Sometimes I go back and review older games. Usually because I jumped into them late. Project Warlock has been on my Steam wishlist for a while, and I recently finally grabbed it. Must have been on sale. So of course I finished it and I’m gonna review it!

There’s been a few of these in recent days, FPS that look and play much like Doomlikes of old. I’m all for that, as it’s a style of gameplay that is still absolutely valid and great. I revisit DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D and Super 3D Noah’s Ark all the time, amongst others.

So let’s go and see if this classic DOOM-inspired game is good!

Developer: Buckshot Software
Publisher: gaming company
Release date: October 18 2018 (June 2020 for consoles)
Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbone, PS4 (PC version reviewed)
Genre: Doomlike

This is a “retro-style” FPS, a proper “Doomlike” if you want to use the correct terminology (I’ve been rejecting the term “FPS” more and more). It takes on a look similar to classic shooters like DOOM, though I don’t think it actually uses raycasting, but rather actual 3D environments. Almost everything in the game is just 2D sprites, so it does emulate the raycasting style of visuals quite well. The visual style feels pretty cartoony and the sprites are nice, bit and detailed, but the designs for enemies are still pretty cool and the game is quite colorful. Each level represents the kind of areas very well, so the egypt level has mummies and anubis-like enemies and such, while the city level has pretty cool-looking mechs. It’s very game-y which I appreciate, and slightly pixelated stylistically, but the actual quality is definitely there. Some of these big sprites are really nice.

The gameplay is kind of an update on classic Doomlikes. You can strafe and move around very smoothly like more modern FPS, and you move pretty fast (there’s a run button, I recommend just putting the options to have you autorun). You can aim in all directions you so can actually look up and down, though there’s rarely a reason to aim up. A couple enemies are really tall so you can hit them above obstacles, or above shorter enemies… doesn’t apply most of the time. The core gameplay is really simple: open doors, shoot enemies, grab keys, open more doors, find the level ending. Most enemies die pretty quickly, though weapon selection is important in some cases (the flamethrower enemies are resistant to fire).

You have a large variety of weapon. You can change with the mouse wheel, Q and E or the numbers. Some numbers have 2 guns, sometimes they share ammo, sometimes they don’t (the shotguns do, but the dynamite+rocket launcher group doesn’t). You have the magic wand thing that sucks, a knife and an axe which you’ll never use, a pistol, a shotgun, a shotgun that’s actually good, uzis, a minigun (which is just a better uzi), dynamites, a rocket launcher, a laser gun, flamethrower, crossbow and a weird charge rifle. Each of them has uses, may it be fast damage, piercing, spread and so on. My favorites are the big shotgun and the minigun, though a lot of the others have occasional good uses. Ammo is limited but the levels are littered with it.

Alongside the guns you have access to spells. Spells require MP (which is also ammo for the magic wand thing so… another reason to not use the magic wand), and have a variety of effects. The most important one is the lightning orb because it fucking kills everything around it for semi-free for like 30 seconds… even through walls. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and as such is a must. If you want the game to be more challenging, go without it. The only thing the lightning orb can’t do is damage bosses, so at least those guys can still be tough. There’s also a freeze wave, a melee axe attack (why?) and ammo summoning, amongst a few others I didn’t try.

With this being a Doomlike, the levels are covered in secrets. There’s mostly 2 ways to get them: some walls can be destroyed by explosives or guns, and some walls open up like doors. Some of these have hints on the walls (IE the wall will look a bit different), some don’t but you might see that the map continues somewhere a wall is. Finding these secrets is pretty important, namely because there’s things to find that help your progress. It’s really fun to just find secrets. Sometimes it’s just ammo and health and MP, sometimes there’s upgrade points, treasure or extra lives (more on that later).

Treasure, unlike in Wolfenstein 3D, actually gives you experience points (as does killing enemies). Enough EXP levels you up, which gives you a stat point. Stat points increase your strength (useless because it’s melee damage), life (HP), spirit (MP and magic power) and capacity (ammo). Very useful. I think some levels give you a perk point as well, which you can use to get a perk from a fairly small perk list. Some of these are a must like the Student perk (gives you a random stat increase on level up alongside your skill point), there’s some with more ammo per drops, there’s extra MP, extra defense, a useless one that makes your melee stronger and another useless one that drops MP whenever you kill enemies (but it’s only 2 MP and the drop disappears after 3 seconds, it’s dumb). Pretty fun minor customization. Heck, I’m sure some people make melee-only builds just to troll me.

The other thing you can find that is useful in level is upgrade points. These are used to buy spells, and upgrade your guns. Each gun has a choice between 2 upgrades. For example the double-barrel shotgun has an upgrade that deals double damage at the cost of double ammo, and the correct choice of the flak cannon that makes it use less ammo, have to reload only after 2 shots AND it burns enemies. It causes a bit less damage on hit than the regular version but it’s worth it in burn damage and ammo usage. Once you choose an upgrade, you’re stuck with it for the rest of the game, so choose wisely.

An interesting thing about this game is the difficulty level. It actually has, in all difficulties other than whatever the easiest one is, a life system. You start with 3, you can find more in levels as mentioned above. If you run out of lives because a few levels have been really kicking your ass, well that’s that. You lose. Your save is destroyed. You gotta restart the whole game from the beginning. It happened to me once, it was on the boss of the 4th episode. I was right near the end of the game and I had to start it all over. I love it. Games suck about difficulty nowadays, a lot of the time. Games are guaranteed wins almost every time nowadays. But how about a game that allows you to fail AND punishes you for it? This almost never happens anymore. This isn’t a super difficult game on normal difficulty (and I think the lightning orb might make things a bit too easy on any difficulty because of how overpowered it is), but I still enjoyed this system a lot and would love for more games to do this.

Oh and there’s boss battles. They’re fine, not the most noteworthy parts of the game tbh. Though they do tend to look pretty cool and huge.

Overall

I really enjoy this game. It’s simple and fast and fun. I also have to respect a game that is willing to punish the player for sucking, so few games are willing to do that. It’s not super long (5 episodes with 11 or more levels each), but if you have to restart that’s twice the length, pretty much. My only real complaints are the fact that the lightning orb is way too powerful (sorry, my game design brain can’t stop me from always using the best option to deal with any problem), and that there’s no map button that I can find so you have to rely on a tiny zoomed-in minimap.

Not much more to say about this. I definitely recommend this one, especially if it gets discounted again. More than worth the price.