KickStarter Prodeus - retro FPS by ex-Raven devs

[Curratum]

Maybe Dragonfly did the first half and General Vivi did the second half, who knows.

 

[Ivan]

Well, the campaign ended sooner than I as expecting. That said, what a blast this was. The combat flow is excellent and the aesthetics are awesome. I would rank this up there with Dusk and Doom Eternal as some of my favorite FPS from recent years. I do think Dusk does theming better and its bestiary has more personality/definition. Monster design wise I do dig the tall xenomorth thing with the projectile swings.

Very much will return once fan campaigns are done/we have a nice batch of fan levels.

Now to dig into the soundtrack to find my favorites.

 

[Ivan]

it begins

I was in the Hulshult neighborhood and...

Spoiler

 

[Darth Roxor]

the finale for corruption sure sucked. it isn't made clear that you can't shoot through the red electric forcefield but enemies CAN.

yeah because its not like the same thing happens 2-3 levels prior in marksman

 

[Curratum]

Liking Prodeus so much, I feel tempted to try Doom Eternal, ackshuly. But I don't like the default movement speed in that at all, it feels like you're slogging along all the time and need to constantly dash.

 

[Ivan]

I highly recommend you do. Doom Eternal has my favorite combat loop, but it does take a minute before it gives you all of the movement abilities, not as long as Prodeus does.

Playing through the "best of early access" fan levels right now. Not too shabby!

 

[Curratum]

I highly recommend you do. Doom Eternal has my favorite combat loop, but it does take a minute before it gives you all of the movement abilities, not as long as Prodeus does.

Playing through the "best of early access" fan levels right now. Not too shabby!

Will look into DE then! Do I want to get the season pass with the two Dead Gods expansions?

Also, search / filter prodeus customs for previous Mapcore contest entries / winners, good maps.

 

[Darth Roxor]

And das it.

When I said I had 2 levels left, actually it turned out I had like 7

Great game, had a blast. Final level is a bit disappointing but the second-last one makes up for it, got a lot of Quakey vibes from that. Also, the campaign is surprisingly long for a modern shooper.

I could pick BROdeus apart for a number of weirdo quirks and mind-boggling flaws but I really can't be bothered when I had so much fun with it.

 

[Ivan]

huh, I felt it ended...abruptly. as in, surely it would build toward something more climactic, some final encounter. If I recall correctly, isn't the final encounter another run of the mill wave fight?

Still, it leaving me hungry for more is a good thing indeed. favorite weapon(s) and level?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Liking Prodeus so much, I feel tempted to try Doom Eternal, ackshuly. But I don't like the default movement speed in that at all, it feels like you're slogging along all the time and need to constantly dash.

IMO nuDoom2 is a lot worse than this. Level design can't hold a candle to Prodeus and it feels very railroady, not to mention it was made for spazzlords, art design/interface is atrocious.

 

[Darth Roxor]

favorite weapon(s) and level?

My fav weapon is the lazer sixshooter, hands down.

As for level, not sure. There's a lot of really good and memorable ones. Off the top of my head: Marksman, The Descent, Space Station, Gate to Chaos would prob be the ones I remember as the coolest. But then there's also Trench, Meltdown, Corruption, Progenitor, Atonement... really, the level design in this game is very gud.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Liking Prodeus so much, I feel tempted to try Doom Eternal, ackshuly. But I don't like the default movement speed in that at all, it feels like you're slogging along all the time and need to constantly dash.

Doom Eternal is basically an arena shooter except its single player.

What i mean is that the game is extremely PUSHY. If you are not at peak spaz 100% of the time you gonna get fucked. Or at least that was my experience of it at nightmare.

By modern gayming standard its a notable achievement. By classic shooter standards, it has some glaring flaws you may not be able to overcome, like the non-existent level design, the retarded "collectibles", the try hard dude bro "story" etc.

 

[Curratum]

Just finished the campaign tonight. Dat boi mad

https://steamcommunity.com/id/curratum/recommended/964800

The game is quite literally playing Doom 2 with iddqd on, and you can't turn it off. You just "do your best" but you can't die or lose. In the later levels where I started getting creamed much more often, I started to fully realize the stupidity of it.

 

[udm]

No penalty for death at all other than reduced score?

I'm indifferent to the debate on checkpoint saves versus save anywhere, but this seems like huge decline. It was one of the reasons I absolutely loathed Bioshock.

 

[Ivan]

what a child (the steam user, not you bro ^)

 

[Darth Roxor]

what a child (the steam user, not you bro ^)

i'm pretty sure the user is him

the lack of a death penalty is one of my main points of criticism, but this is just dumb

it's especially dumb if you "get creamed all the time" and then complain about it - have you perhaps tried lowering the difficulty you goddamn poseur

i don't have a single map where i'd die more than 1 time and that was all on very hard

 

[Jaedar]

it's especially dumb if you "get creamed all the time" and then complain about it - have you perhaps tried lowering the difficulty you goddamn poseur

Using quickload 500 times per level and then beating it deathless is only winning in the technical sense, but to some people that is all that matters.

 

[toughasnails]

People who play Doom regularly tend not to save during individual maps at all, and modern Doom wads are generally significantly more challenging than this game ever gets.
Also in Prodeus' case, if you don't have skill/time/patience but have some self-control, you can impose on yourself a limited number of continues per current map, as if you had a limited number of lives.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Somebody make a mod that actually adds death penalties what i'm hearing so far sounds utterly retarded lol.

 

[Curratum]

what a child (the steam user, not you bro ^)

i'm pretty sure the user is him

the lack of a death penalty is one of my main points of criticism, but this is just dumb

it's especially dumb if you "get creamed all the time" and then complain about it - have you perhaps tried lowering the difficulty you goddamn poseur

i don't have a single map where i'd die more than 1 time and that was all on very hard

Here's the thing though. If you lower the difficulty, 90% of the game is a sleep-inducing cakewalk. Then the 10% that are "80 points of damage flying spawns inside your tailpipe" arenas are ok. I was only dying inside 10% of the level spaces every time I died, in those close spawn arenas. If I lower the difficulty further, I'd literally be sleepwalking through anything BUT the arenas, which is 90% of the game.

I played half the game on the highest diff. Then I said, well, sure, let's try a notch below. Then the Prodeus dimension levels were an absolute clusterfuck even on that and I either had to drop it lower, where the game is mostly a cakewalk, or accept dying 6 times per level. But the way the game is structured, why even bother? Just take the 6 deaths and still log a higher score on the end screen, because lowering diff drops your score like a rock.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Decided to remove it from inventory to give it a spin.

The no penalties for death are as retarded as i thought they were. I don't get what's even the point of playing this it's like playing Doom with god mode on. Fuck the score points who ever gave a fuck about that shit in a shooter?

Game reminds me of nu-Doom 2016 more than anything so far.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Game reminds me of nu-Doom 2016 more than anything so far.

Because you are fucking stupid. This game has nothing in common with Doom 2016 apart from the theme of being a futuristic guy shooting demons in sci-fi locales.

 

[orcinator]

But I don't like the default movement speed in that at all, it feels like you're slogging along all the time and need to constantly dash.

Yes, the way to play gud is to dash every .5 seconds.

Regarding this game, it seems like they're doing the classic arcade thing of allowing you to use quarters to continue, a mechanic that you were supposed to ignore in favor of 1ccing stuff; i.e. something completely archaic in non-p2w games.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Game reminds me of nu-Doom 2016 more than anything so far.

Because you are fucking stupid. This game has nothing in common with Doom 2016 apart from the theme of being a futuristic guy shooting demons in sci-fi locales.

Dude, it feels very similar, so much so i've seen people mentioning Doom 2016 elsewhere as well, so i'm not the only one.

The environments, the way the music luls into an ambient before the arena fights, the style of the secrets i've found so far, its all very reminescent of Doom 2016.

Maybe the level design becomes traditional as you move along, i didn't get that far yet, just pushed it to the first big arena fight where i finally got killed and got to experience the build in save scumming mechanic, and i don't like it. I don't give a fuck about scoring mechanics so the fact dying means nothing made me not care anymore. No incentive to play well.

 

[toughasnails]

But I don't like the default movement speed in that at all, it feels like you're slogging along all the time and need to constantly dash.

Yes, the way to play gud is to dash every .5 seconds.

Regarding this game, it seems like they're doing the classic arcade thing of allowing you to use quarters to continue, a mechanic that you were supposed to ignore in favor of 1ccing stuff; i.e. something completely archaic in non-p2w games.

Yeah p much. What people need here is some self-control, like when you play play arcade games via MAME. You technically have infinite continues free of charge but you are ruining the game for yourself that way.