Nightdive keeps doing the Lord's work, 'nuff said. Pure unfiltered 90s boom shoot action with a B-movie-like plot that doens't take itself too seriously.
Bought and played on Steam before it turned around here anyway. As a boomer shooter Phantom Fury is a Half-Life like FPS that on it's own provides quite a few hours of good fun. It's jank, sure, though I personally have not experienced the hellish levels of it that I've seen mentioned elsewhere. Played through the whole campaign in medium difficulty in around three sessions and only experienced one bug ever that forced me to reload a checkpoint. Though admittedly YMMV on this point. My only real issue with the game was that the soundtrack was almost inaudible most of the time, though it seems that was fixed with patch #2 on Steam, which should be already included in this version. Personally, I feel like this game has the notoriously bad reputation it has just because it's a follow up to ION Fury, which is without a doubt a much, much better game. Though IMHO, that comparison is too unfair since among boomer shooters both new and old, ION Fury is much better than almost everything else. Though, in the end I'm giving Phantom Fury 4 stars because I gave 5 stars to ION Fury. Though I will mention that I feel tempted to knock Phantom Fury one extra star because the devs directly told me that the game wasn't coming to GOG ever and then it came to GOG anyway. I would have preferred to wait and buy the game here to support GOG and even though I feel burned by that bit of dishonesty, at the end of the day I like this game enough to not want to hurt it because of some dev tomfoolery.
Yeah, it took a hell of a long time to come out in full but it was worth it. If you liked how ION Fury was a wholly authentic modern Build Engine experience then this id Tech 2 (ie. Quake engine) experience will be right up your alley.
If you played Escape Velocity Nova back in the day, this game is pretty much exactly that but open source, with higher resolution graphics, an original setting and story, a bigger galaxy, modern QoL features and very easy to use modding capabilities. The game is in active development but is already fully playable, with a 10 hours long main campaign. Besides that, there are also at least two long campaigns that follow the main one that are currently in development, as well as several shorter side-stories all over the galaxy map. Only thing I would say it's missing is a custom soundtrack like the other open-source EV Nova-like game, Naev.
ECHO might not be as in depth an stealth-game like say MGS or Splinter Cell, but it's neither trying to be nor does it need to. It's a tightly designed stealth game that focuses on just a few core mechanics but hones them up to perfection. The main gimmick of the enemies learning from your play-style is very, very well executed. But beyond that, the voice acting, the music, the story and the overall presentation of the game are so unique and engrossing! Just on the characters and music alone this is one game I will never forget. And as long as it is, the intro sequence is possible one of the best and most captivating intros I've ever seen in a game. What a gem this game is!
This game is a take on the Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder or Legend of Grimrock dungeon crawler formula, with a very well realized steampunk aesthetic and a single player character instead of a party of 4. If you liked any of those games you're going to like this one too, 'nuff said. And as a nice bonus, the main character is voiced by Sebastian "Frost" Ruiz from the Cold Take series of video essays on YouTube.
It's pretty much more of what made the base Ion Fury great, but more! There are less maps, but each one is bigger, more interactive and more varied than those of the base game. Yeah, it took a long, long time to develop, but the insane effort of Voidpoint shows in the incredible map quality which IMHO surpasses even the best of the best Build Engine mods like Death Wish or AMC TC. The music is top notch too, and there are a few new gun fire-modes and enemy alternatives to make the combat feel fresh even for those of us who have 100% the base game one or more times already. And with the new hover-bike chapter this expansion makes me feel that if the base IF was like a take on Half-Life on the Build Engine, then Aftershock is IF take Half-Life 2 and it's as glorious as that description would imply. Overall, to me Afteshock cements Ion Fury as the queen of the boomer shooter revival.
All around, this is the best solitaire collection I've played since the good ol' days of Burning Monkey Solitaire, but instead of the zany charm of that one this solitaire collection has a quite dignified feel to it. All the games are either original designs or variations on classic solitaire games, coupled with pleasant and readable high-definition artwork and nice relaxing music. The new solitaire designed specifically for this collection, Fortune's Foundation, is an odyssey of a game played with an slightly reduced Tarot deck that feels greatly satisfying to complete.
