Posted on: July 11, 2024
Mueslinator
Games: Reviews: 8
The very best of retro shooting
Levels? Huge, masterfully crafted, immensely navigable, and full of deviously hidden secrets. Weapons? Fun, varied, devastating, with almost every one having and retaining their use (though one or two are a bit too situational for me, like the Clusterpuck) throughout the game. Action? Gory, gristly, and fast. Enemies? ...Okay, fine, they're not the best roster, but they're decent enough, threatening, and satisfying to kill, with just about one enemy type getting into "annoyance" territory for me (thankfully even Aftershock on higher difficulties uses them sparingly). They're the weakest point of the game, and they're still a 4.5/5. Music and sound design? Eminently listenable and crunchy. Save function? Manual, quick, and auto. It does not get better than that (though load times in Aftershock are a few seconds on conventional HD, in the main game they happen in the blink of an eye). Thank you, Voidpoint! All in all, Ion Fury/Aftershock are among the best retro shooting I had the pleasure to experience so far. The way Voidpoint wrangles the Build engine is close to magic - the levels still have the dirty and gritty feel of Duke, Shadow Warrior and Redneck Rampage, but turned to 11 with their interconnectedness, ease of navigation, and size. Make no mistake, though: The game is, true to retro fashion, not for the lazy gamer. It tries to kill you, and it can gib you in a heartbeat if you slack off. It is, however, almost never unfair about it - it just expects you to keep up. As someone who played just about every fps from Wolfenstein3D through Quake, Chasm, Kiss Psycho Circus, FEAR, Unreal, Blood, Undying, WoT, Hedon, Dusk, Amid Evil, Hrot (and on and on): Ion Fury/Aftershock reigns among the best of them. You really cannot call yourself a fan of retro shooters without having Ion Fury/Aftershock in your library.
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