Ion Fury

First, and most importantly: the guns are awful. Just absolute dogwater. The main gun has an alternative fire that's just absolute trash, and it's basically the only gun with an alt fire. Your character literally cannot throw a ball (grenade). The AI is awful and will come swarming the second you shoot one of the godawful guns, the level design is annoying and involves you going around in circles looking for over 10+ secrets per level to actually make progress. The protagonist is memes and referential humor, but not in a fun way like Duke Nukem was back in the day - just in a millennial animated sitcom kind of way that grates after you hear the same movie quote seven times in a row. No idea why people like this one, being real.

نازی نازی نازی به خوشگلیت مینازی! نازی نازی نازی به خوشگلیت مینازی… قرار نبود بگیری دل منو به بازی… یکی یه دونه ی دل من محبوب خوشگل من! اون حرفایی که گفتی توی گوشم دروغ بود! وعده هایی که دادی در آغوشم دروغ بود منو دیگه نمیخوای اینو میدونم… من بیاد گذشته برات میخونم… منو دیگه نمیخوای اینو میدونم! من بیاد گذشته برات میخونم… نازی نازی نازی به خوشگلیت مینازی… نازی نازی نازی به خوشگلیت مینازی! قرار نبود بگیری دل منو به بازی… یکی یه دونه ی دل من محبوب خوشگل من… اون حرفایی که گفتی توی گوشم دروغ بود وعده هایی که دادی در آغوشم دروغ بود!

THE BEST BUILD ENGINE GAME This one is as stated. Ion Fury/Ion Maiden aka Bombshell Prequel takes everything gaming has received in the last ~30years and adds the good things into good old build engine flavor. Making a modern classic experience with carefully handcrafted sprite work. Map design that is complex and absolutely pushes build engine to its very limits and it is just amazing to see how much it can do what modern engines do and yet it's an engine circa 1996. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3001312493 Game rewards you for exploring to find the secrets and eastereggs. Gunplay has that iconic build engine feel and just everything. Explosions feel badass like they always did in build engine games. This is just one of a kind that modern games cant really re-create. This is also quite possibly the most challenging build engine game out there. Playing on maximum fury is no joke as the game is very un-apologetic about treating you and will stomp and kick you to the nuts if you let it. Never really is this just straight up unfair as it's been made by people who have extensive background in duke3d modding and it shows how they have understood and learnt all the things that made those games great and now here is one super package with all that BUILD greatness. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3001312427 I highly recommend this to anyone who is either into classic fps in general, likes Duke Nukem 3D/Shadow Warrior.. or just likes good fps in general.

While a competent Build shooter, that's basically all it is. And the company behind it does a bunch of shady ♥♥♥♥.

Ion Fury is a great old-school FPS that just plays really well. it doesn't faff around getting bogged down in its own narrative, but instead focuses on shooting bad guys and rewarding exploration. The individual maps that comprise each of the Zones are huge, but their design makes them navigable enough (although the EXIT signs strewn throughout might be a bit hand-holdy?). The weapons are cool, although in the base campaign, I would have appreciated a ranged high-damage weapon that got filled by the Homewrecker in Aftershock. But the Clustepucks and, especially, Bowling Bombs had their effective use cases. The Disperser got bugged in the base campaign after I installed Aftershock; definitely a bug that shouldn't have been left; this is caused by the DLC adding in Ammo types in Slots 3 and 7 that cause the weapon to leave the player's arsenal. That's a very poor showing. But on the whole, both campaigns were a real treat to play, making the best of the Build engine through EDuke32. Definitely worth the price(s) of admission. EDIT: coming back to this game after a good few months away, and really it only gets better. Jacking up the difficulty and going for more and more secrets is just super rewarding. And I'm sure arrange mode adds yet more replay value. I think it's weird that there's people out there that don't like this...

This would likely be a thumbs sideways if we had that option, but there are just too many weaknesses for me to tell people to spend their time and money on this. This is obviously a retro shooter meant to invoke the mid 90's era shooters, but it goes way overboard with it and oddly gets it wrong with quotes from films in the 80's and beyond the 90's. There so obscure as well. How many people playing Ion Fury are going to get a Dirty Dancing reference from 1987? I'd bet the two pieces of entertainment don't have a lot of overlap in audience. It's so oddly out of touch with what it's trying to be. There's no attempt at any kind of story. There's a bad guy doing bad things, you're a generic UN type trying to stop him. The rest is just boring. There aren't many enemies and the few that there are act brain dead. They can't even path their way around levels and keep getting stuck in corners. Apparently these futuristic mutant super soldiers fatal weakness is door knobs since they can't seem to open any door in the game. I doubt the city they invaded is worried when there best defense is "close and lock door". The weapons are tired and generic and it really doesn't matter what you use at any given time. They tout these wide open levels, but really the game is very linear, There's an order to do things and almost no alternate solutions. This is not an immersive sim. There are a few cute interactive objects at best but even that's barely there. The maps are ugly and with few exceptions have a very samey look to them. I liked the early levels in the city, but after a few of those get ready for lots of pipes and underground tunnels that all look the same. I get what they were going for, but they really missed the mark and an opportunity to expand on the concept of those great-ish 90's shooters. Finally, I also understand the sense of humor they were going for, but there are blatantly homophobic and sexist quips and comments in the game and they aren't funny and wouldn't have been 30 years ago. If that's a thing that bothers you it's yet another reason to stay clear. A lot of people seem to like this game, but I'm having trouble figuring out what it's even trying to be. If it's trying to bring back nostalgic feelings, it's a spectacular failure. If it's trying to be an exciting shooter, it's a complete bore. There are so many better options for this genre out there.

A wish come true. I've always wanted to see more modern games running on older tech, I'm a bit of a tech fetishist when it comes to old FPS engines, from Build to older ID tech. Seeing something like Ion M̶a̶i̶d̶e̶n̶ Fury come out the way it did was everything I could have wanted. It's a very good game in its own right beyond the gimmick of running on ancient technology, and Shelly has earned a place among the greats of the golden era of shooting games. Fun weapons, great aesthetics, a banging soundtrack and stellar level design make this very easy to recommend. If I had to give some criticisms it would be that the enemy roster could have done with a couple additions and some enemies aren't particularly interesting, especially the big tread mechs and the centipedes, which kinda do nothing. The level design can also feel very masturbatory with the level designers pushing themselves simply to show off, and they often string two or three very long, complex areas together in one huge level which can make them feel exhausting especially when secret hunting. One thing compounding on that last point is some secrets can be a little too secret and occasionally frustrating if you enjoy secret hunting. The game relies a fair bit on illusory walls which I hate, and sometimes does really wacky stuff like making a normal wall turn illusory once an arbitrary trigger in the level is reached with no indication that anything has happened. Weapons not reloading automatically can also lead to comically long reload breaks. I also would have loved subtitles, I'm a little deficient and have trouble understanding people talking at the best of times and need everything subtitled. Really having to dig for those downsides.

Okay so I have finally finished this game, underwhelming as it was, there are positives and negatives The negatives : - You get stuck in objects -- A LOT causing you to lose health and die sometimes -- most of the weapons didn't feel punchy or good to use -- the enemy design is the most bland of most games I have played in my entire life fits mostly to solo devs projects (I mean cultist soldier type enemies by color... REALLY? doom had more interesting enemy variety in 1993) -- SECRETS TOO MANYYYYY GOSH DARN SERECTS felt more like a treasure hunt game than an FPS. I feel like it took a lot of enjoyment to search for secrets rather than enjoy the gun play as for the positives, I would list he level design and music which were actually pretty good (most levels at least)