Project: Snowblind Review

This was a pretty solid FPS for the short duration that it lasts, of course it's no secret that this was supposed to be a Deus Ex game but became it's own IP later on development, and if you played Deus Ex or any games like it you see the influences from the Cyberpunk setting, the multitude of gadgets and tools to having multiple ways to complete an objective all though this game feels more like an fps that just so happens to have elements of the above mentioned ideas of Deus Ex rather than a full on DE game.

The game can feel pretty rough around the edges from it's movement to it's awkwardly implemented stealth mechanics, to having an objective marker be optional but probably better keeping it on at all times. The save stations also feels pointless and the game was at least better off having checkpoints or saving anywhere, I can do it on emulator for sure but the save stations and how out of place it was in a game like this is what I found offputting the first time I played this game. One could say the game's level design feels like a compromise of "immersive sim" and fps level design, while it is easy to fault the game for that, I can't deny that having a game like this come out in the 6th gen and on the PS2 can feel kind of charming even if it's ideas feel half realized due to the fact that since the levels are mostly linear, you are better off playing the game as a shooter. So how is it as that?

I'd say it's solid but it won't light your world on fire, but I do like the amount of combat options the game gives you, even if when it came to the augmentations I mainly used ballistic shield with occasional electric storm. What I do find impressive about the game is the amount of creative guns you get to play around with, it's not on the level of say a Resistance or Dead Space game but this is one of the more memorable and standout full on shooting game arsenals. You get access to standard fare weapons like pistols, sniper rifle, shotguns, rocket launchers but all of these have alternate fire modes and I used the alt fire particularly for the shotgun and assault rifle quite a bit, and you get ammo for each gun just enough for you to experiment with at least all of them. The creative guns include a rail cannon, a lightning gun, and a Flechette gun, my only issue with the game is that the combat encounters starts to really ramp up and get more engaging later on in the game towards the end, where you have all your abilities and weapons avaliable and these are some of the best moments in the game because the game is throwing so many of it's enemies at you and you have so many weapons and abilites to take them out with. I just wished the game was a little longer so I could to use my full powers and abilites more. That and it was weird how you killed the main villain a few levels before the last level and now you have no one to fight at the end of the game, it's pretty anti climatic stuff.

Overall, Project Snowblind is a decent attempt at a shooter of sorts in the Deus Ex universe even though it has no ties to that series, it could be better as a whole but I can't help but enjoy the amount of cool weapons and the overall charm of being a PS2 immersive sim/fps game.