Prodeus Early Access Review
It is early November 1993. John Romero firmly locks the door to iD Software while gently humming aggressive MIDI tones to himself, contemplating the launch of his new game next month. The air is quiet. Inside the office, paperwork slowly floats upwards on localised static. A cyclone of energy sends documentation flying away from the blue electrical orb appearing at chest height in the coffee lounge. As quickly as it appears, the orb is gone depositing a small naked man in its wake. The figure scrambles forward through the lounge, beginning a frantic search through the office. Draws are pulled from desks, books flung from shelves a calamitous cascade of activity against limited time.
Eyes dart across the room as cold, clammy hands leaf through document cases reaching into the recesses of storage yearning to clasp their circular goal. At last, hands grasp the firm yet fragile form. The compacted disk is raised, and an exclamation of triumph emerges from the naked man. One hand rises to the figures head forefingers extended to his ear. “I have it, send me home in ten”. He kicks over a couple of the cans of petrol John Romero keeps around the office for decor and picks up another, slushing fuel across the room. As wisps of light and crackles of electricity begin to surround him, he grabs one of the many skull candles from a shelf and raises it, to be dashed across the floor soaked with propellant.
A gaze to the door and his eyes meet with John Romero staring through to the office, jaw agog. The naked man smiles in victory, and as he is whisked away, the skull candle tumbles through the now empty space where it was once held aloft. John Romero watches as iD Software burns, frozen in the face of inexplicable events.
It is (release date for Prodeus) 2020. At the office, for Bounding Box Software, a tall metallic structure much like an open door frame begins to glow, and the air thickens. A familiar blue ball of light births its passenger crouched on the floor in the centre of the frame. A towel is placed around them. “It’s done,” Michael exclaims to his partner in crime, while putting on the clothes being handed to him. “No one will ever know we just remade the game with a couple of changes”. A moment of silence punctuates the room. “It didn’t work. Somehow the original was still released,” Jason responds sullenly. Michael stops getting dressed. “That’s it then. We’re Doomed.”
I’m not saying Prodeus is just a flat remake for the modern world. But to call it a ‘homage’ to the original Doom would be like saying Super Mario 2 is a ‘homage’ to Super Mario. There are a few new mechanics in there, and some extra bits and bobs for those that will use them but on the whole, not much has been changed. Let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the weird.
The good
The gameplay is fantastic. Weapons feel powerful even as you progress through to later stages of the early access and are always satisfying to use. You are given a variety of armaments, and while you don’t have access to everything just yet, it’s enough for now.
Enemy gore is vicious, and you will often find your entire screen and weapon coated in blood. There is a dismemberment system that is pretty involved, meaning you can delimb different sections of different enemies, some for instant kills others seem to take away their ability to fight with certain powers. This adds to the weapon feel greatly and makes playing extremely satisfying.
Speaking of enemies, despite griping over the reskin of game enemies later in the review, the really nice addition is that they actually have in fighting. As enemies get turned, or spawn into the map, ruckus will break out. Its blue stuff vs everything else, and an interesting twist on the old ‘fight it all yourself’ style.
The environments have nice details for retro gaming and are better organised than OG Doom. They are not linear, but instead of searching for hours looking for the green keycard door and tracking back on myself constantly, the game seems to always give you a good sense of where to go. I never once found myself asking ‘which way next’ and it felt like very linear progression despite each map being an open environment.
Speaking of level design, there is a level maker in the game. It’s easy to use even for a layperson like myself and pretty fun. I spent a couple of hours making a small combat chamber and can see how people that love this sort of thing will appreciate it.
The bad
Small issues to start with. Hitting the restart button immediately restarts a level from the beginning with no warning. Which would be fine but if you hit escape to take a quick break, then come back to the game and intend to hit back to get into the fray be aware that ‘restart’ is only a selection lower and you may find yourself back at the start. I did it a couple of times over the course of playing.
Enemy variation is pretty limited. Worse, it’s frankly all Doom creature reskins. Imps, Zombiemen, Demons and Shotgun Guys will make up the majority of your time while in later levels Cacodemons and Lost Souls make heavier appearances. The game does have some of its own inventions, but having completed the early access content, I only encountered about 4-5 of them. Everything else, if you have played Doom or any of the newer iterations, you fought these creatures before.
Creatures I am not counting are the reskins. Guys. If your idea of adding an enemy variety is ‘blue version of all the other enemies we made’, I’m not a fan. It’s a unique game; I would have loved to see some more unique enemy types. And then explode them.
And the weird
The guns are really nicely detailed, and I understand that the aim is to go for a retro polish, but it looks like someone lovingly 3d modelled some really cool weapons and right at the end hit the pixellize function. The same is true with the rest of the enemies, and it feels like by designing the game to not compete against the AAA version of itself they crippled the looks.
As it’s a ‘classic’ style game, there is no upgrade system. This is fine and somewhat mitigated by each weapon having multiple fire modes, but I think I have become so used to seeing character progression in some form or other that it makes the game feel a bit dated. Which is what they were going for, I suppose.
Speaking of weapons, each ammo type has three to choose from though I didn’t get my hands on every gun so far. I have completed every level available, so I suspect the rest are in development. The only weird choice here is that each weapon is immediately replaceable as soon as you get the next tier up. Once I had the minigun, I never used any other bullet spewer, and the same applies to each ammo class. As all the guns have alternate fire modes, it would be nice to see them have more utility instead of being completely dwarfed by the better version of themselves.
Overall there’s a lot to love here, especially if you miss playing classic Doom. Prodeus doesn’t do anything groundbreaking or new; instead, it upcycles old gaming material into something a bit more palatable and just as fun. If you miss rip and tearing your way through layers of hell, and enjoy retro-style instead of the AAA visuals this may be the modern Doom you have been waiting for.
It really makes you feel like Spider-Man, if Spider-Man were a green suited man hell-bent on taking down Hell itself.
[Reviewed on PC]