Phantom Fury

Under \Phantom Fury\Phoenix\ there is a file entitled Changelist.txt which states: "Bug Fixes and General Tweaks [*]Fix entire game" Phantom Fury is the very definition of a minimum viable product, shippable but just barely. Published out of apathy more than passion, and it shows big time. I have enjoyed many other "janky" FPSs and I generally like games with interactive environments. Not this game. In the very first area I go to stack two boxes on top of each other and they collapse instantly, the physics will not allow for this kind of interaction easily. Almost immediately I notice the hud does not consistently display pickup messages – pickups only sometimes display in the corner. Imagine playing Doom and picking up ammo or health only sometimes displays a message (how the hell does a bug like that even happen?) Enemies stand, shoot and die in incredibly unsatisfying ways. They are both stiff and weightless in a way I have only ever seen in cheap unity asset flips. I pick up and start using the bowling bombs, THE most iconic weapon in the Bombshell series, something that was perfected in Ion Fury, and they feel *awful* to use and are difficult to aim – lacking any sense of momentum or destruction. Everything I have encountered so far with this game has been just frustratingly unpolished and thrown together. It is not worth the price even at a 50% discount, I highly recommend to skip this one until a very steep discount. Even if you are like me and really like Ion Fury. It is overall a very disappointing experience.

Not even a quarter into the second level and I gave up. Whilst the game looks gorgeous, the many underlying problems I had with it turned me off to the point of asking for a refund. From the broken physics, underwhelming weapons, and lobotomised enemy AI to the half-baked UI, awkward writing, and areas that look explorable being blocked off by invisible walls, this game isn't even so bad it's good, it's just plain bad. Stick with Ion Fury and the Aftershock DLC, much more value for your money and infinitely more fun to play.

Has some Highlights, differs very much from Mission to Mission. More like a Melange of popular ~2000 Shooters. Some Half-Life/SIN/DeusEx/Unreal but also GoldenEye i think. i got well entertained in the Midsection to the End. The Beginning is rather bland but Missions become more and more scenic and entertaining. Does not reach IonFury

Played: Version 17276 (22 days old - only version at the time of writing) PC used: R5 5600x / RTX 3060 (12gb) / Win 10 Pro 10.0.19045 Phantom Fury reminds me a lot of Deus Ex and Half-Life, There's a lot to like but other things feel a bit lacking, I'll start with the good: Lots of very unique weapons that sound and feel solid, only one felt underpowered, Great Upgrade system for your character and weapons which can really change your play style. Map Design was great, visually fantastic and layout wise its easy to read (got lost once or twice though), some hidden level oddities gave me a good chuckle. World interactions feel like Deus Ex, for the most part its really well done. Terminals let you control things and the logs add some world building, many helpful items that you can throw/hold or stack. Pretty solid Enemies too, they run fast, take cover, flank, flush you out with grenades or rushing, and there's good variety of them to face. Music was excellent and I only wish there weren't so many areas with no music. Ohh and the minigames were good too, loved the air hockey table. Now the bad: Handful of bugs that range from being momentary to intrusive needing a game restart. One upgrade bug persisted in a later level and that hindered me till the end, very annoying. Movement and physics reminds me of Half-Life 2 which is good but some things like stacking or throwing can be clunky at times. Story is great in concept but it needed to be fleshed out more, especially for the later levels, I would gladly replace two early levels for two late game levels. The plot felt rushed at times and sadly some parts of the trailer never happen in game which was a major bummer, even the Blade cameo felt WAY too short, was hoping he'd be around for at least 3 levels. Sadly no enemies from Ion Fury make a return and I kind of wish they did to spice things up. Lastly not all weapons could be upgraded, wish they could, more than two options each would've been nice. 7/10

Fairly competent shooter roughly evoking HL1 and SiN era aesthetics. Kinda miss the Build engine look of the previous game, but I like this too. I have very few complaints - Item pickups give buggy feedback if any, I have missed out on so many things what I have picked up because I backed into them and never knew I picked something up. This was especially frequent with mission critical items. - Some mission critical items are really hard to find, especially the explosives. - Mole reveal and what followed in terms of story - Hated the destroy 3 towers mission. - The gravity weapon felt pointless - Some upgrade options felt like traps to waste points in. Useful early on, but quickly lost their usefulness, if they ever had that. Nice options, but there's not enough upgrade points around. - There's some... physics/geometry glitches that make the game frustrating at times. Highlight of one was a boss being thrown off into space and I had to reload since it became impossible to kill them. Though there was also a doorway I could not pass through of also. Big points for the game not feeling unfair at any point on medium difficulty.