None of the sub-missions are taxing, in and of themselves, but each stage features too many of them, and there’s no checkpointing, meaning that when you fail, it’s usually death by a thousand cuts, as impotent crafts slowly chip away at your health bar. Such is the monotony of the action, that the realisation that you have to play through the last ten minutes of (tr)action again genuinely gives you a sinking feeling in your chest.
When you feel you can finally face up to it (it took several large men with truncheons to ‘persuade’ me, but since you won’t have an employer’s encouragement backing you, you might find you won’t bother), you’ll realise you have to approach the stage in a different way if you’re to nurse your ship to the end of the ordeal. And that doesn’t mean being more aggressive, or sharpening your reflexes, oh no – it means hanging back, playing conservatively, learning exploits and isolating enemy ships and taking them out one by one. Success, then, means making the game even more boring for yourself.
Between stages, Project Root has a system where you trade XP points for ship upgrades and it imposes it with an iron fist. If you don’t keep on top of the upgrades, you’ll find yourself gradually drowning as levels becoming increasingly impossible. It’s an incredibly unrewarding set-up – instead of making your ship cooler or more fun to pilot, you’re just joylessly grinding so you can keep up with the enemy Joneses. By the time you’ve spent all the upgrade points available (frustratingly, there isn’t enough go round to max out all your ship’s attributes) you’re left with something approaching the kind of speed and firepower needed to star in an exciting shoot-‘em-up – by but then it’s far too late to repair the damage.
Xbox One isn’t exactly awash with shoot-‘em-ups at this point in its lifespan, but even so there is little to recommend Project Root. It’s slothful, tepid and utterly devoid of verve or inspiration.
Supply Gamesradar
Project Root review - App Review 4u
Post a Comment