If there’s one game that got blasted into stardom in recent times? Then it has to be Among Us. A game that revolves around trickery, mischief and murder. A simple game to be honest. A top down 2D adventure where you complete certain tasks to clear the level. But not everything is what it seems because among us, aliens live. Aliens who live solely to thwart your progress and stop you from succeeding. And while the console market doesn’t have Among us, Other Ocean Group decided to give us the next best thing. Their take on this concept. Project Winter is a team-based survival experience. Gather resources, repair buildings and work together so your group can escape unscathed… Or will they? For in your ranks are a few traitors. Traitors who will do anything to stop you from getting that sweet chicken dinner at the end of the road. Will you be able to accomplish your goals, or will these dastardly hooligans stop you around every corner? Will you stick together and work as a whole group, or will you risk your life for the greater good and split up so you can multitask. But won’t that make you sus? It’s not an easy decision but one that you will have to make. Piqued your interest? Wrap your favorite scarf around your neck, snuggle into your thickest blanket and get ready to brave the frozen wilderness that is… Project Winter.
We played Project Winter for 4 hours on the Xbox Series X.
What we liked!
- Sound: They really did spend quite a lot of time designing the sound stage for this one and it shows. First of all there is the directional sounds. Depending on where you are? You can clearly define where some noises are coming from. Is someone chopping wood, you’ll be able to pinpoint where by using one of your best tools. Namely, your ears!
When you are inside a building, you’ll hear muffled noises outside it, and then there is the proximity chat. You can gauge the distance between you and your companion based on how loud they are, and where the voice is coming from by using directional awareness. I mean, come on! How cool is that! - RNG: Project Winter is a game that revolves around RNG. Firstly, you cannot choose what type of character you play. The game decides this for you, and you will have to stick with it. But more on that later. What I am getting are the random events that tend to happen during your playtime. Every few minutes an in-game timer announces that something is about to happen. And in all my runs, I never had the same sequence of events happen. That is what a good generator does! These are put into the game to shake things up and I couldn’t be happier about it! And why? Because they’re hilarious! The one I enjoyed the most was when everyone suddenly turned into huge rabbits and you couldn’t see anyone ‘s names, roles or who was speaking at that moment. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!
- Fun group game: I played Project Winter with no microphone and in random lobbies. And I truly must admit that I had an absolute blast doing so. Of course, I was screaming at my television when out of the blue I got called out for “hitting” another player resulting in me getting exiled out of the cabin. Fact: I was the scientist while gathering wood by punching a tree. Fact 2: He was the traitor in the end, and everyone fell for his antics! But that didn’t mean that I had a bad time! Au contraire. The moment that you die, you get the option to continue as a ghost. While in this form, you’ve got the opportunity to either help your fellow survivors by warming them up or giving them some food. Even heal them. Or… you could lower all their basic stats if you want to kid around. And can they do anything from stopping you doing so? Nope. Thus, it is up to you. Would you help your fellow teammates, or would you rather be a vengeful poltergeist with the sole purpose of seeing them die! … Sorry, my evil side kicked in there for a second… Ahem, so, where was I? Oh right… What happens if you can kill someone? You get the choice. Depending on what your opponent is doing right, you may want to pick up their clothes and wear them for your own benefit. For instance, you are the traitor and the one you are after is screaming bloody murder that you are on his heels trying to kill him. If anyone out there hears that through the proximity chat, you’re done for. So, what better way of distraction than, after you kill your foolish companion, than to don on his clothes… and name. Because, yes. That is what happens the moment you decide to have a wardrobe change. You get to run around… with his name! Muhahaha, screwing up the entire chain of roles that the RNG based system of Project Winter decided, and letting your fellow teammates believe that you died, and he survived. One traitor less, no? Oh, but that’s right! Roles!
- Roles: Where other games of this sort may tend to put you in the role of Survivor or Traitor role, Project Winter puts you in defined roles. These are randomly selected for you, so you cannot claim a role that would suit your preference. And each of these are unique with their own set of abilities, making the game even less repetitive. Which is a good thing, for that would mean that you wouldn’t get bored of playing the same kind of role over and over, with nothing more to show for it!
- Connection quality: You know it, I know it, we all know it. In a game where complete strangers come together, one of the biggest fails just must be a weak connection or unstable servers. None of this with Project Winter. I don’t know what kind of trickery Other Ocean Group did to make these games run buttery smooth with near perfect ping and connection speeds, but I’m glad they did so! In all the lobbies and games that I have played? Never have I ever seen someone lag or spaz out due to high ping! So, worry not my frosty amigos, your connections are safe in this one! Of course, if you’re not running on a dial-up line that is…
- Cosmetics: They introduced an in-game store as well, kind of PUBG like in my opinion. At the end of each round, you’ll get credits awarded to you. These credits can be used to buy boxes. In these boxes you’ll get an item drop. The more expensive your crate, the rarer the loot shall be. So, it’s up to you how you use your points. Will you hoard them and get the rarest crates of them all, or will you just spend as you get.
Another thing that I like about this, is that you know for certain that you’ll get something and not just a random percentage the more you spend on it. So, woohoo!
Somewhere between
- Inventory space: I think that my one and only gripe with Project Winter must be your starting inventory space. You have 4 slots that can be filled in with 3 items of each. Sure, you can get a backpack eventually, but that is if you have the right materials for it. That also means that at the start, you’ll be doing a lot of backtracking. Which wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it weren’t for the fact that you are not the only one gathering resources for their own means. In a group of friends, you can have discussions about who gathers who. But in a random lobby, you’ll have a harder time really coordinating who gathers what for no one trusts anyone in there. I get the fact that these limits are there but it’s more the number of each item that you can carry that irked me the wrong way. 3. Why 3 and not 5? That would make hunting and gathering even more worthwhile. For with only 3 items, that means you’ll be wasting more time in the cabin getting your heat back up than anything else.
What we disliked
- Nothing: Go away you traitor, before I exile you into the cold abyss! No such things to be disliked can be found here! Shoo!
CONCLUSION
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