Project Root

Project Root
N/A
Metacritic
46
Steam
27.75
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$2.49
Release date
1 May 2014
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
46 (56 votes)

Project Root the Shoot’em up Evolution.Project Root is a classic shoot’em up with open scenarioswhere the player's skill will be the key to survive.

Show detailed description

Project Root system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows Vista/7/8
  • Processor: Dual Core 1.5Ghz +
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM
  • DirectX: Version 10
  • Storage: 800 MB available space

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
284970
Platforms
Windows PC
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Pat the Bat
Pat the Bat

the cammera angle gives you the feeling you're craning your neck, the flow of combat and objectives feels clunky and arbitrary, the asthetics are meh.

a sketchy bandit
a sketchy bandit

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.

Shinigami Kishi  死神騎士
Shinigami Kish…

the game is terrible the control scheme feels like it was made for a controller but hwen i conected my controller it doesn't work.......... sad excuse for a game and i want my money back

primarccreagor
primarccreagor

This just dosent feel finished, after just a few min you get the feeling that its missing some thing. Aircraft spawn to the sides and rear of you giving no time to dodge it, the number that do show up is not countable. They could have had a hanger to stop or slow the spawn rate on air craft but they dont. The good part, they have a single shots from them but the speed they fly and the shot speed are the same, you can see them flying with there shots right in front. The ground based tanks the AA guns are better balanced then what you face in the air, when you kill an area its empty after.

I think they got he weapons swaped, guns would have been better for ground based and a little tracking on missles for anit-air, having to lead your target at a 90deg turn just to shoot aircraft makes it look bad. The limited ammo for big attacks has you wishing for more as this would have made the run and gun game play fun.

Not recommened at this time needs work.

McCovican
McCovican

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

nullnullnix
nullnullnix

the more you play it the more you gonna like it
i love this game
bit hard to play in the beginning ...once you know how to play it becomes more easy to play
if you like shooters ...this one you must have

Heroselohim
Heroselohim

Project Root has a very good pace. Feels like old school games with an easier difficulty level (still could be hard for today standards) and a very responsive control. I do not agree with the comments about rear shots are not predictable. Just keep playing a while. When you get enough practice you can avoid any bullet. Just 45 minutes of practice when posting this. This is not a hardcore game from my perspective, but it may require some training if you are not shooter veteran. DIFFICULTY SPOILER: Go direct for the objectives to avoid losing unnecessary health.

Wandows
Wandows

Get shot every time I try to read the mission text from the lady with the muscle boobs. 9/10 would get shot again.

VeXteR
VeXteR

Intense. A lot of fun if you like top down shooters. The 360 degree twist on the old genre is awesome. Oh and your not going to beat this in a couple of hours either. I'm certainly getting my monies worth.

Bleet
Bleet

I so wanted to like Project Root...But there just to many bugs and not enough variety

Pros
1. You get to shoot stuff and blow it up

Cons (its a long list) From my experience of a play through on easy
1. The explosions feel a little underwhelming, maybe its the lack of a decent level of soundeffects audio (its maxd out but you can barely hear it)
2. Not enough variety in the nme's, there must be about five or size types of flying craft and the same ground based...Its all very samey
3. Lame upgrade system. You earn xp to spend but do the upgrades do anything? Havent a clue as you are stuck with the same dual shooter and rocket combo for the whole game. No variety
4. The special weapons dont stack, they just replace what you had....annoying
5. the nme's will happily spawn right next to you, at one point I sat there shooting an auto spawning ship two inches in front of me
6. nme's (and your own ship) occassionaly gets stuck in the scenary making it impossible to kill.
7. The GFX are bugg'd to high heaven. I fully upgraded by firepower and now all the shots I fire are completely invisible....To top it off the nme's are now firing barely visible black projectiles at me....and on occassion great big squares will come at me...most odd
8. No options mid game
9. Bearing in mind the levels are quite long there is no check point save system.
10. After fighting my way through to the final end game boss for some reason my ship became invulnerable...I just stood there and shot it happily absorbing every bullet on the screen....what an anti climax.

Maybe if they fixed the bugs in this game it would be a whole lot more enjoyable and I could change this to a positive.

M9A1 Gernsback
M9A1 Gernsback

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.

Izziee
Izziee

Be warned! This completely destroyed my GPU.

Why do I blame this game? Well, it was a fairly new GPU (6 months maybe) and had worked flawlessly on every game. I installed this, didn't think to look at the forums (If I'm buying a full priced game then I do research but rarely for something that's a buck) installed and loaded up. Got into the tutorial and bam, had a black screen and the monitor turned itself off. Since that moment it's been doing it repeatidly until last week it decided to stop working completely.

So, why blame this game again? After checking the forums the first time I had the black screen, I could see I was not alone, in fact many threads were claiming the very same thing. Perhaps it's been patched now, I don't know, I don't care, there was zero reason for my GPU to go (new but not so new it was faulty out the box, not old enough to go wrong, it was spotless with no dust, temps were 37 degrees idle and 45-50 on load...in fact, I could go on and on but I won't). The sad thing is, it even did a bit more damage than "just" my GPU but i'd be here forever explaining it.

Perhaps it was just co-incidence that it decided to pack up then? Looking at the forums, I really doubt that, and after just double checking a minute ago, even more so.

If it works for you? Great! Doesn't mean for one second though that there isn't an issue with the game and that it will work for someone else. It doesn't mean you're doing something right or the others are doing something wrong, it means that it's horribly optimised for different setups and you got lucky. I guess this is a problem with buying indie games.

Was it 100% chance that it was this game that did it? No, I can't claim that for certain, but I do believe it and I can't in good faith recommend it to someone else for that reason.

Be warned, and good luck to those who decide to risk their chances anyway. I think you would need to be unlucky for it to do what it did to me, but do check the forums before you purchase as general crashing to the desktop and freezes seem very common.

(I can't review that actual gameplay because the game screwed up before getting a chance)

oddly.quantum
oddly.quantum

A solid game for the approximately 2 UKP I paid for it. However a word of caution: if you suffer for motion-sickness the fixed perspective on the ship and spinning landscape will eventually start making you feel nauseous. This is why, unfortunately, I can only comment on the first level.

Donovan
Donovan

Computer Spec wise it's very demanding the music is very predictable and a little dull, other than that great game,

rex
rex

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.

ShaggyMoose
ShaggyMoose

Anyone remember Zone 66? 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. This is where the game really shines; 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 Zone 66 and Xevious. 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.

In summary:

This is an enjoyable but slightly repetitive game that rewards skillful play and will be appreciated by top-down shooter fans who are not looking for a quick fix.

johnweythek
johnweythek

Still too hard on easy, NOTHING casual about it. I can't start the game over in anyway because of steam cloud either, give me the option for separate save slots and i'll turn it into a positive review just to SEE if the patch will kick in to make it easier.

DubiousDisco
DubiousDisco

Why did it have to be bugs?

Bugged. Repetetive.
Go play Xevious, far better way to spend your time.

People claim this game is hard, I've yet to run into that. Then again, I've only made it to level 2, which has thus far been impossible due to essential ships flying through walls where they become invincible. Might just be me, might not be.
Thrice now I've been unkindly hindered by heavy fighters flying through walls and getting stuck on the wrong side of a barrier.
Them pandas... so sad.
If you still plan on playing this game, which is not a terrible choice, bring a controller. The support is instant and is by far and away the best control scheme.

ThatStarwarsGuy
ThatStarwarsGuy

Firstly, I highly recommend trying the demo they offer, because I did not, and I regret that decision.

For the most part, the game works fine, although I didn't play it much longer than an hour or two, so take that statement with some salt. Otherwise, I felt that the gameplay got very boring very quickly, with a boring upgrade system, uninteresting weapons, and very repetitive gameplay (is it dead yet? Circle strafe until it is!).

The controls felt clunky, and as a result, the combat felt pretty bad as well. Dodging bullets felt harder than it should, and the camera makes it easy for you to get sniped from behind without knowing what was coming.

Sound wise, this game felt like it had none. The soundtrack is so forgettable that I didn't notice when it wasn't playing. And get used to the horrid machine gun sample that they use for your main gun, cause that is pretty much the only noise this game has.

I think this game has a story, but the dialogue that is supposed to fill it out only appears in small text at the bottom left of the screen, and goes by extraordinarily quickly, so when I was in the middle of trying to fight things, I couldn't read it at all, and as a result, I would often miss hints at objectives, making the game even more frustrating to play.

TL:DR
This game is only for the most hardcore fans of the old strike series, or those of the shmup genre. Otherwise, I recommend a pass on this.

satori
satori

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.

Khyron
Khyron

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.

jwtrooper
jwtrooper

Great game and nicely done. Enjoy playing but after awhile I start getting the motion sickness as others had mentioned. Otherwise I enjoy playing up to that point and after a break can come back... if you don't get motion sick, you'll love this game.

RetroMetal
RetroMetal

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.

n0perls2cluch
n0perls2cluch

Let's get the cons out of the way.

I paid more for dinner than they budgeted to make the menus. Very frustrating to use and navigate. Story is lackluster; spelling and grammar are atrocious. Controls are a little tough in practice since both triggers require near-constant use and the right bumper gets used for special abilities. You have to contort your hands on the controller to make it work. Camera doesn't let you see shots behind you. Radar is very confusing.

Think those are petty, minor cons? They are.

Project Root is a fine game. The difficulty on Normal is still scathing. The radial gameplay is a cool feature used to great effect. It runs smoothly and cleanly. Shmup fans will find something to like about it.

clocutron
clocutron

There are a lot of things about this game that could make it great but, unfortunately, there are a few things that thwart that possibility and the game is ultimately just bad. There are very few options available for any kind of tweaking - those that are there don't seem to have a lot of effect anyway. The levels are way too long, with many "primary" objectives strung together one after another - by the time I reach the end of a level, my hands and arms are strained so bad that I can't continue. I think each level could be split into two, or even three, separate parts - as it is, it makes the game more difficult than it needs to be, even on easy.

One of the biggest flaws with the game is the fact that no achievements you earn will show up on Steam. Reading through the discussions will show you that dozens, if not hundreds, of people have reported this issue but the game has long since been aboandoned by the devs in order to pursue their recently Greenlit game "DOGOS", which seriously looks like nothing more than an update of Project Root.

While Project Root has all of the potential of a truly excellect twin-stick shooter, it feels like it's only 95% finished. Sadly, that lack of polish and bug fixes makes this game not worth the $10 sticker price. I paid $2.49 and I'm actually still disappointed. If the devs come back and fix the issues with this game, I'll gladly change my review but, as it stands, I will not recommend it. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Mika
Mika

The game is good but it doesnt save. The offical support site does not work and when you contact steam they don't help. It seems to me that Steam are happy to take your money but then offer no support. Good business model not. Will I bu from Steam again no, not until they offer better support

Traskelion
Traskelion

Project Root is sort of an open-area arcade shooter that feels like it came from the 90's. I was enticed by what I saw, bought it on sale, and merrily jumped in. 20-ish hours later (which was in Offline Mode and thus not displayed here), I was done waiting for it to become worth my time OR money. It's got a good arcade-y feel to it, the objectives are (most of the time) clearly marked, and the game DOES work as intended. HOWEVER....it is heavily marred, and I shall focus on those details.

The English is sloppy. Even one as pedantic as I can forgive the occasional mistake, but this is pre-high-school level, and it grates on me. Some of this is presented in pre- or post-mission cutscenes that alternate between two ugly character stills and an uninteresting story poorly presented through text. The rest of this mess is given by all the text frequently sprawled across the bottom during the action. This is distracting at best, and often meant I had to back away from all combat to catch what was going on before the text rapidly vanished.

And the controls....I don't know about keyboard/mouse, but I played this on a controller, and it was not fun. There is never a need to stop shooting. You should be shooting during the majority of the time. You need to be holding down a button to shoot. These missions are upwards of 20 minutes each. That makes 20 minutes or more of holding down a button more-or-less constantly, which gets uncomfortable, and the ensuing cramps disuaded me from that third mission in a sitting.

But what about aside from that, what about the gameplay? Well, there are upgrades! Upgrades that don't necessarily explain what they do. "Elite kit: Rockets" doesn't tell me much. And these felt minor, easily forgettable, and like the points on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"... didn't really matter. Honestly, the game should've just left out the upgrades altogether.

The view feels too zoomed in. If you want to avoid getting shot from off-screen or rushing past an enemy nearly as soon as it appears, you need to keep your eyes OFF of the scenery and on your mini-map. The shooting and the dodging just don't feel GOOD this way.

Now, some of you may like the idea of infinitely respawning enemies. Keep the pressure on as you go for the objectives, right? Well even that just feels clumsily done in Project Root. I found one of the spawn points. A ship appearing in air right in front of me, and another instantly appearing right in front of me as its predecessor died in fire. I should not have been able to see that. That aside, the constant enemy spawns are just an aggravating nuisance during the boss fights, which go on too long anyway.

This game's graphics and settings are also subpar. It felt a little sluggish on my quite-decent machine, despite not looking the part of a modern game. Reducing the graphics settings yielded a result, and smooth play...but the distant background went from fog to black abyss. A black abyss that sometimes swallowed or spit back out varioius terrain features of this background layer, based on which direction I was facing. There's a difference between giving a game a more basic graphical style, and just poorly-executing your visuals.

In short, if you want a budget version of a modern-day imagination of an older-style shoot-em-up that has a very open area, you could probably do worse than Project Root. There's a gulf, however, in between that and a recommendation from me. That gulf is hidden in a glitchy black abyss.

Meister_Leuchte
Meister_Leuchte

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.

Bob Vanus
Bob Vanus

As fun as the game is, I can't recommend it because the dev broke achievements in a update and abandoned the game before bothering to fix them.

sunkenshipwreck
sunkenshipwreck

i really, really, really wanted to like this game. full disclosure, i didn't finish it. i love shoot 'em up bullet hell style games, and this one really looked good. full 360 degree rotation, ground fire (which is a nice touch), and helicopter style gameplay. unfortunately, the game lags a lot for me, and even when it isn't it's too slow for my tastes. the action got repetitive pretty quickly, and in the end i just wasn't having any fun with it. again, i really wanted to like it. i left it and came back to it months later. sorry to be the bearer of bad news, gang....

SoanoS
SoanoS

The idea of the game is not bad. You fly a plane and the scenery rotates around you.

However... The mouse controlled map rotation is jerky at best, and it seems to love jumping around in 30 degree steps for some reason.

The enemy AI is braindead. The enemy planes fly straight at you and shoot slowly, and most of the time you are just reversing out of the way and turning in circles while trying to hit them with your guns while they follow you blindly. The tanks... They drive around predefined paths, lazily taking potshots at you with their wide spread shots.

There is no "oomph" in the sound effects, and the weapons feel pretty weak. The "powerups" are fairly rare, they feel meh and you only get 3 charges at a time. They also feel pretty pathetic.

IMO this is not worth €10.

Role player
Role player

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.