▼ Not recommended
2 hrs
The Premise
This review contains no spoilers.
Quantum Project (QP) is a side-scrolling shooter / platformer hybrid set in a post-apocalyptic, war-torn future Earth. Players impersonate a soldier part of Team Alpha 3, that fights against an army of deadly robots and other enemies, while being assigned with progressively more difficult missions in each level, often behind enemy lines.
Quick Sum-Up
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[th]🟩 The Pros[/th]
[th]🟥 The Cons[/th]
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[td]
1. Good diversity of weapons and accessories to use.
2. Decent character progression system.
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[td]
1. Severe resolution scaling problems.
2. Unreliable, clunky character movement system.
3. Occasional game-breaking bugs / soft-lock conditions.
4. Frustrating level design.
5. Hideous translation quality, several untranslated segments.
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[th]🟨 Bugs & Other Issues[/th]
[th]🔧 PC Specs[/th]
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[td]
- Certain minigames can glitch, permanently breaking levels.
- Inconsistent enemy AI quality.
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- Ryzen 3900X
- RTX 2080Ti
- 32GB RAM
- NvME SSD
- 1440p Display
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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2553386327
In-Depth Analysis
Pros
1.
Between sniper rifles, SMGs and cluster grenade launchers, paired with various consumables like mines, drugs and other explosives, there is a good array of murder tools to use against the enemy. Such variety open up to diverse approaches to combat, depending on each player's style. Each level holds a substantial amount of such consumables in containers and as drops from enemies, exploring for these is worthwhile.
2.
Experience points gathered in the form of green orbs, both from enemies and containers, can be spent in an always-available shop that allows enhancing each individual weapon, the characters stats like max HP, armor, energy, while also directly buy items like ammo, medkits, antidotes and more if needed. Given that there is a finite amount of XP, choices will have to be made about what to prioritize, depending on the chosen play-style. This system is ultimately passable and fairly balanced.
Cons
1.
QP doesn't render in a proper resolution, instead it "stretches" the image in a weird manner across the whole display, resulting in massive quality loss and grainy, low-res looks on just about anything including text and UI elements. The screenshot above shows how small the internal resolution is, compared to a 1440p screen's total area. Because of this, the game has hideous looks.
2.
The movement system has several issues, such as arbitrarily deciding to not climb certain obstacles that have been climbable just a minute before, or perform weird roll animations at the end of ledge falls regardless of the actual jump's direction. The character feels clunky to maneuver, and it's actually even worse with a controller than with a keyboard, as gamepad support seems limited or badly implemented.
3.
From minigames breaking, thus requiring a level restart to fix the issue, to mission-critical resources being expendable, consequently soft-locking players, there are multiple design oversights. In a specific level, I had to restart because at the very end, a wall required using an explosive to destroy it - however I used all of them to fight the enemy previously, so there was no way to finish the level anymore. Similar situations can happen in multiple places.
4.
QP's level design, for the most part, is engineered to frustrate with unfair design. For instance, in more than a few occasions enemies will simply materialize a few inches from the player out of thin air, something that can mean certain death given their lethality. In other places, traps and environmental hazards may be impossible to pass unscathed, unless specific upgrades or consumables are acquired, which may or may not be possible. Levels seem, more than anything else, a trial-and-error course.
5.
The English translation from the original Russian is not only terrible (google translate levels or worse), but also has several untranslated parts, even in the user interface or other highly noticeable places, such as contextual prompts over items. This severely hinders whatever enjoyment players may have from the story or dialogues.
Gameplay Breakdown
Exploration
Is performed on foot, and on vehicles in some levels. Stages are linear and fairly small in size, however they partially make up for it with complexity. Other than the "main route" to the end of a map, there will often be multiple side-areas that usually contain more XP, consumables or rarely "Cubes" that award a large amount of XP when found. There are however no secret or otherwise hidden areas to find, everything is clearly visible from the get-go. Several checkpoints are scattered throughout each level, in case of death players can restart from there, as long as they have lives left (three per level, without any way to replenish them), in case all lives are lost, the level has to be restarted entirely.
Combat
Plays out as a side-scrolling shooter, using mainly ranged weapons such as pistols, assault rifles, grenade launchers and more, other than various consumables like grenades or time-slowing drugs. Enemies have some diversity, although they will mainly consist of robots and static defenses, with the occasional "abomination". Generally weapons have limited magazine sizes and always a finite number of total ammo, their damage, clip size and fire rate can be improved however, and new weapons can be unlocked at each level-up. Hitting enemies in the head deals significantly more damage, the same doesn't apply to the player, as he is already fragile as it is, until several Armor upgrades are acquired - dying is rather easy. Weapons feel diverse from each other and are alright to use, some of them however simply become useless after superior ones are acquired, while the fact one can totally run out of all ammo is not a very good design choice.
Character Management
Is done via a menu that includes an item shop available at all times, a character stat panel and a weapons upgrade panel. In all three cases, XP points can be spent to obtain upgrades such as better HP, bullet resistance, status effect resistance, weapon damage or useful items. This sounds better than it actually plays out, as there really aren't majorly different builds one can make - in the end it proves a linear stat increase to keep up with the stronger enemies, nothing more, nothing less.
The Judgment: Bad
Complete Ratings List here
It takes just a few hours to complete QP's level roster, after that there isn't much replay value, as the diverse upgrade / build possibilities in the end do not bring much novelty in terms of gameplay. The budget price of 3,29€ is adequate for this amount of content, however given the described problems I can't recommend purchasing at this time.
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