If you're not much into shooters and are used only to modern military shooters, you might not think too much of this, but it's carefully crafted game design is going to suck you in and get to love it soon after. I wholeheartedly recommend getting this is if you've enjoyed the likes of DUSK, Hard Reset, and of course, the originals (Duke3D, Blood, Doom and Half-Life). This one has a Deus-ex/hard reset vibe to it, it nails the dystopian futuristic cyberpunk atmosphoere, and still packs in a lot of 90s movies references as its predecessors did, although much more obscure ones. I've only gotten through half-way so far but I can already recommend getting it even for the original asking price, it's that much fun to play and since it's carefully crated level design, it's more fun to try and find secrets, or replay the levels differently. You don't have much choice in terms of arsenal, but as limited as it is, it's very satisfying gunplay. Character movement speed is spot on, as are health and armor pickups (not including obscure secrets). If you didn't hone your aiming skills on older shooters, you will have trouble with ammunition in Ion Maiden (yeah, it's still Ion Maiden, it's just in the title art and on this page, it's still Ion Maiden for us ;-) ). Runs decently well on modern integrated graphics and APUs, haven't been able to retrofit it in a duke sourceport on period age hardware but it should be doable when ... I mean if I get bored with replaying this masterful piece of game design. 10/10 to 3d realms and void point for pulling off the best intentionally obsolete 3d engineering and level design with this.
Unfortunately have to give this 2 stars, it would've been a solid 4 stars if I could finish it. I got stuck in two separate places after starting the game twice, once with the submarine explosion bug and once with a double door elevator. People have already posted clips of these bugs on youtube so no sense showing it. It was on sale so what the heck, the concept and setting is nice. Shame about the bugs and (so far) level design not taking full advantage of the destructible environment gimmick.
