Genesis Part 1 (Prodeus)

Channel:

Immorpher

Subscribers:

878

Published on December 23, 2022 5:00:36 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJXHPAocsSI

Game:

Prodeus (2020)

Duration: 18:39

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5

Prodeus: https://store.steampowered.com/app/964800/Prodeus/
Doom 64 Discord: https://discord.gg/Ktxz8nz

I got on the Prodeus kickstarter quite early, during the days when the funding seemed uncertain. Since then the game got noticed and became popular. Now it's fully released and its time to cash in on my investment by beating the game!

Overall, I am happy with my investment! Graphically it's one of the more impressive retro FPS games. Perhaps only Amid Evil has it beat. But there is a lot of nice PBR materials and lighting. I wish though you could turn off the dark vignette around the screen and reduce the crazy amount of blood. Prodeus also comes with a map editor. More shooters need to have a map editor and map sharing like Prodeus. I had my doubts on their ability to get multiplayer going, but they did and its quite fun too. No other game, that I am aware of, lets you online COOP custom levels so easily. It has been worth it for me just for that. But Prodeus does have a full campaign too which is COOP compatible.

As a retro FPS, I don't think it is as refined as the top games of the genre. The spread of enemy projectiles, aoe attacks, the reloading, the charging of the shotgun, and other aspects give it a hint of a more modern cover shooter. Now it doesn't really play like a cover shooter, but those aspects make it a bit more sloppy than some other shooters in the genre. And when you aren't busy reloading at enemies the weapons do have a punch. Now there are like 16 different weapons, which is too many, and they overlap a bit too much. You can still narrow it down to a handful of favorites and ignore the rest.

The level editor is quite powerful, and the levels are very dynamic, more so than its contemporaries. I haven't finished playing all the levels yet but the layouts are decently large and easy to navigate. I have been actually finding its automap useful in finding secrets and I am glad they included it. Instead of saving there is a checkpoint system, which I do kind of prefer. However when you die, the level doesn't reset to what it was, you just get warped back to the checkpoint and the enemies stay dead. I think they decided on this for multiplayer purposes and so people don't get stuck in custom maps, but it takes away from some of the challenge.

The enemies are generally borrowed from the Doom series, for better or worse. Doom does have decently balanced roster. But Prodeus includes a lot of the hitscanners and makes them take more damage, which just slows down the game and makes you take cover quite often. Although Prodeus' enemies appear as sprites, they are actually 3D models being rendered off-screen. It is a neat effect and allows them to be reactive to light and blood. But because of this, most enemy bodies will dissolve away. Also it cant have too many enemies at once, so they will teleport in all of the time. Because of this the levels feel quite empty as there is a major lack of environmental enemies and roaming enemies. If the enemies were real sprites, this wouldn't have been needed.

Prodeus has a neat Mario 3-like overworld, where you collect keys to open new levels and can go back to previous levels. I have no clue why you need those keys, but it's an fun idea to have an overworld. You also collect ore in levels, like a collectathon, which I think is a good idea too. No idea why there are these abandoned stores which let you buy weapons and jumping abilities though. But it is fun hunting for ore in levels. Some of this confusion arises because I really don't know what is going on in Prodeus. There are the "Chaos" faction which live in a mortal realm, and the "Prodeus" faction which I guess is the opposite realm? For being "Chaos" they seem awfully organized with scientific research. Not sure why we are fighting both of them and seemingly going towards the Prodeus realm. The levels do have descriptions, which is a good idea, but they haven't been doing a great job describing motivations. Now retro FPS shouldn't be narrative driven, but they should give you a good idea why you are there and what you are doing. I have not finished the game yet, so maybe this will change.

Overall, I think Prodeus should be praised for its level editor and multiplayer. It's visual design is nice too. So far it's enemy, weapon, and story choices could be better. But that doesn't take away from its achievement too much. Perhaps as I beat the game it will give me some more nice surprises and I can figure out its story.

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