I got a chance to try Project Downfall at PAX East last month and it was another great surprise at the show that I felt was worth highlighting.
Like the title says, to boil the game down to the essentials I'd say Project Downfall is Hotline Miami filtered through Max Payne. It follows the Hotline Miami design of short, highly replayable and quickly reloading, stages that are focused on killing everyone in your way with whatever you can get your hands on. There are even the interstitial chapters for exploration and narrative. The Max Payne influence comes in the form of pills you take that primarily, in the demo at least, gave you bulletime so you could dodge and nail every shot. There were other pills found later in the demo that continued the effect as you slayed rather than being locked to a timer.
Driving the combat is the hyper-violent nonsense that fuels titles like Hotline Miami. Enemies crumble, are blown back and explode into gibs with every bullet. It works well with the blown out audio/visual design, and on that note there are plenty of customization options for the scanlines including the ability to disable them if that's not your preference. Though the game leans very heavily into that "old" style which I imagine is hit or miss with people in general. I love it personally.
I choose to play with a controller and while it was a bit spotty at times (controls aren't final) I was able to finish the first main set of levels with some practice and completed a short preview of the newer content coming to the early access release (a casino level), so it'll hopefully control well with the later console release. The PC version was launched into early access last month so it's still a work in progress but it's something folk should be keeping an eye on.
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