I love how you can make it as retro as you want or cutting all that out and just enjoying it as a brand new feeling game. The breadth of fiddling you can do is impressive and you’re sure to find something that appeals to you, no matter how picky you might be. There are a ton of customization options here and while the game starts out with 2.5D looking enemy voxels or sprites inside of a fully 3d space with 3d blood effects, you can modify just about any aspect of the presentation, adding CRT filters or swapping out enemy models to 3D for a modern twist if you so choose. There’s a constant, anxious whir of the track pensively holding onto tension even in quiet moments, ready to snap back into a grindy, headbanging groove at a moment’s notice.Īnd while the soundtrack will certainly make you clench your butthole and bang your head vociferously, Prodeus also tries its damndest to make the visuals crunchy and face meltingly good in equal measure. The poppin’ color palette of reds and greens against industrial grays is straight of id’s recent playbook, as is the soundtrack, which must be what Mick Gordon’s dreams sound like. So that’s the pomp and circumstance of the game but what is it exactly? You may have guessed quite a bit of this already as I’ve called or insinuated it’s a Doom Eternal clone about fifty thousand and twelve times already but here goes: Prodeus is a strafecentric, fast paced boomer shooter filled with secrets and key hunting that seeks to recapture some of the straightforward glory of 90s classics like Doom and Quake but mostly Doom. That pedigree shines through here in spades, and they would only grow stronger once joined by the omnipresent indie composer Andrew Hulshult for the soundtrack and Doom modder Josh O’Sullivan for level design duties.Īnd it’s this pedigree that likely helped get the game crowdfunded in 2019 on Kickstarter, no small task even for the most promising projects. Anyway, before the dudes officially joined back up to start work on Prodeus, they worked at id software, Starbreeze Studios, and Irrational Games and contributed to some great games like Wolfenstein 2009, Black Ops 2, and other big names like Bioshock Infinite, Black Ops, and Doom 2016. They actually met while working on Singularity at Raven Software, which is a nice place to randomly say I love that game and Raven’s one of the greatest studios ever so great minds were definitely thinking alike here. If you’ve never heard of these chaps, don’t worry, I get around and I haven’t either but their track record speaks for itself. This motherfluffer was primarily developed by two chads named Mike Voeller and Jason Mojica, whom I may actually live near if his Twitter ain’t lying (he ain’t lying meme), so that’s cool. Initially, when I got done playing, I didn’t feel like I had enough to say to warrant a video but the more I thought about it, and the longer that this video I’m uploading took, meaning I couldn’t edit and needed something to do, the words came pouring down like a delicious Dr. Today’s Eternal clone is actually the most similar feeling to me and also the one I think could benefit the most from branching out. Adding advanced mobility options like a dash move or grappling hook, an industrial metal soundtrack, weapon quick swapping, resource management optionality for risky attacks, and all that does not make your game interesting by default and may just make it seem like you’re adding very little to Doom Eternal’s exact formula, but I can’t fault games like Ultrakill, Shadow Warrior 3, Turbo Overkill, Deadlink, Fashion Police, Metal Hellsinger, Project Warlock 2, Postal: Brain Damaged for moving in this direction and they have flourish of their own that should be lauded. Now I can’t say I’m angry that they’re copying a great game, but these copies do tend to run together, don’t they, despite being very polished. Many indie developers picked up on this cliche and ran with it, creating a host of Doom Eternal clones. Neener neener!Įternal was just incredibly fun and beautiful and deep and polished and well balanced and had a heavy metal vibe all its own that has become its own cliché. But Doom Eternal coming out the same month was quite therapeutic for those us who were often content to stay in our rooms anyway and fritter away our lives having more fun than most other people. March 2020 was a tough time in the US as it marked when lockdowns happened and people were sent home to work. Just like DOOM revolutionized gaming in 1993, so too has Doom Eternal in 2020. Even as someone who’s dedicated the last two years to understanding the history of video games and how much we owe our forebears, it’s still surprising to realize you’ve just lived through a historical milestone that will probably influence generations to come.
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