Prodeus (2022)

You remember that bit on The Simpsons where Bart wanted to play that game "Bonestorm"? Prodeus is what "Bonestorm" would have been if it existed in real life.

I think this game is a part of the "Boomer Shooter" trend in the FPS genre. Shooters were really not what I was into when those old school shooters like Doom and Blood were big. I didn't really get into shooters until I played the original Halo. So it's interesting seeing what shooters were like before that era.

Prodeus has an amazingly striking art style. This sets it apart from some of the other boomer shooters I've played like Dusk or Amid Evil. And like those, I think it's okay.

The gameplay in Prodeus is absolutely fine. There is nothing gamebreaking about it, but there's also nothing really special about it. The graphical style is obviously the main attraction to this game, and it is cool to look at. For a while.

Enemy variety is pretty lackluster. I think there are about 9 standard enemies, and then they are later remixed into blue versions of themselves which are much more annoying.

Grabbing the minigun and mowing down 20 or so zombies is pretty rad. Not exactly challenging, though. This game is surprisingly boring, which I wouldn't have thought before playing it. There isn't much to it apart from shooting. The gameplay style of something like Doom Eternal is much more interesting in how it incentivizes you to use different weapons, and has mechanics for recovering health and ammo. Most games compare unfavorably to Doom Eternal, though.

Prodeus is pretty short. It doesn't overstay its welcome. I never felt incredibly frustrated like I did with games like "Ion Fury" or "Amid Evil," but it lacks the charm of something like "Dusk." I was really just glad to have finished it, though. It's free on Gamepass if you have it.

It feels like a demake of Doom 2016, which isn't bad. Imps are just a carbon copy, but other enemies are pretty similar: Zombies. Shotgun zombies. Flying round demons that shoot fireballs. Bull-demons that run at you. Arsenal is pretty standard: pistol, double SMGs, Minigun. The only slight surprise is that a shotgun can be charged, and the plasma rifle can "latch" to a target once you land your first shot.
Each level contains multiple ore fragments. And as far as I can tell, some weapons can only be purchased with these. Also, each level includes numerous checkpoints, but if you quit it in the middle, you'll have to replay it from the beginning. Luckily, the levels are pretty short: 15 minutes on average.
Although enemies are 2D, the authors did something brilliant and rendered them from the top from different perspectives. So when you look at them from above, their sprites aren't distorted, like in Ion Maiden.
The game managed to surprise me with the sniper level. Snipers telegraphing with laser sights aren't new. But I certainly didn't expect to dodge between covers in a Doom-like. You can't kill them until you reach the end of the level because they're behind a force barrier too.
Just like the surrealists rejected photography, that game rejects modern physics engines. Instead, we have platforms floating in radioactive waste animated manually, and even more impressively, ruins raising from the sand effects done all by hand.
A problem inherited from the original games: all enemies are introduced relatively early. The ice-throwing one appears in the 3rd episode, but most of them are there with you from the 1st. Some reskins (think Hell Knight and Hell Baron from Doom 2) have more health and some additional attacks, but that doesn't help much.
The same problem with the arsenal: a shotgun becomes obsolete after getting a super shotgun, and SMGs are obsolete after you get the Minigun.

I needed to collect more ore pieces, so I didn't even get to test one of the weapons, the Mammoth revolver. Doesn't matter, though.
Was surprised that the final gun you get is a chem-gun from Unreal. Not Doom-like weapon at all. Glad they did add at least one boss to the game. And it's a rather good boss fight too, if a bit chaotic.