Ion Fury

I never really played the old 90's shooters, and besides Zero Tolerance, I can't say I was ever much a fan. Even Doom, I would watch my cousins play and find some enjoyment, but only a modicum, and as such, I never harbored much nostalgia for those games. And yet here comes Ion Fury, a love letter to these old shooters, and cut from the same cloth, even being built in the same engine used for Duke Nukem 3D. This is a fast and frantic game; it looks old but with a modern charm and timeless design and aesthetic that it is downright anachronistic. You play as Shelly 'Bombshell' Harrison and your goal is to take out an evil scientist, Heskel. When it comes to story, this is the meat of it, but the gameplay and environment conveys a lot and always keeps Shelly moving. The level design is usually very good and the combat feels great. It reminded me of Doom 2016 in its pacing near the end, and this is a good thing. With a myriad of weapons (most of which I did end up using in various situations), you mow down a modest, but not too limited, selection of enemies. I really enjoyed the gameplay and the first few levels; the first few hours, really stand out to me. The music is good and at times very good. I wish it was more prominent. When it is at the forefront it really works. And I also really liked Shelly. Our protagonist is a lady Duke Nukem and she has cheesy one liners and childishly silly observations. There's a certain sincerity to this game, to how simple and straightforward it is. You move and shoot anything that moves. But the craft that went into this mechanic, to the meeting of these mechanics, is so deft and nuanced that it really becomes something more than it seems. This game stands distinct from the titans of FPS games I have played. It stands out from the Half Lifes and the BioShocks and even the Dooms of gaming. It is a little game but it brings with it the best of the past. My only real complaint is it is a bit long and tended to drag towards the end.

This is hands down the best retro shooter made using the build engine. It does not pretend to be retro, it is what would be done with best hands on deck back in the late 90s. The game has the imperfections of Ken Silvermans engine which makes it the real thing. Levels are huge and contain amazing detail. Weapons are properly scaled. The amount of easter eggs and popculture references is ludacris. Drawbacks? The difficulty is pretty 90s, the game doesnt hold back. If you consider this an issue. And no multiplayer. I would enjoy that.

Many brilliant things (art, style, music, gameplay), as many people have pointed out. However, I have one major gripe with the game: it does not have the same level of detail that best moments in classic 3D realms games: peeing in toilets and washing your hands. Explanation: of course those things are just weird side things that have no bearing on gameplay, but those things showed attention to detail and crude work that went into those classic games. This one is great, but it does seem kinda shallow, compared to them. Hopefully, when the full game is released, many small additions will be there and the final product will show more polish. Otherwise it's a 5/5, I am just afraid that it will not live up to its expectations.

It may seem weird that my biggest gripe with this game is that it's too long. I can finish Doom 1, 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and several other old shooters without feeling like they dragged on, but Ion Fury stretches things almost to the breaking point. Taken on their own, each level is really well crafted, detailed, cleverly laid out... but by the time the final boss finally died in a massive explosion, I felt like I couldn't possibly stomach playing any games with military installations and nondescript industrial areas again for at least one month. The bits of scenic variety you get is refreshing but too rare and short lived. The, comparatively, more bite sized levels of the 90s shooters that this game clearly takes it's inspirations from felt way more like they had their own personality and stood out more clearly in your mind. In Ion Fury, it's a blur of switches, pipes, ladders, crates and techy looking walls. Still. Rock solid combat, great level design, really good weapon selection (all weapons are useful, none get old to use), fun enemies (although, given the length of the game, it really needed just a few more types) and also really nice, artfully handled graphics. Very recommended. You probably know whether you'd like this sort of game or not before you even try it.

This game stretches the ancient "Build" engine to its maximum extents, enhancing nearly every aspect of what we liked about older "Build" games while ditching most of what we didn't like. The game's maps flow in a similar manner to the first Unreal games (maps load continously). While it uses the same old formula of finding blue/green/red access cards, the intent of the game was clearly to "keep it '90s," and this approach makes this game worth every penny. You can see elements of the eDuke32 ehancements to the engine (such as correct perspective projection so that panning up/down does not result in badly warping geometry). The developer also tried to keep it as retro looking as possible with the use of sprites and voxel (3D pixel) art instead of polygonal 3D models wherever possible. I really enjoy the pop-culture references from 20+ years ago that are scattered throughout the maps and by Bombshell's one-liners. If you were a fan of games built on this engine from the 1990s (Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage, etc), then you really should pick this one up. Once you start playing, it pulls you in, and is very hard to stop playing. This is, quite possibly, the best "Build" game. The best part of the game has to be the cyber-punk retro 1990s maps that are both huge, and model believable locations, such as shopping malls, downtown areas, office buildings, etc. The chunky, pixelated textures, voxel art, and colored lighting effects are visually charming to anyone who remembers the transition from MS-DOS gaming to Windows 95 and early 3D acceleration with 3DFX Voodoo cards. My two criticisms are the shotgun's alt-fire (should just be a right-click to launch a grenade), and the spider demons, which chew health points very quickly. Thankfully, in most cases, we have enough space to prioritize the spiders. Big thanks to the YouTube channel "LGR" for getting word of this game out there. This is how I (and many others) found out about it.