Ion Fury

If you ask me, the recent decade has shown that just because a game developer used to be good and made some well-known games, this doesn't mean that whatever they make now is automatically going to be top shelf. After all, game design marches on, and what used to be good might not have been if it came out now. And Ion Fury is... eh, it's not mind-blowing, but it's fun, tight, with a lovingly detailed level design, and it's not afraid to do its own thing. There definitely are far superior boomer shooters out there, but if you're a fan of the genre and looking for your next fix, you've found it. [h1]Are you a BAD enough B*TCH?[/h1] In many ways Ion Fury is a look back at the 90s gaming culture, but with some things changed up a bit. Shelly aka "the Bombshell" - our protagonist - is a self-described BADDEST B*TCH ON THE FORCE; think Duke Nukem, but with the cringy one-liners toned down just a bit, and female - but not like Lara Croft with overflowing booba and a skimpy outfit. Shelly's look is rather plain; sure, she's wearing a skin-tight police outfit, but she's not here to impress you with her looks, she's here to f*ck sh*t up. Which she does. Watching her interactions with the main villain is entertaining, and her combat lines definitely feel badass ("Dance, f*cker, dance!" or "We're done when I say we're done."), but the variety is unfortunately kinda low. I could use more of Shelly's f-bombs. And if you're not a fan, you can enable "silent protagonist" and pretend you're playing a buff dude or something. Just stay away from the mirrors. [h1]A girl likes her toys[/h1] A good boomer shooter needs a good weapon arsenal, and Ion Fury delivers, even if some weapons feel a little awkward. You might need to go against your instincts here and there, but once you do, I'm sure you'll enjoy the contents of Shelly's bedside drawer. The Loverboy - your 6-shooter-revolver - has an auto-kill option. You can scan and mark enemies, and Shelly will pop 2 shots in every mark, killing most of them. I found it stupid at first, but this ended up one my favourite ways to kill some enemies. The shotgun has a grenade launcher, but in order to use it, you have to -switch- to the launcher mode, which is cumbersome. You'll also get a lot of ammunition to it, and ever since Half-Life we were trained to consider the side grenade launcher a valuable bailout tool, so using it willy-nilly is something that doesn't come naturally. Here, you absolutely can do that - and killing enemies with explosions grants armour shards, so it's even a good thing. There's also some other weird pieces. A flaming dual uzi, a cluster bomb hockey puck, bowling bombs (self-explanatory), a crossbow that works nothing like crossbows do in other games (a good thing)... and a motherf*ck*n minigun. Although the ammo to that last one is somewhat sparse, so it's a little situational. Oh, and a police baton, which has some unique uses. No, not that kind of use, although I don't know. [h1]Copaganda, but make it ACAB[/h1] Most of the story (such as it is) is told via worldbuilding; you're not expected to treat it seriously, and that's fine. Shelly is described as being proud in keeping the order of PERMANENT MARTIAL LAW for example, and you're clearly supposed to laugh at that - but then you deliver indiscriminate, extrajudicial waste to pretty much everything, soooo... which is it? Eh, it's okay, they're all robots. Fleshy robots. But robots. And yet, the levels (and even some dialogue) show that eh, maybe the police force ain't all good?... or... at all? It's kinda weird, the way I see it it kinda dances on the line and ends up getting confused in its own message. So just forget about it and shoot the damn robots. [h1]Press A to lower the ladder[/h1] The levels are very interconnected in this Dark Souls kinda way. They're also rich in variety, visual funsies and secrets; I worked REALLY hard to find secrets early on, but eventually got frustrated and decided to just pick up the ones that I end up finding somewhat naturally. It worked - I even managed to find one super secret just by following my curiosity - but in the end my final secret tally was merely 44%. I can't say I ever was starved for resources, though. At first I tried to play on Hard difficulty, but something about it bothered me and I switched to Normal. That perhaps was a little too easy (except some fights, including the final boss. Ugh), but it made me feel powerful, which seems to be what the design is going for. Mission accomplished? [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Yeah, it's alright. 17% of players got the achievement for killing the final boss, and otherwise the achievements paint a picture of a dropoff of roughly half of the players every few levels, although if you manage to get to a certain point, you'll likely go all the way. My personal gripe is that it ended up being somewhat easy to get lost later on - the levels get huge - and the pacing sometimes feels a little slow. But I played it over multiple sessions, sometimes a few hours a time, sometimes just 15 mins, and 15 hours later, bam. My guess is that you'll like this game if you actually lived through the times that this game hearkens back to. And if you can execute the crouch jump without issue. Take that advice for what you will. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42922988/]There are some boomer shooters on my curator page[/url]

Made me learn how build engine works, made me a stronger human being for it too. Just fun.

It's good but I really wish it was better. I will mark it negative but it is a good game, but my perception of it is negative and I can't recommend it when so many great things are out there. I love the 3 great Build Engine games and honestly this is good but it isn't as fun as the build engine games made 2 decades ago. Some very talented people worked on this and did amazing things but I think all in all its design is so all over the place that the gunplay really just isn't that fun to me. The writing feels so bogged down in references it lacks any of its own personality. Which is such a shame because I think this new Bombshell had potential to stand out compared to other famous FPS protags but the character and story are honestly just entirely uninspired. Which really hurts because you can tell how inspired the classic fps games are. As an example of confusing design. The shotgun and grenade launcher are physically the same weapon so if you switch between them, a short animation plays instead of just putting a gun away and pulling out another gun. Except, the animation is so long that it takes longer to do this than to switch to another gun. This strikes me as someone thought it would be cool to do the thing Blood did with the aerosol can but in implementation it punishes the player for no reason by making them take longer switching weapons randomly. This game also loves to use Build's colored lighting. Which is a terrible choice because it makes it so enemies are the same color as the environment. Also, the colors and LoD make enemies blend in to the background WAY too often. I am so tired of FPS games having enemies that aren't visible. This wasn't an issue in 1993, why is it one now? This game has pickups that stick out in colored sectors but they dont do that for enemies? Cmon. I find most of the enemies annoying to fight and this game loves to spawn groups of small enemies after you. Boss fights feel like spam that make me eyeroll when i die more than think I made a mistake. I love classic FPS games but I think the trend of them coming back died from an excess of games that look cool but have really lacking gameplay. I don't think this game is the return of 3d Realm's old school design. I think this is an emulation of qualities and features from those games and all the new stuff conflicts. Duke Nukem 3d had a ton of charm due to its random fun interactive elements like lightswitches, and somehow 30 years later we can't surpass that. It probably doesn't help that most of the environments in this game are extremely boring locations. The textures and level of detail are amazing but I really wish I was exploring a cool area and not a sewer or some other treatment plant. I am currently a few hours in to my 3rd attempt at beating this game, so maybe I'll change my mind before I actually finish it but honestly I don't think its in the cards for me to finish it. Play Deathwish instead if you want a Build Engine masterpiece.

This is a really fun game, but oh god why the hell haven't you fixed the stupid shotgun/DLC bug that leaves it inaccessible throughout the main campaign yet?! It's stupid that the bug still haven't been fixed, years after its introduction, and even various workarounds the player can try (e.g. console vars, restarting the chapter, etc) are unable to fix it for some of us. This means we are forced to play through the whole main campaign with a reduced arsenal, which also means some more ammo conservation needs to be taken into account at times. I was almost of the mind to not recommend the game due to that stupid bug, but yes, the game is still quite fun. It would've just been even more awesome if I was allowed to use the stupid shotgun too, guys...

I cant believe this was made in the build engine, the best game made in this engine since BLOOD. My one complaint is not really a complaint. It has sooo many secrets you would never find without a guide, and i feel like i miss so much.

The game is amazing, but the devs are trans/homophobic and have taken a "censorship" defense against Slurs in the game. As such I cannot recommend this game. I wish I knew this before I gave them my money. Hate is not a price I am willing to pay to play a video game.

Iron Maiden can eat my ass!

I've been playing a lot of single player shooters lately, and compared to them this one lacks the impact of the gunplay, probably because there's not as much blood coming out of the enemies and it's often unclear where to go.