A Dystopian nightmare. A cyberpunk fever dream. A bizarre, twisted, surreal journey into gore and madness. Project Downfall is all of these and much more. Like an off-kilter amalgamation of Blade Runner, The Matrix and John Wick, Project Downfall is a first person descent into hellish nightmare, questioning sanity and reality.
Set in a Dystopian world, where the masses are self-medicated slaves, you take on the role of one of these corporate bees who, after a bizarre incidence on the metro ride home, finds himself plunged into a world of madness and homicide. Our “hero”, recovering from some terrible accident, finds himself speaking to his own brain, which has a personality of its own. Urging him onto acts of violent depravity while popping enough pills to stock-up an E.R., our “hero” goes on a murder spree the likes of which has never been seen. Truth and reality collide amidst a self-medicated spiral into lunacy.
Project Downfall wants to shock you. It wants to confuse you. But most of all it wants to entertain you with a series of traditional mechanics serving an untraditional narrative. Project Downfall throws the basics of FPS’s here and mixes them up with gameplay twists from other genres.
There are lots of high powered guns to turn people into chowder with, melee weapons to beat them down with, a sliding dodge to cover distances and avoid gunfire, probably one of the deadliest kicks outside of Sparta and pills that let you perform slow-mo focus moves with increased strength. Trashcans become deadly projectiles and a superkick can instantly kill anyone. And it’s all served up with a somewhat interpretive branching storyline and multiple endings.
Project Downfall is also incredibly challenging. The games levels are split into smaller segments which play out like mini tactical puzzles. Bullets and pills are limited and both you and the enemy can only take a couple of hits before dying, which makes your flow and prioritization through a level key. There’s a right tool for the right situation and knowing when to use your slow-mo and who to target first with which weapon plays into the games tactical desires.
At times the game feels like it really wants you to go all out, but that route is a sure-fire way to multiple retries. And you will be retrying quite a few of these sections.
In this sense Project Downfall becomes equal parts frustrating and entertaining. Retrying sections over and over can get aggravating, but once you’ve figured out the best tactical moves through a sequence, it’s extraordinarily entertaining.
The game also doesn’t hold your hand with its story, relishing its ambiguity. Where are all these notes telling you where to find various gang members coming from? Why does the news talk about atrocities that don’t seem relevant? Was that really a giant Teddy Bear I thought I was beating up last night? This extends also to the games branching paths and choices. What you do, where you go and who you pull the trigger on will determine one of the games many endings.
And if you want to see all the endings – possibly using a guide to see what’s what – you’re going to have to use multiple save files as well, since each save file is its own distinct run.
The games unique visual style, compromising 2D sprites and 3D environments, seeks to embed you into a surreal world. Using a variety of bizarre lighting techniques, coupled with modifiable scanline and CRT filters, the developers have succeeded in creating a visual tone that is just on the wrong side of right. The world and everything in it looks wrong to some degree, with the scanline and CRT effects slipping between comprehensible to hallucinogenic the further down the rabbit hole you go. It’s a disconcerting, but highly effective effect.
Outside of the 3D geometry comprising the levels, most of the game employs 2D sprites for its characters, items and weapons. Character designs urge on the side of bizarre as well, with characters looking like paper cut-outs, exploding into showers of pieces and pixelated blood, reinforcing their non-persona status in this world.
There’s a liberal use of fog in the levels which adds to the dystopian cyberpunk effect, while the levels are coated in metallic textures with strange use of reflections in puddles and mirror-surfaces. It all adds to the off-kilter, restrictive and claustrophobic nature of the game.
Levels will take you from neon-lit streets to hyperactive night-clubs, from abandoned train stations to Judge Dredd style apartment complexes. One thing, apart from the gore that Project Downfall is never short of, is weirdness and inspiration. The lo-fi design style to its cyberpunkian world is both an anachronism and a wonderful stylistic choice.
Project Downfall is a game that isn’t for everyone.
Its attempts to be bizarre and disturbing at the same time, along with it’s odd visual design that screams 80’s design sensibilities, helps to propel the game into unique status. And unique it certainly is and very much a title that you should at least try out for yourself.
Project Downfall Trailer
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