Sincere Form of Flattery

How’s it hanging everybody, this is Ed at the Broken Controller Club doing a review of Project Warlock – a game where…I don’t know, the word “project” always carries more weight to it, doesn’t it? Like you’d have assignments in school, but projects were always a bigger deal. I loved Rival Schools on the PS1 and then on Dreamcast the sequel was called Project Justice which just sounded awesome. I remember hearing about it and being like “YEAH! They’re gettin’ serious this time around!” Which by the way, when the heck are we getting another Rival Schools? Or at least a rerelease? Something? Anybody? If Skate 4 and and a new Pokemon Snap just got announce then surely we can get another Rival Schools.

Anyways, Project Warlock is a cool name and the gameplay is pretty cool as well. First, the story: Basically you’re on a mission to destroy all evil. Pretty straightforward, right? You’ll go through each episode fighting through several levels that ends in a big boss fight, you get the scrolling text to tell the story, like when you cleared an episode of classic DOOM, then you’ll move onto the next. The levels are all clustered together by several smaller zones that’ll have anywhere from 2 to 4 levels. Clear one of the zones, you’ll get a breather to upgrade weapons and stats, buy spells, then it’s right back into battle. What I thought was weird is that the game makes you choose the next zone, then you step into a teleporter to start it, but you can’t actually go through zones you’ve beaten, and you can’t move ahead to zones in other episodes. So I don’t get what the point is of doing it this way other than giving you a very, very slight hint of what’s coming next. I mean you can certainly replay single levels from the main menu after you’ve cleared them, but then you’re just choosing from a list and that’s it. It’s just weird is all. For a game that takes a lot of cues from classic shooters, I’m surprised it doesn’t just take you from level to level and maybe set these upgrade stations somewhere along the way.

Each episode has a different theme. You’ve got your medeival episode, the antarctic, egypt, and more, all with their own enemy types. The variety here is great and it’s refreshing to see new scenery when you’re just about to get tired of seeing the same castles or snowy mountains again. Speaking of graphics, the game goes for this old-school classic look that reminds me more of Wolfenstein 3D, Heretic, or even Blake Stone than of DOOM. And I mean that in a good way. The graphics have that pixelated look where no matter how you’re looking at objects on the ground, they all face you the same way. It’s a really fun throwback for those of us who played these games when they were brand new. There’s still nice particle effects from some of the enemies as well, so you’ll see these old-school looking monsters shooting fireballs that are made up of hi-res lighting effects and for the most part it’s not very jarring.

I really dug the enemy types in this as they didn’t always just feel like reskins of the same enemies in each level. They’re really creative and you’ll encounter all types, like your standard bats and weird leech things, to scorpion monsters, undead mages, and my personal favorite is a guy in the antarctic level that’s a clear nod to John Carpenter’s version of The Thing, that bursts apart to reveal bloody red tentacles and a monstrous form. The whole antarctic level felt like one big throwback to the base in that movie, so to have an actual enemy look like that creature was just awesome. Really looking back, the enemies and environments in this game reminded me a lot of something you’d see on an old metal album cover, especially in the medeival episode.

Speaking of metal, the soundtrack is great and it hypes you up. It’ll vary between power chord heavy rock music and this pseudo-industrial electronic music.

Really looking back, the enemies and environments in this game reminded me a lot of something you’d see on an old metal album cover, especially in the medeival episode.

There’s a ton of weapon and spell variety to take these enemies on as well. You’ve got access to everything from melee weapons to handguns, shotguns, bowguns, flamethrowers and more. Spending upgrade points gets you better versions of these, though you have to be careful with what you choose because once you pick an upgrade, the other for that type of weapon is locked and you won’t be able to access it, so you’re not able to experiment. You’ll unlock spells by picking up spellbooks during your adventure, and you’ll also use upgrade points used for weapons in order to add them to your rotation. There’s several different types that draw from your mana bar, and they’re all very powerful so don’t expect to use them a lot, even if you’re sinking points into your Spirit stat. I do have to say that I’ve got a couple problems with the weapons in this. One is that the weapon wheel kinda sucks. You can’t just switch between a couple favorites, so if you want to switch a weapon you have to open up the wheel, select it, then once you’re out of that menu, then you can switch from your current weapon to the new one. I played this on the PS4 so hitting triangle let you switch to the other weapon in that category of the wheel. So basically I could switch on the fly between my single or double barreled shotgun, but if I wanted to bring out the axe to save ammo, I’d have to open the menu up and select it all over again.

On top of that, ammo can be scarce at times for certain weapons, so I’d rely on the axe way more than I thought I would. The axe, to some things up, is stupidly overpowered. If I sink a few points into the strength stat and then upgrade the axe with the ability to get health upon hitting enemies, I can go through the whole game with just this weapon except for when I have to fight bosses. Like the footage I took for this review – I’m only using weapons in this because I wanted anybody watching to see that there are other weapons available, but when I wasn’t recording, it was basically 100% axe.

Another issue I had is that the boss fights could be cheap. Like my first time fighting the 1st boss, this giant sorceror. The start screen wasn’t even done loading when it nailed me with a laser blast for at least a third of my health. They’re not impossible, they’re not even that unfair, there’s just a few times where I’d get killed and go “okay, that was kind of shit”. The bosses are enormous and fun to look at, though, and oddly enough I think they’re the only time that using the right stick to aim actually mattered. The rest of the environments are so tightly designed and enemies are always on the same floor and elevation that you are, so I didn’t see the point in being able to aim at all. DOOM had multiple floors and it just did the aiming automatically and honestly I think it was better for it.

That’s really about the worst I can say about it though. It’s a really fun time and at $15 at launch, you’re going to get your money’s worth out of it, especially if you’re the type of masochist who wants to try the hardest difficulties. It’s got tons of weapons, plenty of enemies to blast, and the graphics give it a ton of character and I found myself comparing this to Void Bastards in terms of enemy design and animation, and I vastly perferred this game.