Hello everyone and welcome back to Kralizec Gaming.Today we are going to take a look at Project Warlock. This retro old-school first-person shooter promises to take you back into the times of DOOM and give a slightly modern spin on it while retaining all the fun. Project Warlock is available on GOG for 11 Euros or your regional equivalent.

With this review you have a choice of either reading it here in text form or listening to the video review. They both contain the same content.

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Video Review

Text Review

The original DOOM and Wolfenstein were certainly game-changers. The way these games influenced the future of the gaming world is almost unparalleled so it is no surprise that many people have nostalgia about them and just want to relive that experience. So let’s see how well does Project Warlock manage to capture those feelings.

Gameplay

And as we always do, we will start by looking at the mechanics of Project Warlock. And, if you ever played the original DOOM you will immediately feel at home. A few melee weapons, tons of ranged weapons and enemies to shoot. That’s the very core of Project Warlock. And back then, that was enough. But nowadays it definitely would be too little. Luckily, Project Warlock knows this and thus decides to provide much much more.

But before we take a look at that more let’s first talk about the weapons and enemies. Because let’s face it, if these two things were screwed up, nothing else would’ve mattered. You do need the shooting experience to be satisfying and the enemies to provide you fun targets to blow up.

So… the weapons. Are great. You get a large variety of weapons to either smash your opponents face in or to shoot them to shreds with bullets or to explode them all over the place with explosives. And they are intensely satisfying to use. No matter whether you are using an axe, a pistol, a shotgun, an SMG, a minigun or a rocket launcher, you will always be happy to pull the trigger.

And what about the enemies? Those are great as well. The amount of variety is quite insane and while many of the enemies share mechanics, they never feel like just copies of each other. The fact that every zone has it’s own style of enemies just makes this even better as every few levels the game provides you with new enemies to face.

The game not only provides you with graphical variability in the enemies, but they also have plenty of different ways to try to kill you. Whether they’re just simple melee enemies trying to bash your skull in, gun-wielding foes, or giant robots shooting lasers and rockets at your face you will be always delighted to kill them in retaliation.

Plus, at the end of every zone, you get a boss battle. Though, these are honestly the words encounters in Project Warlock. But that doesn’t mean they’re bad. They just lack a certain… something to make them really stand out. They all follow the same pattern of being one giant enemy that attacks you from a distance while spawning in enemies to make your life harder. Yes, they have different phases, but for the most part, you can just ignore the small enemies and just keep shooting the big bad boy until he dies and clean up the rest when he dies.

Well, that’s probably enough to sell some of you guys on buying this already right? But that’s enough for the developers of Project Warlock. On top of that awesome shooting experience and great enemies, they decided to add a ton of other mechanics. So let’s now take a look at those.

The first one we need to address are the spells. Remember, you’re a warlock and those can cast spells. Sadly, I haven’t really found the need to use the spells to a large degree at normal difficulty. Maybe that changes at higher difficulties but at normal I was honestly happiest using the just the light spell and keeping my mana for the one weapon that uses mana as ammo. Especially once you get the upgrade to that weapon that makes it one of the best weapons in the game.

But if you do like using spells, you do get a decent variety of them as well. From spells that just purely do damage, through shields up to spells that freeze your enemies, giving you that bit a breathing space when you need it.

Next up, we gotta speak about the levels themselves. These are separated into 5 zones, each then separated into 5 sub-zones and each of the sub-zones has a varying number of levels to go through before you get to go back to your hub. But the most impressive thing is how freaking well the levels are designed. Seriously, if you are ever going to design a shooter or even a dungeon crawler – go and take a look right here how proper level design is made.

The levels act sort of like mazes, but they always give you a good way to figure out what you need next. Often you will find the door that takes you further right at the start of the level, but first, you need to find the key to get it opened. Or a few switches. And whenever you find the key or flip a switch, more enemies will spawn in making the action go non-stop. Seriously, this was the best thing I’ve seen in a long while – and while I do realize that other games do this as well – here it never felt like a cheap mechanic just to make you shoot stuff.

Apart from the zones where you will battle legions of demons and other monsters, you also get access to your workshop – the central hub. Here you get the chance to rest for a while, your game gets saved and most importantly – you get to upgrade.

So… the upgrades. These are separated into four major categories. Weapon upgrades, Spells, Stats and Perks. Interestingly enough, weapon upgrades and spells use the same currency, so you need to be sure that you do want this particular upgrade or this particular spells because often you will not be able to get both. Or at least at the same time.

Stats and perks are also somewhat connected but in a more indirect way. For every 5 stat points, you get you to get one perk point.

In terms of more specific details of the upgrade system – the weapons always have two different ways to upgrade them – either making them purely do more damage or making them behave quite differently. For example, an upgrade for the shotgun completely changes it – making it into a more of a single-target weapon rather than one for killing large groups of enemies. Spells are a thing you just buy and we already talked about how they work.

Then you have the stats – these just permanently increase some of your statistics, like your maximum mana, health or the amount of ammo you are able to carry. But the really cool stuff does come from the perks. These can also give you some standard boring upgrades like more health and less damage taken but also include stuff like whenever you kill an enemy you get to collect a little bit of mana back from him if you are quick.

And that’s pretty much what you get when you play Project Warlock. And you probably already gathered. This all combines into one hell of a great game. I do not know what it is about killing demons but it seems to be something that developers can just do well. The shooting is satisfying, the enemies are fun to kill, the level design is superb. Add in all the upgrade paths and you even get some decent replayability. Well done.

Graphics

Now it is time to talk about the graphics. And if you ever felt nostalgic for old-timey graphics. This is where you get them. Not only does the game look amazing in its standard-setting providing you with an awesome journey back to the times of DOOM. It also gives you a chance to relive the memories of your past even further by giving you the option to change the color pallet to whatever machine’s color pallet you were using back in the day. That’s what I call attention to customer care.

But even if we go back just to the standard setting, you can see how much love and effort was put into the game. All the monsters look amazing (and creepy). Each of the zones has its own style. And then the animation. Gory as heck and I love it.

Music

So you might be thinking, well, there has to be at least one thing wrong with this right? In the words of Mr. Trump – Wrong. The music is the best music I have heard from a game this year. A metal soundtrack fits so well and honestly, I have already taken some of the songs and put them into my phone to listen to when I’m not playing.

Performance

And lastly, the performance. With the amount of effort that was put into this game altogether, there is little surprise that the game works flawlessly. No bugs. No crashes and runs like butter.

Conclusion

So.. in conclusion. Project Warlock is a game that you should buy. Like, right now. It’s just an awesome throwback to a time when everything was simple. No complicated mechanics, just go in and shoot stuff. And sometimes that is more than enough to get a fun game. The amazing graphics and soundtrack are just a cherry on top. And you get all of that for just 11 Euros or 12 dollars. Seriously, why are you not already taking out your credit card and buying this I see no reason not to enjoy this nostalgic gem.

So, that’s it for today guys. Hope you like the review and if you did, please consider upvoting the review and following my blog. And comment, if you have something you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.

Disclaimer: All the images have been taken directly from the GOG.com game page