I was cautious when I installed Bombshell. I played Rise of the Triad 2013 before (made by the same company), and it was really disappointing, to say the least. And while my initial impression was rather positive, it quickly deteriorated. But let's start on a positive note, since developers avoided some issues from ROTT 2013. At least on my machine game did not slow down on ultra settings. Graphics are also more detailed and character models during cutscenes look believable. But even best graphics won't make up for a fact that game is unbalanced. Even half-upgraded railgun (which has infinite ammo) can kill any enemy in single shot. Combine that with auto-regenerating armor which prevents you from losing any health and you're just unstoppable. I managed to defeat second boss on first try by spamming railgun. Moreover, even if you die, you won't lose much: you can respawn immediately for a couple of in-game money. And believe me, after a couple of levels you will have thousands of dollars in your inventory. This makes game way too easy, and ultimately, boring. Sound issues from ROTT are back, voices are too low and once again audio sliders do nothing. Also, I installed version released after lawsuit from Iron Maiden. It changed name of first weapon from Ion Maiden to Ion Fury - or at least tried to, since old name popped up sometimes. I stopped playing on the beginning of last episode which takes place on Planet Eater - I just could not grab last crystal, which was in front of me. I could jump on it, go across it, but player character just refused to pick it up. Any bug which prevents player from progressing further is a deal-breaker to me and makes my rating drop to 1/5. I'm glad that I got both Bombshell and ROTT 2013 on sale. If I had paid full price, I would be angry. Get the prequel (Ion Fury), it was made by Voidpoint rather than Interceptor, and it shows. I wish I could finally write positive review on Interceptor-made game.
I consider myself fan of old FPS games. I've been playing Doom, Heretic and Quake for ages. But somehow, I never really got into ROTT. I played a couple of levels, thought that it was really imaginative (with cool MIDI music), and left it after that. Maybe I should give it another chance, since 2013 reboot is... disappointing. Maps are mostly linear. Forget about interconnected rooms like in Doom or Ion Fury. You only move forward along the path, no backtracking at all. At least some of the traps are original. Level design is also uneven - some maps, like E2M1 have some interesting architecture, but E1M5 mostly consists of rectangular, non-detailed room! ROTT 2013 looks ugly. All characters look like dolls - they seem lifeless, artificial. Bloom is overused. Game assets appear like they were randomly put together in Unity from free model packs. Original ROTT looked consistent, despite containing Nazi-looking guards, big coins and robots. To make things worse, ROTT has performance issues. I played on default video settings at 1920x1080 resolution, and I frequently experienced FPS drop (below 30). For comparison, I played Doom 2016 on the same machine on Ultra settings, also 1920x1080 and gameplay was smooth all the time. But the worst thing is that ROTT 2013 is just buggy. I couldn't get audio settings right - Lorelei's voice and music were often unaudible due to SFX. Graphical glitches are common. But the last nail to the game's coffin is E2M2. It consists of multiple rooms filled with traps, which you can visit in any order. To progress, player must beat all of them. When I died and reloaded last checkpoint, game thought that I have beaten another room - at least that's what I thought when I saw checkpoint name. However, in reality it didn't record any beaten room! It was that moment when I was done with this game and uninstalled it. Personally, I don't like bashing someone else's work - but with ROTT 2013 I have hard time to find anything positive.
3D Realms had no luck with its new games in XXI century - but with Ion Fury they finally hit the jackpot. People might consider it a novelty because of its antiquated engine, but it offers much more than that. It's retro FPS to the core, even including barely-there excuse story typical to 90s games. Forget about lengthy cutscenes and forced RPG elements. This is 100% action oriented game, where only thing that matters is your skill. Player character is a glass cannon: she can deal a lot of damage, but can be killed within seconds if she's not careful. Enemies range from typical shotgun-wielding troops to completely insane teleporting cyborgs with powerful attack. Bosses are no slouch either, it takes more than circlestrafing to get rid of them. Thankfully, you're not unarmed. Your arsenal contains both typical shotgun, SMG, etc.; but also very satisfying crossbow and trademark bowling bombs. Kudos to devs for making pistol which is useful even after obtaining more powerful weapons :) If you have even a basic knowledge about Build engine limitations, you will often stop and wonder "how is it even possible?". Headshots, giant flying airship, skyboxes... IF has possibly the most creative secrets I've ever seen in any game. Levels are insanely detailed and quite long to beat. Music avoids typical to the FPS genre heavy metal, instead we got quite catchy electronic music. And if you expect simple, undetailed sprites, then be prepared for a pleasant surprise. IF does not use "retro" term as a excuse for poorly drawn graphics. Any flaws? Well, sometimes Build engine shows its limitations. Full mouselook is not allowed and throwing bombs can be tricky, but honestly it's not a big problem. All in all, Ion Fury is great. In my opinion it's the best Build engine game, ex aequo with Blood. I don't remember when I had so much fun with recently released game. I hope that IF will get active modding community, so it will be remembered for a long time, just like its predecessors.
