perfect.
Once you’ve used up the main campaign, there’s also a powerful user content hub on “ProNet” where you can play online multiplayer or browse and download new levels (even whole campaign!) Designed using the same tools that the developers used. Our favorite is a level called ‘Black Magic Guild’, which offers a completely disorienting and claustrophobic descent into a maze decorated with death traps and teleportation walls. We also find an innovative re-creation of the first level of Quake in the Prodeus engine, right down to secret locations and enemy locations.
As is typical for user-generated content, there is bound to be a decent spectrum of quality depending on what you download, but we were impressed by the sampling of levels and campaigns we did. sample. The only downside is that you can’t do anything yourself in this version of Switch, although it makes sense after seeing how dense and mouse-focused the level editor is on PC. If it were introduced here, it would be an absolute must for controller navigation or developers would have to completely redesign the whole thing. At the very least, ProNet allows you to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor and having access to this vast amount of free content coupled with an already excellent campaign gives Prodeus a lot to keep you coming back.
As for its presentation, Prodeus did a great job of recreating the look and feel of ’90s shooters while occasionally throwing in some modern flares. A pixel filter and 2D enemy sprites give Prodeus a vintage flair, although if you want something with a slightly more modern feel, you can choose to swap out the sprites for the 3D models. . And while the environment starts to feel much more claustrophobic and colorless, the later levels begin to expand further and become more visually interesting. For modern touch, we especially appreciate details like dynamic lighting or sparks flying from explosions. These effects come at a cost – we’ve noticed that frame rates tend to drop when there’s a lot going on at once – but rarely does it actually negatively affect gameplay.
All of this is aided by a soundtrack that oscillates between two extremes of creepy, almost pensive ambient sounds and a much more aggressive metal of doom, kicking the device as the monsters begin. move into the room. We note that the music also tends to be quite dynamic, increasing or decreasing the pitch to match whatever’s happening on the screen at the time. You can say it’s not Memorable soundtrack, but we felt that it suited the action and did a great job of setting the right atmosphere.
Inference
Prodeus is the kind of game that knows exactly what it wants to do and execute that vision perfectly. It’s uncomplicated and nothing you haven’t seen, but every inch of this experience has clearly been created with passion and talent. The intense gunfights, vast arsenal, metal music, and colorful level design all come together to make Prodeus feel like a mix of classic and modern. . If you’ve been a fan of Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, or any of the indie shooters of the last few years, you owe it to yourself to give Prodeus a try. Even if you haven’t been much into the genre before, we would say it’s a great place to jump in and see what it’s all about. Wherever you stand, we have a strong recommendation for Prodeus; This is totally worth your time and money.
