[h1] Project: Snowblind? Nah, Project Comedy Times! [/h1]
It's a huge shame Ross didn't cover this game in his Game Dungeon series, because its quite entertaining how little this game has with Deus Ex franchise, even though this game was meant to be a spinoff title in the same universe. So I'll try reviewin the game in same way he would(but shorter), so hope he doesnt mind.
So the game's story starts off, generic, but what it does have is unintentional hilarity. The story pace also goes at breakneck speed, which I think actually enhances overall experience
In first mission, I already encountered a funny bug. See, the reason I called this game Comedy Times because of its unintentional comedy from bugs. I cleared an area, and now some generic ally grunt blocks the doorway forward, so I smack him a few times with melee attack. He dies, allies dont aggro on you, he makes funny pose on death, and disappears into floor. Now the game doesnt constantly have these moments, and you do have some unfun bugs, but so long as you used guides to fix bugs,then you'll be fine
Here's another hilarity with this game for me. Cutscenes. Now I get that its supposed to be a serious game, and it does have a few serious cutscenes, but the way some of them are choreographed, and the logic behind certains actions of characters ends up being funny. The final cutscene of first mission, ends up with [spoiler] enemy helicopter dropping a bomb/rocket on some injured guy [/spoiler], [spoiler] every soldier spreads out(obviously) [/spoiler], but our character, [spoiler] runs towards said guy [/spoiler], even though logically they'd both die, and the way he tries to help him is, not by blocking a guy from the blast, no, [spoiler] by trying to gently take his hand xD [/spoiler] Ya gotta see it to believe it, its just feels overly dramatic
Then 2nd map starts with you obviously surviving, get cool augmentations,Sadly from this point on, the story kinda takes a backseat, so I won't be mentioning it too much. This is one of major differences between Deus Ex and Snowblind Deus Ex was THE best story game, especially back in the day. From the main story, to lore, to even random npc's dialogue, it was just so, realistic, you actually felt like you were in a living, breathing world, full of conspiracies. Snowblind... doesn't do that, which is fine,but it definitely feels shallower as a game
Now is as good time as any to discuss, The Gameplay. Now the game has a funny way to go about introducing its weapons. You know how a moon knight has meme, where he goes "random bs go"? Well this game certainly does this, but with constantly giving you something new, usually its the guns I mean, its just a 2nd map, your character just woke up from near death experience, and you get your rifle back, you also get your pistoi, some rookie points you to an area with a push boxes gun, and you also immediately get your first aug the vision aug. The augs themselves are fine, its just the last and especially the first aug that are kinda lame. The vision aug just gives you heat vision, but its kinda pointless when the game doesnt have any really dark areas, plus the enemies themselves arent tough. You also shortly get introduced to ice pick gun, well its just a lockpick that looks like n shoots like a gun to hack terminals.
Btw, after mission debrief(you hear sad out of place classical music) before we go onto 3rd map, we IMMEDIATELY get 2nd aug activated, the slow mo aug. Im quite glad the game unlocks 2nd aug so early, since I ended up using it the most. Speaking of quick, yhis is officially your 2nd mission, and you already get a shotgun! Did I forgot to mention that all guns have alt fire button mode on right click? Pistol, carbine and shotgun have similar explosive alt modes. I didnt actually notice at first, is that, there's no alt ammo types, so all you have to do to use said alt fire modes, is just using extra ammo. Which might be an issue for shotgun n sniper rifle, but for pistol and carbine, you just SWIM in their ammo, so you always have spare ammo for a few explosives here n there, on top of regular flash and frag grenades. And you get ANOTHER gun shortly, a rocket launcher, so I ended up forgetting to even test out alt fire modes until later, because I could just use rpg or grenades on robots(who are one of the only challenging enemies).
You complete a few cool action sequences. You get introduced to sergent Chung, hes kinda your typical beefy aug guy, and he unlocks you yet another aug. You get emp'd by some grunt, and you get to learn what snowblind means, just emp short circuiting tech, this idea will barely get build up on, but at least Ross will know why this game is called Project Snowblind. You also get kinda awkward talk Sergent has with tech guy, about being replaced by you, but its delivered in a comedic way(this time it might be intentional) FINALLY you get introduced to the last gun, for this mission , and I just burst out in laughter from getting sniper rifle. I do enjoy more options, but I also find it absurdly funny how many tools the game throws at you. I didnt even get to play with the first few toys! You also get one more action moment, breaking another few robots, and I like how developers did it. Because these robots are like mid game threat, they put the player on the high ground, to minimize damage the player get, its a clever level design, and a way to introduce tougher enemy earlier on.
Onto the new map.See, this game has so many mechanics, that it throws at you, that I complete lost track of some of them, and never used em, and one of those mechanics was hacking robots from distance. You can use icepick,to shoot at a ROBOT, to take control. This map also officially introduces you stealth options, like hacking turrets to kill enemies for you, or VENTS. Vents are back, they're basically a relic of old DX gameplay. Its probably the most boring vents ever, half the time the game doesnt even bother to hide them. So basically the level designs is [b[ the second major difference [/b] between DX games and Snowblind. Btw, one other small relic of old DX design is actually the alarm design, they look EXACTLY like in DX1. As for stealth mechanics itself, its... very generic. You are in line of sight, enemy spots you kinda stealth, no way to distract em by rocks or anything. But its comedically broken. The thing is, the line of sight is VERY inconsistent, sometimes they're blind as a bat, but sometimes they see you even if they chat with each other, and you take vent path.
What npcs do lack is memory, and ears. I swear I had so many times I just run around, like driving in car(level has a car), then checking out floor for loot, and seeing grunt, UNAWARE of my existence, even saying dialogue npcs say when they find you first. So funnily enough, best way to do stealth here, is to just not take it seriously. "oops they found it, oh well,killing time!" and they cant stop you! Besides robots requiring explosives, early to mid game human enemies are paper thin, so you can just go guns blazing after broken stealth, and alarms dont alert enemies outside the floor
Now I'll just wrap up my review, since I dont want to spoil everything
Considering how Project: Snowblind never got its own Game Dungeon episode it also never got its own awards, so here are the awards!
[h3] Deus Exn't [/h3]
Snowblind really was scrubbed of almost anything Deus Ex gameplay vise, besides augs. And same goes for the story, besides a few moments
[h3] Comedy GOLD [/h3]
Its rare for a game to be unintentionally funny, while still having decent gameplay, usually its both so bad its good. But not in snowblind case, you just have fun being campy action hero, speaking off
Last award, [h3] Cyborg Power Fantasy [/h3]
This game, despite having so few actual augs, feels like one of the best cyborg power fantasies, all because of its gun arsenal, slow mo aug or ballistic armour aug
