Looking for that warm feeling you get from your shotgun as you empty it into another demon’s skull? Enjoy blasting your way through 32-bit nightmare fuel, to a soundtrack that evokes a Megadeath album cover? You’re not saving the world– you’re exterminating your makers. Let’s rip and tear into Prodeus.
This first-person shooter developed by Bounding Box Software, and published by Humble Games. True to it’s indie cred, it was crowd-funded by a successful kickstarter campaign, with an early access version released in November 2020. The full release just came out, and I had the pleasure of playing Prodeus on lunch day.
Let’s get in to the review.
You start as a scientist on board a space ship, conducting some sort of experiments on the titular Prodeus crystal. In the course of the experiment you are converted into an agent of Prodeus, but something in the conversion goes wrong and you become a lone rogue, out for vengeance, and nothing is going to stand in your way.
You are thrust into a system of bases where you must fight the hoards of undead, demon insects and hell hounds. Once you’ve slain enough basic grunts the Prodeus start to show up! Transforming the hoards of undead into a new level of monstrosity.
Your goal is simple:
Destroy the Prodeus and anything they send at you.
Prodeus’s obvious inspiration from Doom and Quake can been seen right away: Its 32-bit, its a first-person shooter, and its a total gore-fest. Bounding Box Software cranked up the gore to 11, and built set piece to make you enjoy the carnage.
For instance, scenes involve wide train doors opening to release a horde of enemies. That I’m able to mow down with my chain gun, painting the walls of the room a nice, bright red. The amount of blood released in this game evokes The Shining’s iconic elevator door scene. I’m not going to say I loved it, but I did. It’s pure Havoc.
The ceratite of enemies levels and guns are really nice.
The action is fast paced and really never gets boring. My favorite part is taking out a sniper nest by circling around it to infiltrate the central tower. In another great moment I chucked a grenade into a corridor with enemies and watching the blood pour out of the windows.
Needs some work
My complaints about Prodeus are few, and are mostly associated with the A.I. of the enemies.
- Enemies like to emote too much. it breaks the action and drops my immersion from the game.
- The demon dog pathfinding is the worst– you can easily trick them into getting stuck.
- Imp fireballs are a bit slow, causing the A.I. to over-correct and making the imps less threatening then hitscan shot gun guys.
- The soundtrack can pop and hit sometimes, but for my money it does not have the skull-crushing drive it needs.
The game has time trials for weapons
Where have I seen this before…? DOOM but you aren’t rewarded for accomplishing them. They’re fun, but at least give the player some perks. Such as the ability to carry more of that ammo type for meeting the challenge.
Features
One of the features that give Prodeus more bang for its buck than other games in the genre. Is the level editor mode you can access from day one. Anyone who owns the game on a PC will have the same tools used by the developers to make levels from scratch. I gave it a spin and the editing tools are well-designed for speed and ease of use.
6 out of 10 worth the $24 on steam.
If you like me, are a fan of Doom and Quake, then you’ll love this game. The controls are perfect and the gore is… something to witness.
