Ion Fury

Big, beautiful, satisfying, challenging, old-style shooting game

It's really good!

Having never played Duke Nukem, Blood or Shadow Warrior, I have zero nostalgia for Build engine games/3D Realms. This is a great single player first person shooter.

really fun 90s build engine shooter without the dated cringiness.

Единственный минус для меня это небольшое разнообразие врагов

Fantastic game. I don't play games to the end often these days, but the gameplay had me coming back for more. Played though it on the Steam Deck with gyro and flick stick and the game played perfectly with it. Bit difficult to change weapons with the dpad but manageable.

Ion Fury is a 2019 first person shooter developed by Voidpoint and published by 3d Realms, the latter of which I wasn't aware was still around. 3D Realms was known mainly for Duke Nukem 3D, one of the classic shooters of the 90s, and a game that I somehow have never played. Ion Fury is a spiritual successor, as far as I can tell. There's a ton of interactivity in the levels, from destructible fire extinguishers that blow chunks out of the walks, to being able to consume fast food lying around or throw a dart stuck on a board at enemies. Of course, a computer from the 90's would never be able to run this game, with its updated engine. There are huge open spaces and an incredible amount of environmental detail that far eclipses anything from the past era of 2.5D shooters. Ion Fury really is a gorgeous-looking game, and its aesthetic is ruined techno-dystopia and urban decay, similar to Robocop. You play as Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison, a wisecracking warrior mowing down cybernetic monsters while trying to apprehend Dr. Jadus Heskel, who resembles Dr. Kleiner from Half-Life. Ion Fury has many references to shooters of yore; its levels are riddled with air ducts like in Deus Ex, while its shotgun-wielding transhumanist enemy looks almost exactly like a Combine soldier. The guns themselves feel excellent--the penetrator, a shotgun/grenade launcher, absolutely annihilates enemies, transforming them into squishy gibs. The loverboy, Shelly's revolver, has a handy auto-aim secondary fire that's always satisfying to use. A pair of uzi machine guns that fire incendiary rounds are also a mainstay, along with a crossbow that really needs a scope. Bowling balls, little rolling grenades, are great fun for taking out large groups of enemies. A chaingun that never has enough ammo, and another throwable explosive called the clusterpuck finishes the arsenal. Although very solid, Ion Fury really misses a couple unique weapons, like Unreal's razorjack or Half-Life's snarks. Enemy variety is also poor. You'll be destroying the same three basic transhumanist enemies for most of the runtime, along with little cyborg spiders that really suck to hit, due to the Build Engine's difficulties with perspective and aiming. There are also some other enemies that the game adds during its runtime to mix things up, but you'll always be battling the aforementioned foes, which gets a little dull. The level design is usually pretty good, with the exception of a mid-game slump that has you wandering around underground. Figuring out where to go can be a challenge, and requires you to get into that retro-shooter mindset. Hunting down keys and remembering where locked doors are is essential. Also don't forget that your electro-baton, your basic melee weapon, can restart generators, which is required for progression. Difficulty is a complex balance in shooters. On one hand, you don't want a game free of challenge. On the other, you don't want to be frequently banging your head against the wall as you struggle to progress. Most of the time, you have enough ammo and health on regular difficulty in Ion Fury. But there are periods where you're down to a smidge of health and you can't find any ammo for your shotgun. Scrounging the levels for secrets is almost required, and while there are a lot of them, I definitely was frustrated on occasion. I originally purchased Ion Fury a couple years ago and bounced off of it. I'm glad I gave it another shot, but I would only recommend it to boomer shooter fans, which are, after all, its main audience. If you haven't played through an old shooter like say, Dark Forces Remastered, in a while, then you may find yourself stumped by the level design and difficulty. But there is a lot to appreciate here, from the complex level design to the gorgeous dystopian aesthetic to the solid old school shooting. So check out Ion Fury if you are a boomer shooter fan only. One other note: Shelly has constant one-liners that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ drive me crazy. "Oh my god, the quarterback is toast!" "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!" "Dodge this!" You'll hear these about a million times, and I know the fun is supposed to be tongue in cheek, but man, this ain't no Bulletstorm or even Atomic "choke on this and die, you fat turd!" Heart.