Project Warlock

I'm a big fan of this game. I feel this is the kind of game I want to create. There are probably better boomer shooters out there, but this one made me think a lot in 2018.

mogs the actual boomer shooters combat-wise, but fails to move past the inane ''make rainbow flags out of keycards'' gameplay loop

Went back after a negative experience and played a bit more. Knowing just how amazing the sequel is, I can cut this game a bit more slack. It was very obviously a learning experience ON TOP of having REALLY good movement and game feel. Still felt claustrophobic in some places and you REALLY have to anticipate monster closets going off as soon as you hit a switch or pick up an item. Still hate the lives system but I'm learning it's not THAT big an issue. Sequel gets rid of that in favor of the classic F5. It's not perfect and nowhere near as good as its successor, but for a first entry, It's pretty good.

Project Warlock is one of those games that I think is the definition of a mixed bag and kind of hard to review. The best I could say is that this game does have appeal to a limited audience but it has a lot of elements that don't always mesh well together.
I liked the large array of weapons and how you are able to choose to upgrade your arsenal or magical spells to aid you in killing the hordes. I also liked the level design was quite more linear than other boomer shooters like Doom 2, Wolf 3D or Duke 3D, since I'm not a fan of "where the heck do i go to find this cryptic lever" type of games. The secrets are also relatively easy to stumble upon which here is a good thing since you're going to be needing all the resources you can get to acquire upgrade points for you gear. The melee combat (for me) is deeply satisfying, and if you are like me who always loves melee options that aren't useless in these kinds of games your sword and axe can become quite powerful, by the end of the game I had a berserker build focusing on upgrading my vitality and strength, and getting a perk that recovered health with each sword hit I landed, this build can kind of break the game in your favor even on hard, as I even mowed down the bosses mostly using my melee weapons.
There's things I don't like much about the game too, it seems the gunplay and magic play here is a little bit stilted and clunky, not quite as responsive and snappy as a game like this should be. Some of the weapons seem a lot more limited in use that others and I found myself ignoring magic and guns for the most part and just using my sword. The visual design is a pretty mixed bag, I liked a lot of the creature designs but some of them are hideous to look at in a bad way, even the layouts of some maps use an eye bleeding array of colors, I really think the designers should have thought of a better way to streamline the visual design because it's often painful to look at these environments for more than 20 minutes, especially with dozens of mobs and colors from attacks flashing on the screen.
The level layout is a pretty mixed bag and it definitely seemed to get lazier as the game went on, the quality seemed to take a dip after the Egypt levels, with layouts and enemy spawns that didn't seem to have much thought put into them. Very few levels create any spectacle like other boomer shooters. I also noticed some glitches in the game, which many others have noted falling through the maps several times through no fault of my own and dying, considering people are still complaining about this and Warlock 2 has already come out it's disappointing and I wonder if they'll ever go back and fix them. The game provides some visceral gorey fun but ultimately can feel tired and a bit sloggish by the end, especially when you occasionally struggle to figure out what the game wants you to do, sometimes things blend in with the background in such a way it's almost like the objectives are sometimes hidden for the player. The bosses though interesting and providing a cool experience weren't really challenging in my opinion, they can all be killed by diagonally running and slashing your sword in a circle and I wonder if this was intentionally or my fault for abusing this kind of play style.
At any rate the gunplay is serviceable and there are some interesting weapons and spells, if you wanted a melee/magic/gun hybrid in the form of a boomer shooter I can't think of anything else that would cure that itch well, but at the same time I'm left with a slightly mixed feeling that if the glitches and visual style were cleaned up and it was polished a bit more this would be an overwhelmingly praised gem but unfortunately some of its issues hold it back from GREATNESS. If you're hungry for a boomer shooter that's pretty different you may find some sword slashing demon slaying fun here but know you may take issues with the level design, visuals and glitches.

Pros:
- retro graphics that really feel like from '80-90
- wide range of all types of weapons, from swords through rocket launchers to laser beams guns
- a lot of monsters, varying in every episode
- great music, like every level has different track. Bonus: while paused, you can check the title of the track, nice add on
- You can upgrade your weapons and make them into something completely new, changing their appearance and functionality
- a lot of classic retro shooters references, it's so good
- mana system and using spells - there is only a few of them, but it doesn't matter, it still makes the gameplay fresh and gives the opportunity to choose a right one for your playstyle
- cool fight bosses, however...

Cons:
- ... they are just too easy to get through. Like, with right weapons upgrade you can beat most of them in a minute, in a first try
- life system - on normal you have limited lifes, so you better not die - after losing all of the lives you are made to start the game from scratch. Yep, you heard me right - you lose all unlocked weapons, skills, spells etc, and start from the first level. Main creator states it's for the sake of retro gameplay and to make every death painful, just like in Doom or Wolfenstein 3D. But, here is another huge disappointment:
- no saves - This is the thing that concerns me somehow. 'cause even in Doom or Wolfenstein 3D you could SAVE. Like, you didn't have to, you could have just play without saving and being dependent from gained lifes through gameplay (thus starting almost everything from scratch - ALMOST, cause you could play from your desired episode, not from the first episode) but there was an option to do that. Nevertheless, game is most of the time a cakewalk, so there is only a very small chance you would start from the beginning, but STILL.
- Some levels are starting with a group of enemies shooting at you all at once, which is kinda unfair when it comes to limited lives.

In conclusion, it has it flaws - but it's a love letter to old shooters and with it's smooth gameplay it's a must play.

Very boomer shooter, lots of spells, lots and lots of weapons with game changing upgrades and a bunch of obtainable passives through the stat system, me like.

For it's current price it recommend buying it if you have the slightest interest in games like the older FPS
At the time of writing this review I've finished the campaign and it's pretty good, weapon upgrades were interesting although I wished I could use both the upgrades in a single play-through, at least it gives a reason to replay it tho I doubt I will end up doing that, but the bosses were just bullet sponges not offering much if any challenge.
The performance did start to go down in the later parts of the game when entering the city levels and became almost unplayable when loading the Hell levels which could very well be a problem with running the game over on Linux as I'm running well over the recommended specs.
I can't really recommend the horde mode as it was a slog to play, due to not only a tedious start, but also a 30 second unskippable timer between hordes, bad performance and enemies getting stuck in barrels making the hordes take even longer, the reticles were a pain to try and use as a lot of them seem to not be centered, still the campaign levels were good enough that I'd buy it in a heartbeat.