Project: Snowblind

Overview

Project Snowblind is a first person shooter that was originally supposed to be set in the Deus Ex universe. However, after the poor performance of the previous Deus Ex game ( Invisible War), the developers decided to go into a new universe. Project Snowblind however, stays to be a spiritual successor of the Deus Ex universe. Gameplay wise, unlike Deus Ex where the player has a choice whether to play stealthy or not, the only reasonable option is combat.

Gameplay

Powers

The game features a number of super powers that unlock as the single player progresses: these inculde:

• Vision: X-ray, Nightvision, and Thermal
• Reflex: Ability to slow down gameplay, and hear as enemy soldiers are progressing
• Shield: Invincibility for a short amount of time
• Cloaking: Becoming invisible for a short amount of time, unlike other shooters, where the character is only camo, in Project Snowblind the character becomes completely invisible.
• Electrical Storm: Killing all near by enemies in one shot.

Hand Carried Weapons

• Gravity Manipulator (different than the gravity gun, it has some purposes in common but not very useful in combat)
• Silent Handgun
• Assault Rifle
• Shotgun
• HERF Lightning gun
• Sniper Rifle
• Disk Mine layer
• Flechette rifle
• X Wire Rail Laser
• Missile launcher
• ICE pick (Hacking tool)

Secondary weapons and gadgets

• Fragmentation Grenades
• EMP grenades
• Toxic Grenades
• Flash Grenades
• Spider Bots
• Portable Nano regenerator (Recharges Energy and Health)
• Deployable Shields

Non weapon related

• Punch

Nathan frost is able to punch people while wielding a weapon, there is a specific key to do so, very useful to save ammo, or to remain almost stealthy while being invisible

Advertising

Prior to the game's release, the demoscene group Farbrausch's game development arm .theprodukkt created a teaser 96kb demo (Pouet.net link) for the game.

Criticism

While the game attempts at giving the player more then one option for each situation, it ultimately fails. Using stealth is a lot harder then simply "run and gunning" a group of enemy soldiers. This created anger with the Deus Ex fans, because they expected the game to be more stealth based. In addition, the single player experience is awfully short, and has little incentive for multiple play-throughs, and contains only one difficulty.

System Requirements

• Minimum: IBM PC or 100% compatible, Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Pentium IV, 1.5 GHz (Or AMD Athlon XP equivalent) processor, 100% DirectX 64 MB 3D Accelerated video card with Pixel Shader v1.1 Capability, 256 MB System RAM, 100% DirectX 9 Compatible Sound Card, 3GB free uncompressed hard drive space (additional space may be necessary for saved games), 100% Windows 2000/XP compatible Mouse and Keyboard

• Recommended: Pentium IV, 2.4 Ghz (or AMD Athlon XPequivalent) or greater processor, 512 MB System RAM, 100% DirectX 9 128MB 3D Graphics Card with Pixel Shader 2.0 support, 3GB of Hard Drive Space

IMPORTANT NOTE: As stated on the Project: Snowblind box, laptops and integrated video chips may work with Project: Snowblind, but are not supported. Should you incur problems while running the game on an integrated video chip, Eidos Tech Support will not be able to help you.

Supported Video Chipsets: nVidia GeForce 3Ti/4Ti/FX/6000 series - Note: GeForce MX series is NOT SUPPORTED. ATI Radeon 8500/9xxx or higher.