Project Root Reviews

I purchased this game well over a month ago. It launches to the main menu, then becomes insanely laggy and the game never launches to play, it just crashes. I left feedback and a dumpfile in the forums section, where it seemed someone involved with the creation of the game was helping people. I followed his instructions on how to leave the dumpfile, and it's been weeks, maybe over a month and he's never acknowledge my post or anything like he had been previously. I guess I just own a broken game. I guess it's been too long for Valve to refund my money, but I was trying to give the people that made the game the benefit of the doubt and time to respond. Don't support broken-ass games and teams that don't fix them.

Will not run on GTX 6600 with Asus Z97 and i7. I have no issues running any other game on this machine. Runs fine on my old AMD 5750 with an i5. Highly frustrating. Be careful when purchasing that compatibility is ok.

If you're looking for a SHMUP fix, do not, I repeat, do not buy this game. Sluggish controls. Your ship has been smoking too much pot, apparently. Bad sound design. Seriosly, most enemies explode with a sound of a Very Angry Balloon Popping. Bad level design. Everything looks very same-y. Bad weapons design. You're stuck with the same guns for the duration of the game. And don't get me started about the excuse of a storyline, not to mention dialogues (and fonts! and text formatting!). Bottom line? Even at a bargain price - don't buy it.

I wanted to like this. I tried. But I got bored, fast. I guess it's fine as a pick up and play game, but if you're looking for a game to draw you in and keep your attention fixed then you should look elsewhere. The good: Decent graphics Explosions themselves look alright The bad: Repetitive gameplay Repetitive graphics Little enemy variation Little or no damage indications on enemy ships Explosion animations overlay the enemy ship sprites in a very obvious way Character artwork is pretty poor Typos Music is pretty bad, and repetitive Only 5 missions, although I didn't even feel like playing them all Achievements don't register on Steam Is there a plot? All in all, this game isn't that fun. However, if you want something super simple and mindless to mop up some spare time with and like this kind of shmup then you might consider buying this. On sale.

I'm a bit on the fence here. The game is promising and mainly good in concept and overall graphics execution. I like the open-world approach and, honestly, I think is fun. BUT. Keyboard and mouse is just broken. With a controller is much better. The problem here is that, in a PC port, you MUST consider keyboard and mouse as playable instruments. Second problem is the open-world approach. Why? Well, you have ships and bullets coming from behind (aka nowhere) and they are generally unavoidable. You can look at the small radar but it only detect vehicles, not missiles or bullets. Other times you are so focused on the action that the radar is just not viable to look at. Especially at the bottom left corner. Third problem is that bullets, mainly, doesn't have a life time. If you are backing up for avoiding a buckshot of bullets that spread, and you are in the middle, you can't avoid them. They will keep coming at you and, by spreading, you can't strafe as you will hit one of them. The hitbox of the player ship is also not very forgiving as it slightly bigger than you would expect and, some cleaver dodges between bullets, just end up being "hit" anyway. Fourth problem is hitting flying enemy. To hit one you have to: 1. Go heads on the enemy, so the enemy fly into your bullets 2. Turn your ship so much to gain a lead on where the enemy is going and, finally, you can hit it. This due to the 3D movement and bullet speeds (too slow) and is very VERY annoying. So, all in all, I'm forced to a thumb down even if the game has a lots of potential and, overall, a nice open-world approach.

Projectiles from off-camera behind you make this game quite frustrating, no matter how good your reflexes, if you can't see the bullet, you can't dodge it. The game is not bad, but always having one eye on the radar and off the action to avoid surprise instant damage seems out of place for a fast paced bullet-hell shooter. Maybe some sort of warrning system that lets you know when an enemy behind you starts shooting, anything other than having to constantly look at the radar litterally every second.

this is a surprisingly well made game and i enjoyed it a lot. graphics and sound are very good indeed, maps and missions are interesting, the upgrade system is nice as well and it even comes with a story that's actually not that bad either. like you would expect from a game like this there is a variety of weapons and power ups for you to pick up during missions as well as three difficulty settings with profound impact on the gameplay. there are some minor issues like single enemies being stuck inside mountains now and then while you can't hit them with your guns. or the text-only mission updates are sometimes impossible to read when you're in the middle of combat. nothing really serious that would ruin the game for you. sadly there are bad news as well. for unknown reasons the devs abandoned a good game within a few months after release and there hasn't been any sign of them for years now. so the small issues will never be fixed and the biggest issue is that the steam achievements do not work at all. if you are one of them 100% hunters then this is a pure 0% nightmare for you. but if you don't care about that and just want to play a decent shoot 'em up then this is for you. there is no real reason to avoid this game, especially if you are a fan of the genre. i'm not and still i had lots of fun playing it.

The game itself is a lot of fun.. but playing it makes me feel sick, yes quite literally. The need to keep spinning/twisting around and around, back and forth - all the time makes me both dizzy and want to throw up. It's like one of those amusementpark rides that just looks so god damn tempting, but you regret getting on 30 seconds after it starts moving. Or perhaps I'm just too old and boring. I remember spinny, fast and hectic top-down games for snes/nes that were near identical to this and they never came close to making me throw up on my keyboard/controller. If it takes a lot for you to get dizzy or feel sick, you'll probably love it. The gameplay itself is good.

A bug-hunters wet dream. Horribly broken menus (not that you can actually access the options in-game, because apparently this is 1995) and the inability to even fix it yourself because the player configs are in encrypted binaries. Menus are both slow to respond, and hard-coded to use xbox360 controller icons, regardless of control preference (oh yeah and the controls menu causes the game to grind to a halt). Which is probably just there to foreshadow the fact that the mouse controls in-game are abysmal and pretty much unusable. The ship will continue to rotate long after you've actually stopped making any input with the mouse, regardless of sensitivity settings - high sensitivity only results in massive over-compensation from any input, and low sensitivity results in the feeling that you're stirring tar. The standard troubleshooting (vsync, pre-rendered frames, etc) will offer you no remedies here, this is all game mechanism. This could have the best gameplay in the world, but it's completely irrelevant thanks to an atrocious input interface with the user. Of course in reality, the gameplay is nearly as poor; it's marred by the usual suspects - invisible walls (with enemies that can shoot at you through them, but you can't shoot back - oh and they can do this with some standard geometry too), backtracking and just painfully bland & repetitive gameplay. 4/10

Anyone remember [i]Zone 66[/i]? It was one of my favourite top-down "sandbox" shooters from the early 90s. This game harkens back to that era, both in terms of difficulty and gameplay. Be warned that if you are not experienced at this type of game and in particular, twinstick shooters, even on easy you will find this game an exercise in frustration. It is quite unforgiving... - Missions last between twenty minutes and an hour and there are no checkpoints! Run out of lives, back to the start. - Power ups seem to drop at times when you either don't require them (two repairs when I am already at full health, really?), or when it is practically impossible to pick them up without being destroyed. They don't hang around that long either. - Enemies fire from offscreen, many projectiles will track you for a long time and later enemies lean towards a bullet-hell style. These traits combine to make the airspace very crowded and sitting still for even a moment will be enough to make you very dead. [i][b]This is where the game really shines[/b][/i]; the flawless control and responsive movement of your ship make it a joy to play. It is possible to avoid practically anything, using a good sense of placement and understanding from which direction the next salvo of enemy fire is likely to approach. Unfortunately, the lack of on screen prompts and lacklustre radar make this heavily reliant on the player's intuition. Irrespective of that, there is a real sense of skill and reward, both for careful and ballsy play styles. There are a decent variety of enemies that are slowly introduced as the game progresses. There are both air and ground targets, which need to be destroyed with an appropriate weapon, similar to both [i]Zone 66[/i] and [i]Xevious[/i]. Each enemy variant represents a particular threat and they do force certain responses to deal with them. When you get many types mixed together, the game is at its most difficult and hectic. There is an experience system that awards points at level-up. These points can be used between missions to upgrade your ship. However, even fully upgraded your fire power always feels underwhelming. Players are better off focussing on upgrades that increase agility; this is the main means by which you will stay alive! Throughout, the graphics are decent and manage to keep up a good frame rate on a mid-spec machine. Enemy designs are standard fare and borrow from just about everywhere, but provide good variety. Explosions in particular are pleasing to the eye. Sound is a little bland, but does the job. A few minor technical issues cropped up while playing... - I was unable to confgure my Logitech F310 gamepad. Trying to change the controls in either mode (XBox 360 or F310 Direct Input) just didn't work. I ended up using the default XBox 360 control scheme, which did the job. You are basically forced into a twinstick control scheme to make the game playable anyway. - Steam achievements didn't work. They are awarded as in-game medals, but the corresponding Steam achievement wasn't activated. - Enemies occasionally get stuck in the scenery and cannot be shot. Usually not too annoying, but once the enemy was an objective and I couldn't complete the mission. - I had only one crash to desktop in seven hours of play, which isn't too bad. [h1]In summary:[/h1]This is an enjoyable but slightly repetitive game that rewards skillful play and will be appreciated by top-down shooter fans who are [u]not[/u] looking for a quick fix.